{"id":36,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=36"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","slug":"59-indian-art-and-an-old-classic-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/59-indian-art-and-an-old-classic-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-59_Indian Art and An Old Classic.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nIndian Art and an Old Classic<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nW<\/font>E HAVE <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>before us a new edition of
\nKrittibas’ Ramayana, edited and published by that indefatigable
\nliterary and patriotic worker, Sj. Ramananda Chatterji. Ramananda Babu is well known to the Bengali public as a clear
\nminded, sober and fearless political speaker and writer; as editor
\nof the Modern Review<\/i> and the Prabasi<\/i> he has raised the status
\nand quality of Indian periodical literature to an extraordinary extent, and has
\nrecently been doing a yet more valuable and lasting service to his country by introducing the masterpieces of the
\nnew school of Art to his readers. His present venture is not in
\nitself an ambitious one, as it purports only to provide a well-printed and beautifully illustrated edition of Krittibas for family
\nreading. With this object the editor has taken the Battala prints
\nof the Ramayana as his text and reproduced them with the necessary corrections and the omission of a few passages which offend
\nmodern ideas of decorum. Besides, the book is liberally illustrated with reproductions of recent pictures by artists of Bombay
\nand Calcutta on subjects chosen from the Ramayana.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe place of Krittibas in our literature is well established.
\nHe is one of the most considerable of our old classics and one of
\nthe writers who most helped to create the Bengali language as a
\nliterary instrument. The sweetness, simplicity, lucidity, melody
\nof the old language is present in every line that Krittibas wrote,
\nbut, in this recension at least, we miss the racy vigour and nervous vernacular force which was a gift of the early writers. Our
\nimpression is that the modern editions do not faithfully reproduce
\nthe old classic and that copyists of more learning and puristic
\ntaste than critical imagination or poetical sympathy have polished away much that was best in the Bengali Ramayana. The
\nold copies, we believe, reveal a style much more irregular in diction and metre, but more full of humanity, strength and the
\nrough and natural touch of the soil. In no case can our Rama-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 426<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nyana compare with the great epic of Tulsidas, that mine of poetry,
\nstrong and beautiful thought and description and deep spiritual
\nforce and sweetness. But it must have been greater in its original
\nform than in its modern dress.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe great value of the edition lies however in the illustrations. All the pictures are not excellent; indeed we must say
\nquite frankly that some of them are an offence to the artistic perceptions and an affliction to the eye and the soul. Others are masterpieces of the first rank. But in this collection of pictures, most
\nof them now well-known, we have a sort of handy record of the
\nprogress of Art in India in recent times. Turning over the pages
\nwe are struck first by the numerous reproductions of Ravivarma’s
\npictures which were only recently so prominent in Indian houses
\nand, even now, are painfully common, and we recall with wonder
\nthe time when we could gaze upon these crude failures without
\nan immediate revolt of all that was artistic within us. Could
\nanything be more gross, earthy, un-Indian and addressed purely to the eye than
\nhis "Descent of Ganges", or more vulgar and unbeautiful than the figure of Aja in the "Death of Indumati", or
\nmore soulless and commonplace than the Ahalya, a picture on
\na level with the ruck of the most ordinary European paintings for
\nthe market by obscure hands ? Some of these efforts are absolutely
\nlaughable in the crudeness of their conception and the inefficiency of their execution; take for instance the fight between
\nRavan and Jatayu. Raja Rukmangad’s Ekadashi is one of the
\nfew successes, but spirited as the work undoubtedly is, it is so
\nwholly an imitation of European workmanship that it establishes
\nno claim to real artistic faculty. All that can be said for this
\npainter is that he turned the Indian mind to our own mythology
\nand history for the subject of art, and, that he manifests a certain struggling towards outward beauty and charm which is
\noccasionally successful in his women and children. But he had
\nneither the power to develop original conceptions, nor the skill
\nto reproduce finely that which he tried to learn from Europe.
\nHe represents in Art that dark period when, in subjection to
\nforeign teaching and ideals, we did everything badly because we
\ndid everything slavishly. It is fortunate that the representative of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 427<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthis period was a man without genius; otherwise he might have
\ndone infinitely more permanent harm to our taste than he has
\ndone.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe art of Sj. M. V. Durandhar shows a great advance.
\nThe basis is European but we see something Indian and characteristic struggling to express itself in this foreign mould. Unlike
\nRavivarma Sj. Durandhar has always a worthy and often poetic
\nconception, even when he fails to express it in line and colour.
\nIn the stillness and thoughtfulness of the figures in the second
\nillustration of the book there is a hint of the divine presence
\nwhich is suggested, and Indian richness, massiveness and dignity
\nsupport this great suggestion. There is augustness and beauty
\nin the picture of Rama and Sita about to enter Guhyaka’s boat.
\nOthers of his pictures are less successful. Another intermediate
\nworker in the field who is very largely represented, is Sj. Upendra
\nKishore Ray. This artist has an essentially imitative genius
\nwhose proper field lies in reproduction. There are attempts here
\nto succeed in the European style and others which seek to capture
\nthe secret of the new school, especially where it is original, strange
\nand remote in its greatness; but these are secrets of original
\ngenius which do not yield themselves to imitation and the
\nattempt, though it reproduces some of the mannerisms of the
\nschool, often ends merely in grotesqueness of line and conception.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe have not left ourselves the space to do justice to the really
\ngreat art represented in the book, the wonderful suggestions of
\nlandscape in Sj. Abanindranath Tagore’s "Slaying of the Enchanted Deer", the decorative beauty of the "Last Days of Dasarath", and the epic grandeur and grace and strange romantic
\nmystery of "Mahadev receiving the Descent of the Ganges". We would only suggest to the readers whose artistic perceptions
\nare awakened but in need of training, to use the comparative
\nmethod for which Sj. Ramananda Chatterji has supplied plentiful
\nmaterials in this book; for instance, the three illustrations of the
\nKaikayi and Manthara incident which are given one after the
\nother, \u2014 Sj. Nandalal Bose’s original and suggestive though not
\nentirely successful picture, Sj. Durandhar’s vigorous and character-revealing but too imitatively European work, and Sj. U.
\nRay’s attempt to master the new style with its striking evidence<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 428<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof a great reproductive faculty but small success where originality is the aim. Finally, let him look at the few examples of old
\nart in the book, then at the work of the new school, especially
\nthe two pictures against page 22, and last at Raja Ravivarma’s
\nfailures. He will realise the strange hiatus in the history of Indian
\nArt brought about by the enslavement of our minds to the West
\nand recognise that the artists of the new school are merely recovering our ancestral heritage with a new development of spiritual
\ndepth, power and originality, which is prophetic of the future.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 429<\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Art and an Old Classic   WE HAVE before us a new edition of Krittibas’ Ramayana, 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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","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=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}