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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Book Excerpts: The Spirit Of Indian Painting
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Book Excerpts: The Spirit Of Indian Painting

Art scholar BN Goswamy's new work is about Indian art from 1100-1900. Two extracts on passion

Photographs by Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M Sackler MuseumPremium
Photographs by Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M Sackler Museum

Love and longing in the 1700s

‘The Longings Of Love’

Folio, possibly from a ‘Nayika’ series

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper

Rajasthan, from a Bundi workshop; c. 1770

24.3 cm x 15.8 cm

Clearly, the young lady is a virahini: in love but separated from her lover; ‘burning in the fire of separation’, as so many descriptions of this particular state express it in Sanskrit and Hindi rhetorical poetry. Nayaks and nayikas—‘heroes’ and ‘heroines’—their love in separation and their love in union: these are favourite themes in such works. And when painters turn to these works for inspiration, some of the most moving renderings are those that depict love in separation.

To take an example: when one sees a maiden rushing indoors as dark clouds gather in the sky and a strong wind begins to blow, one knows that she is unable to bear the sight, for everything reminds her of him who is not by her side. ‘Dhurvaa hohi naa ali uthai dhuvaan dharani chahun kod / jaarat aavat jagat ko paavas pratham payod’, the 17th-century poet Bihari says in one of his dohas in his Satsai. ‘This is not the misty cloud of the rainy season,’ the nayika says to herself, or as though to a confidante; ‘this is the cloud of smoke that is rising from the fire of separation and, having consumed the rest of the world, it is advancing towards me now.’ Delicately, a state of mind is brought to life both by the poet and the painter; an intense world of suggestion is opened up.

The Longing Of Love, 1770.
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The Longing Of Love, 1770.

One does not know if this painting is based on a specific verse, but a closely related work has a distich in Hindi written on verso: ‘Yaad aavai jab piyu ki, viraha uthai man jag / jyun chooney ki kaankari, jab chhirako tab aag’. In translation: ‘The moment I think of my lover, this desperate feeling of separation returns; it is as if my heart were a clod of burnt lime: each time even a drop of water falls on it, it begins to sizzle, for there is nothing but heat locked inside.’

It is a hot night and the nayika here has chosen to cool herself by lying in the open, on a couch placed on a marble terrace. She has removed all clothing from the upper part of her body, save for a diaphanous veil which covers virtually nothing of her nakedness. In this state she lies, gazing at the full moon in the sky, lost in thoughts of her lover, yearning for him to be by her side. The cooling moonbeams offer no solace; nor does the sight of a pair of birds flying together far above her. A maid stands at the head of her couch, hands folded, body slightly bent forward as if waiting for a command. But the nayika keeps staring vacantly, her thoughts elsewhere.

There is great refinement in the rendering, so typical of the work that emanated from workshops active at Bundi in the 18th century. Piece by piece, the painter wants us to take in each detail. The bareness of the marble terrace; the sinuous disposition of the nayika’s body, not a straight line in sight; the manner in which she fingers a pearl on her necklace, as if keeping count of something; her eyes taking in the pair of birds, one eagerly pursuing the other; the full moon now tarnished; the suggestive forms of the perfumed water containers by the side of the couch. Note, too, with what fineness the painter has rendered the nayika’s hair, the golden gathered ends of her transparent veil, the pulsating rhythms of her lower garment that somehow catch the agitation of her mind.

It is difficult to determine whether this folio comes from a series: most likely it does. One can be certain, however, that it is a moment, or state of mind, that the painter is rendering here and not the portrait of a specific person. A nayika is a nayika, standing for countless others of her kind. Almost certainly, some verse must have risen instantly to the mind of the discerning aesthete while holding this painting in his hand.

*****

‘Distraught Krishna’

Folio from a ‘Rasikapriya’ series

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper

Pahari, from the workshop of Purkhu of Kangra; c. 1780

30 cm x 22 cm (outer)

28.5 cm x 18.5 cm (inner)

In 16 sections—prabhavas is what they are called—and close to 400 verses, the poet Keshavadas of Orchha created what is regarded as a classic in its genre: the Rasikapriya. The title is difficult to translate in one word, as is all of the Braj Bhasha text, for it is replete with words and expressions, similes and metaphors, which can only be savoured in their rich cultural context. One thing is certain though: the work, completed by Keshavadas towards the very end of the 16th century for his patron, Rao Indrajit, has stayed as a benchmark in what is called ritikala poetry—poetry of the age of tradition. It is all about love: that of the nayak for the nayika, and hers for him.

The Spirit Of Indian Painting: By B.N. Goswamy, Penguin Books India, 560 pages, 1,499.
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The Spirit Of Indian Painting: By B.N. Goswamy, Penguin Books India, 560 pages, 1,499.

The fame and popularity of Keshavadas’s Rasikapriya came to be reflected in the fact that entire series of paintings were based on it, at court after court, soon after the work was completed. In what is called the ‘popular Mughal style’, an illustrated text was produced as early as the second quarter of the 17th century. Illustrated texts were also made at other centres—Malwa, Mewar, Bikaner, Bundi, Kota, among them. From the Pahari area, apart from isolated folios availing of the text, at least two extensive sets are known to have survived, the paintings all within oval frames with the spandrels in the corners decorated with elegant arabesque patterns. Above the speckled top margin a caption appears, often accompanied by a number, indicating the verse it illustrates. In this work, the caption says ‘Shri Krishna ki prachhanna cheshta’, meaning the ‘secret fluster of Krishna’. The verse it seeks to illustrate is number 22 in the fifth prabhava of the Rasikapriya.

Distraught Krishna, 1780.
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Distraught Krishna, 1780.

It is all elegantly laid out by the painter. The frozen action of Krishna’s hands as he tries to tie his turban; the gesture of wonder that the sakhi makes; the feigned disinterest in the eyes of the beauty across from Krishna’s richly decorated home; the peacock that makes a sudden appearance in the tree; and the blossoming shrub: everything is brought in with clear intent. The colouring is discreet, and of course the slightly lost look on Krishna’s face adds to the enchantment. The lilt of Keshavadas’s verse—‘chhori chhori baandhi paag, aaras saun aarsi lai’ (What ails you today that you keep tying and retying your turban)—is all, or nearly all, there.

Purkhu of Kangra is associated with very colourful procession scenes, and with a series of somewhat dry portraits, but this work appears to pre-date him slightly and is possibly in the hand of a senior member of the same family. The other, closely related series of Rasikapriya paintings, again from the Kangra region, but with broader, somewhat flattened oval frames, is also finely handled. There is little doubt that the Nainsukh family’s style had begun to penetrate the work of members of other painters’ families at this time.

Excerpted from The Spirit Of India Painting: Close Encounters With 101 Great Works, 1100-1900 by B.N. Goswamy, with permission from Penguin Books India.

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Published: 22 Nov 2014, 12:16 AM IST
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