Savita Apte: Indian Highway: Contextualising the Contemporary

Savita Apte

In India, tradition is generally understood as elastic, constantly evolving and reinvigorating. There is a certain Western tradition that is considered unchanging, outmoded and static. These distinctions present an unusual cultural paradigm. Consequently, Indian art forms are communicated with an awareness of an enduring consciousness of the past as relative to the present.

Although Indian art does not manifest a seamless history from the prehistoric urban civilisations of Mohenjo Daro to the present, there are definite continuities of style and form. In Indian Highway continuity is most discernable in the exterior continuous painting by M F Husain, with references to both tradition and Indian modernist imagery. The contemporary artists presented in Indian Highway, may be seen as the most recent manifestations of an unbroken tradition sustained for five thousand years; their practices are infused with a traditional iconography. For instance, N S Harsha references the social and political role of Indian miniatures with a contemporary inflection.

Art is one of the principle agencies through which Indian society has perceived and defined itself. Through consecutive incursions, the assimilation of techniques, materials, ideas and forms have been selective, meaningful, creative and often, highly original. Indian art through the centuries manifests a palimpsest of influences with unbroken formal and stylistic characteristics traced to the earliest phases of urban civilisation. For example, one of the oldest sculptural pieces in India is a bronze figurine of a dancing girl. She stands, right hand on hip, knee bent, hip thrown out in one direction and her head counterbalanced facing the other way.[1] Known as a tribhanga pose, this posture typifies the Indian female figure typified in the 12th century Chola bronzes. Apparent in successive centuries the tribhanga pose infiltrates both contemporary sculpture and painting as evidenced in the works of Husain.

As a member of the Progressive Artists Group, the first cogent group of artists in the post colonial Indian period, Husain and the Bombay Progressives projected themselves as the newest expression of tradition as well as instigators of revolutionary conventions simultaneously establishing the precedent for contemporary Indian art practice.[2] This awareness that tradition offered formal and stylistic direction enabled the Progressive Artists to evolve a modernism unique to India. The Progressives did not reject tradition in favour of a more exotic other, but accessed, assimilated and incorporated tradition to evolve a new visual culture. Exquisitely refined artistic traditions as well as popular cult imagery, vibrant folklore, myth and legend infiltrated and enervated Indian modernism.

In the service of religious architecture, art was produced for practical ritual use and functioned through the symbolic power of divine forces, which were contained and represented in sculptural and painted forms. Sculpture was more sensuous and vigorous, counterbalanced by painting which was more lyrical and tender. The distinction between two and three dimensionality is intentionally blurred in cave paintings, which like subsequent temple sculptures demonstrate the synaesthetic intention of Indian art and exhibit the syncretic use of a multi layered media. There is a notable absence of recession; instead all of the figures advance towards the eye so as to engulf the viewer. This visual equivalent of surround sound is the result of the controlled use of almost equal tones. Directional light is absent, and figures appear to bask in their own light. The full effect is complete only when all the senses work in harmony and the eye is subordinated to the totality.

Wall paintings and temple friezes were created for an audience un-conditioned to linear reading demanded by text. Instead, these forms were intended to be perceived by scanning. Piecemeal scans facilitate the shifting viewpoint and multiple perspectives of the continuous narrative. Multiple images compress the scheme into a simultaneous description of various actions and past, present and future are concurrently apprehended. Contemporary experiments in cognitive psychology have demonstrated that scanning vision imposes its own non-linear scheme on narrative technique.[3] The eye moves from centre to periphery, alternating regularly to yield a spiralling path through the image without coming to rest at the centre, in accordance with the Indian concept of time. Stylistic logic demanded that movement and gesture be described in terms of the space in which they occurred. The result is every thing is foregrounded; everything is simultaneous, existing in the eternal present. Time and existence, were not conceived of teleologically but as a system of interconnected cycles with the past coexistent to the present. This belief encourages the sympathetic referencing of tradition. Although creating images did not compete with the divinity, linear perspective did. The concept of linear perspective and a vanishing point was deemed unimportant since humanity was not the centre of the universe: that position was reserved for the Supreme Being. Whereas time was the principle of change, space was seen as the principle of conservation.

From the 3rd century CE texts were compiled on the origin of art to illustrate a divine source and interrelationship of the arts. Art forms were categorized dependent on whether they elicit visual or auditory sensations or a combination of both. According to myth, and eloquently phrased in the Visnudharmottarapurana in the story of King Vajra, the arts are both interrelated and knowledge of one presupposes knowledge of the others. The pious and devout ruler, hoping to make his own idol, asks the sage Markandeya to reveal the secrets of image making, principles closely guarded by priests and art guilds. Though the sage appreciates the king’s sentiments and his position, he enquires if the king knows the techniques of painting. The king confesses he does not, but asks to be taught painting as a pre-requisite to learning sculpture. The sage informs the king that to learn the basics of sculpture one must first learn to dance. To learn dance, one is required to have rudimentary knowledge of instrumental music, which in turn needs a foundation in vocal music. King Vajra comes to understand how painting is related to sculpture, sculpture to dance, dance to drama, drama to poetry and poetry to music.

Notwithstanding this interrelationship between the art forms, each conforms to its own specific canon of creation and appreciation which in turn are codified in specialised treatises, not compiled solely for priestly theoreticians as they also provided practical advice for artistic production. Significantly this did not curtail the artist, rather the strictures were liberating, encouraging time-honoured forms which reiterated, glorified and perpetuated the Cosmic Law maintaining all life.

The codified texts also counselled the viewer in aesthetic appreciation, introducing the notion of rasa (aesthetic pleasure or rapture) first described in the treatise on dramaturgy: the Natyasastra written by Bharata, who enumerated the elements, gunas (virtues), dosas (faults) and alamkaras (ornaments), aided in the development of rasa and anticipated modern theories of semiotics. These elements were the source of the fundamental features of Indian art: ornamentation, narrative and figure which singly or in combination continue to characterise Indian art.

Rasa, with origins in the theatre, was challenged, extended and elaborated over the centuries to embrace other arts.[4] Rasa theory expanded to facilitate a semantics of emotive communication by equating different colours and gestures to a range of human emotions and further treatises demonstrated that rasa was dependent on a amalgamation of bhavas or emotions and were elicited in complex combinations by a work of art. In spite of the demands of this multifaceted connoisseurship, Indian aesthetic theories were resolute that the prerequisite of an informed viewer did not presuppose art to be the purview of an elite minority. Art was integral to ordinary life and is deeply woven into the religious warp and secular weft of India.

Rather than being constrained by formulaic interpretations art forms were liberated by the introduction of the concept of dhvani, which privileged the notion of suggestibility and layered meanings. Dhvani emphasized subtle aspects of art beyond style to generate subjective interpretations. According to the combined theory of rasadhvani, aesthetic pleasure was independent of the imitation of an external reality manifested by art. Rather, art was successful if it leads the spectator to a state of mind freed from the perception of both reality and imitation.[5]

A truly aesthetic object stimulated the senses while exciting the imagination and transporting the viewer. Successful art possessed not just abhida (literal meaning) and laksana (metaphorical meaning) but also vyanjana (suggested meaning). Rasadhvani affirmed artistic communication was achieved through the act of artistic creation and the intentionality of the artist. The fundamental assumption was that communication was the basic function of a work of art; therefore rasadhvani allocated equal responsibility to the genius of the artist and the perceptive acumen of the spectator. Rasadhvani encompassed the depiction, inference and transmission of emotion through art. Although the artist was of prime importance in suggesting a particular emotion, the viewer was equally as important because of his perceptibility to suggestion. This acknowledgement of individuality, for the artist as well as the viewer makes Rasadhvani relevant to twenty first century critics and artists. In the twentieth century, this principle was echoed by Marcel Duchamp both with his exposition of the urinal and his recognition that the creative act was not performed by the artist alone; that engagement with a work of art presupposes a form of interpretation.[6] Both viewed the artistic creation as the agent of a dialogue between the artist and the informed spectator. Accordingly, a lack of communication between the artist and the viewer may result not only from poor artistic quality but also insensitive spectatorship. The responsibility for communication or lack thereof, lies equally with the artist and the viewer.

The traditional focus on line and narrative is contemporised by Harsha’s who often incorporates everyday rites and rituals with global events. This personal idiom is assembled from a combination of Mughal, Rajasthani and Pahari sources assimilated within a contemporary context and incorporated with Ajanta and Mattancheri mural techniques. In Indian Highway, Harsha’s wall painting recalls these traditional cave paintings married successfully with the contemporary format of the miniature investing it as he does all his paintings regardless of size with a sense of monumentality.

Hybridity and the eclectic appropriation of tradition produced rich art forms reflecting the pattern and rhythm of Indian life and highlighted the relationship and interdependency between purush (man) and prakriti (nature). Art continued to be a celebration of the multiplicity of life and form; its principle focus remained the cosmos in all its profusion. In a society largely dependent on oral transmission, art provided a visual means to reinforce the philosophies of everyday life in the service of religion. Sculpture especially confirmed the multidimensional hierarchy of interdependence in Indian society. Each body and hand movement was imbued with meaning to create a language of motion to impart the sacred myths while promising the transcendence of mundane human existence to an ultimate divinity.

The interpretation of works of art that originate in cultures unfamiliar to one’s own is a difficult but not insurmountable process. Cultural specificities can be explained and world views can be translated. However, as the theories of deconstruction have illustrated insight into different cultures is not a natural process and aspects are lost in translation; nowhere is this better exemplified than in the visual arts with their inherent difference of signifiers.

The pervasive use of symbols and signifiers in Indian art is vital to decoding a world of impermanence and illusion: ideas from Indian religions such as the concept of maya, which deemed reality to be a function of the mind limited to the purely physical in which everyday consciousness becomes entangled. This concept of reality and illusion continues to the present day, not as a doctrine but as an attitude towards life. It is articulated and nuanced in the video works of many Indian artists whose works highlight contemporary manifestations of the concept of maya. Video art is an accentuation of two dimensionality and illusion. As such it demands an immersion from the viewer and an absorption into its continuous narrative structure in much the same way as sculptural friezes dating from the third century BCE made in the service of Buddhism. Ancient artists like their contemporary counterparts, did not depict reality but the friezes are replete with naturalistic details which demonstrate keen observation and exhibit many of the qualities that were to become distinctive features of Indian art. Stupa and temple friezes evidence an abundance of human, animal and plant motifs and the characteristic continuous narrative structure. The video works in Indian Highway are merely contemporary expressions of a continuous narrative.

Rich treatises on art, artistic traditions and techniques were preserved for generations by means of oral transmission. Each artistic guild communicated and conserved both the paradigms of art and their own specific stylistic secrets through the guru shishya organisations which encouraged apprenticeships and promoted workshop structures. Accordingly, the language and terminology of rasadhvani pervaded the vernacular languages of India ensuring its endurance and continued relevance.

The intimate relationship between painting and sculpture nurtured over centuries devolved with the Islamic catalyst. A divergence which resulted from an altered world view and manifest itself in an efflorescence of painting which combined the best of the Persian qalam ( literally, pen) with indigenous practice, under the courtly patronage of the Mughals. At its height, Mughal art exhibited an urbane wit and elegance and a documentary recording of courtly pursuits. Mughal miniatures embraced linear flattening, multiple perspectives and reduction, heralding a phase of a high artistic refinement.

Colonial art education signalled a change in patronage and shifting tastes and presented artists with a significantly altered world view; consequently the imitation of reality became paramount. Like previous cultural upheavals, India’s encounter with colonialism was far more complex than a simple polarisation of attitudes.[7] The subject matter, theme and medium of art changed and with them, the status of the artist. Art was used to record new experiences but it also served to reinforce older paradigms. During this period, the strength of the visual image in forming a pan-Indian identity was fully exploited and art began to play a critical role in the political struggle for independence. Throughout, village and tribal art forms continued to engage with tradition and to invigorate Indian artists. These art forms maintained a more direct approach and immediate appeal.

In the age of internet access and concomitant ease of travel, international influences have been absorbed, incorporated and assimilated with unprecedented immediacy. Indian artists reflect local concerns using global languages and vice versa, weaving contemporary narratives into traditional formats. The continuing relevance of figure, narrative and ornament, the fundamentals of Indian art, are today refracted through institutional education, shifting patronage and identity politics.

Indian highway is a testament to the indispensability of tradition and the unique sanctuary and re-invigoration that tradition allows. This living tradition permits the past to co-exist with the present and is constantly being reshaped by contemporary artists. Each innovation re-inflects the language inherited from the past. Tradition is used as a catalyst and not considered a monolithic force. Contemporary Indian artists recognise tradition for what it is – not a seamless, unchanging, unified entity, but rather, a continuously evolving, consciously invented and regularly improvised phenomenon. They recognise that the notion of tradition is rooted in social life rather than time alone and that traditions are created through the selection of certain historical events and invented pasts.
 

Notes

1. From the prehistoric Indus Valley civilisation of Mohenjo Daro 2300-1750 BCE.
2. Known either as the Progressive Artists’ Group or the Bombay Progressives, the group was instigated by F N Souza and comprised of M F Husain, S H Raza, H A Gade, K H Ara and S Bakre. For an exhaustive account of their antecedents and their role in Indian modernism see S Apte, Unchallenged Dichotomies: Modernism and the Progressive Artists Group, unpublished Ph.D thesis.
3. See The Psychology of Graphic Images by Manfredo Massironi
4. Most notably by Abhinavagupta c 975-1025.
5. See Jhanji, R Aesthetic Communication, Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi,1985 for a more detailed account of the various theories of aesthetics as well as a chronological analysis of the commentaries that led up to the rasadhvani theory.
6. Marcel Duchamp, from Session on the Creative Act, Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Houston, Texas, April 1957
7. See Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha who have rewritten the colonial encounter and re examined post coloniality.