{"id":2407,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2407"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:25","slug":"46-on-art-indian-art-and-an-old-classic-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/46-on-art-indian-art-and-an-old-classic-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-46_On Art – Indian Art and an Old Classic.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tIndian Art and an Old Classic
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tW<\/font>E HAVE
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/b>before
\n\t\t\tus a new edition of Krittibas’s Ramayan, edited and published by
\n\t\t\tthat indefatigable literary and patriotic worker, Sj. Ramānanda 
\nChatterji. Ramānanda  Babu is well known to the Bengali public as a clear-minded, sober and fearless political speaker and
\nwriter; as editor of the Modern Review
\n<\/i>and the Prabasi <\/i>he has
\n \t\t\traised the status and quality of Indian periodical literature to an
\nextraordinary extent, and has recently been doing a yet more
\n \t\t\tvaluable and lasting service to his country by introducing the
\nmasterpieces of the new school of Art to his readers. His present
\n \t\t\tventure is not in itself an ambitious one, as it purports only to provide a well-printed and beautifully illustrated edition of
\n \t\t\tKrittibas for family reading. With this object the editor has taken
\nthe Battala prints of the Ramayan as his text and reproduced
\n \t\t\tthem with the necessary corrections and the omission of a few passages which offend modern ideas of decorum. Besides, the
\n \t\t\tbook is liberally illustrated with reproductions of recent pictures by artists of Bombay and Calcutta on subjects chosen from the
\n \t\t\tRamayan.
\n\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe place of Krittibas in our literature is well established.
\n \t\t\tHe is one of the most considerable of our old classics and one of
\nthe writers who most helped to create the Bengali language as
\n \t\t\ta literary instrument. The sweetness, simplicity, lucidity, melody of the old language is present in every line that Krittibas wrote,
\n \t\t\tbut, in this recension at least, we miss the racy vigour and nervous vernacular force which was a gift of the early writers.
\n \t\t\tOur impression is that the modern editions do not faithfully
\nreproduce the old classic and that copyists of more learning
\n \t\t\tand puristic taste than critical imagination or poetical sympathy
\nhave polished away much that was best in the Bengali Ramayan.
\n \t\t\tThe old
\n\t\t\tcopies, we believe, reveal a style much more irregular<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 460<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tin diction and metre, but more full of humanity, strength and
\nthe rough and natural touch of the soil. In no case can our
\n \t\t\tRamayan compare with the great epic of Tulsidas, that mine of
\npoetry, strong and beautiful thought and description and deep
\n \t\t\tspiritual force and sweetness. But it must have been greater in
\nits original form than in its modern dress.
\n \t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe great value of the edition lies however in the illustrations. All the pictures are not excellent; indeed we must say
\n \t\t\tquite frankly that some of them are an offence to the artistic
\nperceptions and an affliction to the eye and the soul. Others are
\n \t\t\tmasterpieces of the first rank. But in this collection of pictures,
\nmost of them now well-known, we have a sort of handy record
\n \t\t\tof the progress of Art in India in recent times. Turning over
\nthe pages we are struck first by the numerous reproductions of
\n \t\t\tRavivarma’s pictures which were only recently so prominent in
\nIndian houses and, even now, are painfully common, and we
\n \t\t\trecall with
\n\t\t\twonder the time when we could gaze upon these crude failures without
\n\t\t\tan immediate revolt of all that was artistic within us. Could anything be more gross, earthy, un-Indian
\nand addressed purely to the eye than his “Descent of Ganges”,
\n \t\t\tor more vulgar and unbeautiful than the figure of Aja in the
\n“Death of Indumati”, or more soulless and commonplace than
\n \t\t\tthe “Ahalya”, a picture on a level with the ruck of the most
\nordinary European paintings for the market by obscure hands? Some of these efforts are absolutely laughable in the crudeness of
\ntheir conception and the inefficiency of their execution; take for
\n \t\t\tinstance the fight between Ravan and Jatayu. Raja Rukmangad’s
\n“Ekadashi” is one of the few successes, but spirited as the work
\n \t\t\tundoubtedly is, it is so wholly an imitation of European workmanship that it establishes no claim to real artistic faculty. All
\n \t\t\tthat can be said for this painter is that he turned the Indian mind to our own mythology and history for the subject of art, and
\n \t\t\tthat he manifests a certain struggling towards outward beauty
\nand charm which is occasionally successful in his women and
\n \t\t\tchildren. But he had neither the power to develop original conceptions, nor the skill to reproduce finely that which he tried to
\n \t\t\tlearn from Europe. He represents in Art that dark period when,  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 461<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tin subjection to foreign teaching and ideals, we did everything
\nbadly because we did everything slavishly. It is fortunate that
\n \t\t\tthe representative of this period was a man without genius:
\notherwise he might have done infinitely more permanent harm
\n \t\t\tto our taste than he has done.
\n\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe art of Sj. M. V. Durandhar shows a great advance. The
\n \t\t\tbasis is European but we see something Indian and characteristic struggling to express itself in this foreign mould. Unlike
\n \t\t\tRavivarma Sj. Durandhar has always a worthy and often poetic conception, even when he fails to express it in line and colour. In
\n \t\t\tthe stillness and thoughtfulness of the figures in the second illustration of the book there is a hint of the divine presence which is
\n \t\t\tsuggested, and
\n\t\t\tIndian richness, massiveness and dignity support this great
\n\t\t\tsuggestion. There is augustness and beauty in the picture of Rama and Sita about to enter Guhyaka’s boat. Others of his pictures are less successful. Another intermediate worker in
\n \t\t\tthe field who is very largely represented, is Sj. Upendra Kishore Ray. This artist has an essentially imitative genius whose proper
\n \t\t\tfield lies in reproduction. There are attempts here to succeed in
\nthe European style and others which seek to capture the secret
\n \t\t\tof the new school, especially where it is original, strange and
\nremote in its greatness; but these are secrets of original genius
\n \t\t\twhich do not yield themselves to imitation and the attempt,
\nthough it reproduces some of the mannerisms of the school,
\n \t\t\toften ends merely in grotesqueness of line and conception. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWe have not left ourselves the space to do justice to the
\n \t\t\treally great art represented in the book, the wonderful suggestions of the landscape in Sj. Abanindranath Tagore’s “Slaying of
\n \t\t\tthe Enchanted Deer”, the decorative beauty of the “Last Days of Dasarath”, and the epic grandeur and grace and strange
\n \t\t\tromantic mystery of “Mahadev receiving the Descent of the Ganges”. We would only suggest to the readers whose artistic
\n \t\t\tperceptions are awakened but in need of training, to use the
\ncomparative method for which Sj. Ramānanda  Chatterji has supplied plentiful materials in this book; for instance, the three
\nillustrations of the Kaikayi and Manthara incident which are
\n \t\t\tgiven one after the other, -Sj. Nandalal Bose’s original and<\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 462<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tsuggestive though not entirely successful picture, Sj. Durandhar’s vigorous and character-revealing but too imitatively European
\nwork, and Sj. U. Ray’s attempt to master the new style with \t\t\tits striking evidence of a great reproductive faculty but small success where originality is the aim. Finally, let him look at the \t\t\tfew examples of old art in the book, then at the work of the new
\nschool, especially the two pictures against page 22, and last at \t\t\tRaja Ravivarma’s failures. He will realise the strange hiatus in the history of Indian Art brought about by the enslavement of our minds to the West and recognise that the artists of the new school are merely recovering our ancestral heritage with a new development of spiritual depth, power and originality, which is
\nprophetic of the future.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 463<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Art and an Old Classic   WE HAVE before us a new edition of Krittibas’s Ramayan, edited and published by that indefatigable literary and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-early-cultural-writings","wpcat-49-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}