{"id":71,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=71"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:41","slug":"58-two-pictures-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\/58-two-pictures-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-58_Two Pictures.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nTwo Pictures<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> Modern Review<\/i> and Prabasi<\/i> are doing
\nmonthly a service to the country the importance of which cannot
\nbe exaggerated. The former review is at present the best conducted and the most full of valuable matter of any in India. But
\ngood as are the articles which fill the magazine from month to
\nmonth, the whole sum of them is outweighed in value by the
\nsingle page which gives us the reproduction of some work of art
\nby a contemporary Indian painter. To the lover of beauty and
\nthe lover of his country every one of these delicately executed
\nblocks is an event of importance in his life within. The Reviews
\n<\/i>by bringing these masterpieces to the thousands who have no
\nopportunity of seeing the originals are restoring the sense of
\nbeauty and artistic emotion inborn in our race but almost blotted
\nout by the long reign in our lives of the influence of Anglo-Saxon vulgarity and crude tasteless commercialism. The pictures
\nbelong usually to the new school of Bengali art, the only living
\nand original school now developing among us and the last issues
\nhave each contained a picture especially important not only by
\nthe intrinsic excellence of the work but by the perfect emergence
\nof that soul of India which we attempted to characterise in an
\narticle in our second issue.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe picture in the July number is by Mahomed Hakim
\nKhan, a student of the Government School of Art, Calcutta, and
\nrepresents Nadir Shah ordering a general massacre. It is not
\none of those pictures salient and imposing which leap at once at
\nthe eye and hold it. A first glance only shows three figures almost
\nconventionally Indian in poses which also seem conventional.
\nBut as one looks again and again the soul of the picture begins
\nsuddenly to emerge, and one realises with a start of surprise that
\none is in the presence of a work of genius. The reason for this
\nlies in the extraordinary restraint and simplicity which conceals
\nthe artist’s strength and subtility. The whole spirit and conception is Indian and it would be difficult to detect in the composi-<\/font><\/p>\n

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\ntion a single trace of foreign influence. The grace and perfection
\nof the design and the distinctness and vigour of form which
\nsupport it are not European; it is the Saracenic sweetness and
\ngrace, the old Vedantic massiveness and power transformed by
\nsome new nameless element of harmony into something original
\nand yet Indian. The careful and minute detail in the minutiae of
\nthe dresses, of the armour of the warrior seated on the right, of
\nthe flickering lines of the pillar on the left are inherited from an
\nintellectual ancestry whose daily vision was accustomed to the
\nrich decoration of Agra and Fatehpur Sikri or to the fullness
\nand crowded detail which informed the massive work of the
\nold Vedantic artists and builders, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist.
\nAnother peculiarity is the fixity and stillness which, in spite of
\nthe Titanic life and promise of motion in the figure of Nadir,
\npervade the picture. A certain stiffness of design marks much of the old Hindu
\nart, a stiffness courted by the artists perhaps in order that no insistence of material life in the figures
\nmight distract attention from the expression of the spirit within
\nwhich was their main object. By some inspiration of genius the
\nartist has transformed this conventional stiffness into a hint of
\nrigidity which almost suggests the lines of stone. This stillness
\nadds immensely to the effect of the picture. The petrified inaction
\nof the three human beings contrasted with the expression of the
\nfaces and the formidable suggestion in the pose of their sworded
\nfigures affects us like the silence of murder crouching for his leap.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe central figure of Nadir Shah dominates
\nhis surroundings. It is from this centre that the suggestion of something
\nterrible coming out of the silent group has started. The strong,
\nproud and regal figure is extraordinarily impressive, but it is the
\nface and the arm that give the individuality. That bare arm and
\nhand grasping the rigid upright scimitar are inhuman in their
\nsavage force and brutality; it is the hand, the fingers, one might
\nalmost say the talons of the human wild beast. This arm and
\nhand have action, murder, empire in them; the whole history of
\nNadir is there expressed. The grip and gesture have already
\ncommenced the coming massacre and the whole body behind
\nconsents. The face corresponds in the hard firmness and strength
\nof the nose, the brute cruelty of the mouth almost lost in the<\/font><\/p>\n

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\nmoustache and beard. But the eyes are the master-touch in this
\nfigure. They overcome us with surprise when we look at them,
\nfor these are not the eyes of the assassin, even the assassin upon
\nthe throne. The soul that looks out of these eyes is calm, aloof
\nand thoughtful, yet terrible. Whatever order of massacre has
\nissued from these lips, did not go forth from an ordinary energetic
\nman of action moved by self-interest, rage or blood-thirst. The
\neyes are the eyes of a Yogin but a terrible Yogin; such might
\nbe the look of some adept of the left-hand ways, some mighty
\nKapalik lifted above pity and shrinking as above violence and
\nwrath. Those eyes in that face, over that body, arm, hand seem
\nto be those of one whose spirit is not affected by the actions of the body,
\nwhose natural part and organs are full of the destroying energy of Kali while the soul, the witness within, looks on at
\nthe sanguinary drama tranquil, darkly approving but hardly interested. And then it dawns on one that this is not so much the
\nNadir of history; unconsciously perhaps the artist has given a
\nquiet but effective delineation of the Scourge of God, the man
\nwho is rather a force than a human being, the Asura with a mission who has come to do God’s work of destruction and help
\non the evolution by carnage and ruin. The soul within is not that
\nof a human being. Some powerful Yogin of a Lemurian race
\nhas incarnated in this body, one born when the simian might
\nand strength of the vānara<\/i> had evolved into the perfection of the
\nhuman form and brain with the animal still uneliminated, who
\nhaving by Tapasya and knowledge separated his soul from his
\nnature has elected this reward that after long beatitude, prāpya punyakrtām
\nlokān usitvā śāśvatīh samāh<\/i>, he should reincarnate
\nas a force of nature informed by a human soul and work out in
\na single life the savage strength of the outward self, taking upon
\nhimself the foreordained burden of empire and massacre.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFrom Nadir the coming carnage has passed into the seated
\nwarrior and looks out from his eyes at the receiver of the order.
\nThe gaze is contemplative but not inward like Nadir’s, and it is
\nhuman and indifferent envisaging massacre as part of the activities of the soldier with a matter-of-fact approval. The figure is
\nalmost a piece of sculpture, <\/b> so perfect is the rigidity of arrested
\nand expectant action. The straight strong sword over the<\/font><\/p>\n

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\nshoulder has the same rigid preparedness.
\nThere is a certain defect in the unnatural pose and obese curve of the hand which is
\nnot justified by any similar detail or motive in the rest of the
\nfigure. We notice a similar motiveless strain in the position of
\nNadir’s left arm, though here something is perhaps added to the
\nforce of the attitude. A standing figure receives the sanguinary
\ncommand. The folded hands and the scimitar suspended in front
\nare full of the spirit of ready obedience and there is an expression
\nof pleasure, almost amusement which makes even this commonplace face terrible, for the decree dooming thousands is taken
\nas lightly as if it were order for nautch or banquet. The three
\nmighty swords, by a masterly effect of balanced design, fill with
\ndeath and menace the terrace on which the men are seated.
\nBehind these formidable figures is a part of the palace gracious
\nwith the simple and magical lines of Indo-Saracenic architecture
\nand in the distance on the right from behind a mass of heavy impenetrable green a slender tapering tower rises into the peaceful
\nquiet of Delhi.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn another page of the same review we have a picture by
\none of the greatest Masters of European Art, Raphael’s vision
\nof the Knight. The picture is full of that which Greece and Italy
\nperfected as the aim of Art, beauty and such soul-expression as
\nheightens physical beauty. It is beauty that is expressed in the
\nrobust body and the feminine face of the armed youth both full
\nof an exquisite languor of sleep, in the sweet face, the voluptuous figure, the
\ngracious pose of the temptress offering her delicate allurement of flowers, in
\nthe other’s grave, strong and benign countenance, the vigorous physique and open gesture of
\npromise and aspiration extending a book and a fine slender
\nsword, in the delicacy of the landscape behind and the tree under
\nwhich the dreamer lies. There is suggestion but it is the suggestion of more and more beauty, there is harmony and relation but
\nit is the harmony and relation of loveliness of landscape as a
\nbackground to the loveliness of the nobly-grouped figures. There
\nis an attempt to express spiritual meanings but it is by outward
\nsymbols only and not by making the outward expression a vehicle
\nfor something that comes from within and overpowers impalpably. This is allegory, the other is the drawing and painting of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\nthe very self of things. Only in the delicate spiritual face of the
\nKnight is there some approach to the Eastern spirit. This is one
\nkind of art and a great art, but is the other less? Beauty for
\nbeauty’s sake can never be the spirit of art in India, beauty we
\nmust seek and always beauty, but never lose sight of the end
\nwhich India holds more important, the realisation of the Self
\nin things. Europeans create out of the imagination. India has
\nalways sought to go deeper within and create out of the Power
\nbehind imagination, by passivity and plenary inspiration, in
\nYoga, from Samadhi.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 425<\/font><\/p>\n

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

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