y beginnings in the pastoral idealism of the bengal school and ism of raja ravi verrna, down through the hybrid mannerisms resuli sition of concepts evolved by successive movements in mod

European art on classical, miniature and folk styles to the flight into 'abstract: in the name of cosmopolitanism, tortured by memories of a glorious past born of a sense of futility An the face of a dynamic present and the urge to catch up s

'bited by the self-defeating purposiveness of its attempts at establishing

tween representation and abstraction, between communication and expres:

for, but the unfolding of personality. u. A work of art is neither representational nor abstract, figurative or non-figurative.

. , it is unique and sufficient unto itself, palpable in its reality and generating its own life.

4. The image proper in art describes itself inevitably through the creative act. It is neither the Uanslation of an experience, feeling, idea o r act nor the objective organisation of form in space.

.. .. ,

5. The image proper defines its own space, deleneation, colour and composition. Any objective criteria of perspective, of harmony and dimension is unreal to it.

relation to the work of art, which creates its own field of experience - rience of copulation is not the same a s that of the offspring.

llusion that life can be ordained and made to flow from the image of

conform to anticipstion by m. the form proper is gelleti~ally at icipated and not conceptuallY

; ,..' .~Pbx? for People is not about the artists in this exhibition but it is written expressly for them,

e imaginative concentration in their work.

vtem about the human figure

I t % Indiin' dit. situation can now sustain a number of options which cut across t

I i . &#&tlonal.polarities of Indian and Western. Rather than tying ourselves in knots abo .. , ~ tke question of identity in these terms we should now he able to bring these new options 4; of sensibility and ideology - into focus. ~he 'kubject of the human image can provide th

mint for the polemic and I mean to use it, mapping traditional territory and hoping on th, way to overturn some of the pieties about Indian art. !

l

TtreSuQsemacy of Nature: A False Start

It is ironical enough that we should be inclined in India to label figurative artists as the %'este@ers' when the tradition is so positively partial to the human image -more so U

fact than certain of the other oriental traditions (the Islamic and the Chinese, for example

.: wkvdthstanding the influence of Indian Buddhism on the latter). It is true that the humas , . . bnage iaIndjanart is placed within the vast continuum of Nature. But it is not subsumed by 5 ; . v . b e , the human and natural worlds form a close-fitting gestalt and the imagery that

consequence is over whelmingly anthropomorphic. The Indian imagination and fro mutations between the worlds of plants, animals and humans - as for

ht qualify and say f attributing human

hange. As no exclusive qualities are ings, as also forms.

pturous aspect and quite specifically F eyes, breasts, thighs. feet).from forms in nature, while nature

... N ' ~ A . ' insofar a s it sustains an elaborate myth'

IC System. Indian thought is imb *' ensuous. therefore empirical perception of th d i e ~ l Y S ued with a ence, basic to the mythic imagination, im . given

(the vev concept Pl'es that the meaning d@

in the phenomenal world and that no transcendent Of the universe

icture), and this i s quite apart from th need be brought into the P 'lct that even materialism as such is no

alien to Indian philosophy. In its own way, moreover th human Presence obsesses the imagination a s much a s it does the Egyptian, th

Greek, and the Christian, F,, while inlndian philosophy human exis tence is placed within a of I. lfe, from vegetal @,,*h to cosmic forces , it is in the human form that the immanent

of nature are maximised. T h e evolution of the archaic Yaksha figure into the splendid iconic Presence of the ~odhisattva and the Buddha is not only an example of the morphology of form as it is usually considered, hut t he eff luence of the life-spirit. If it is argued that the yaksha and the Buddha a r e o ther than strictly human it should be said that this is nearly always soin lndian art. The o therness in nature o r man that sets up a series of confrontations in t h ~

~ ~~~

Western imagination i s h e r e always incorporated into the human image. . . . . .-

Iconic Imagery, and Eros

As in almost all ancient traditions the human image in lndian a* belongs to the hieratic Orders. In tribal cul tures such an image performs a totemic function until today. In the context of the grea t religions the hieratic image may become an icon proper, a mystical symbol. and when t he secular world presses its claim on art expression it can take the form of ideal portraiture, T h e concept and image of Shiva have all these aspects except Perhaps the very last. ~f the bull-headed figure in the Indus valley seal is a prototype of

Shiva Pashupati this is more o r less a totem form. The Maheshamudat E1ephanta' ? he other hand, is the most magnificent of all icons a s also a symbol to 'Ontainthe cOsrmc e tradition W a v a l of creation and destruction. One might add that

so much as Ivlaheshmur6 to

eDeourage~ a n exchange of virtues between the gods and Icing' ~loki teshvara a t~ jmm, v&h I referred o r equally, the wonder full^ gracile image Ofthe A ttedly the M O *

way round to

Be the images of the superlative king - although this adm the +&of b@ the category of ideal portraiture which of&'

really develoPs * ic aspect the p,skrut d n j a w e s which ha" "m

y*lism: a s in. t he portrait* of king6 in "

a glimmer of iadivih~iity m the tea- . .

. .

the sensuous grasp .~ t me b~d"-~"?! IS

h a t is remarkable is that even in hieratic art the body is e x e e f i e d

the icon is realised in and cont~nuou~ .%er Withheld. T h e way the idealit. Ofewd conto,,rs now into a _ ms is * beautifully in a &Ia b""@B::~emselves a

af c l a d m2U

by- r~r face , and the limbs arrang 11

N l R W A

prescribed in that it follows lhc word of the shastras. and yet it appears as 8 t h ~

icon were a conception formed by the touch of Eros. Now Eros, a life generating

force, not only death but any effort to abstract spiritual meanings; thus however

esoteric the iconography of Indian images, the best of them are fully inducted into the life-

process. this sense they overturn the hieratic injunctions while Yet maintaining their

rigour.

Mythic Narration

Besides the iconic imagery a great deal of Indian art has to do with the narration of supernatural events. Because the major attribute of mythic subjects is their infinite versatility. the visual structure for mythic narration must be such a s to contain this fluid, dreamlike metamorphosis. The Ajanta murals, the subject-matter of which i s primarily drawn from the immanent life of the Bodhisattva achieve something like a magnificent conjuring feat: the imagery, conceived in the twilight region of fact and vision, builds up to a dense oneiric rhythm and a s the images press out from the rock-walls, filling the darkness of the vaults, one i s almost faint with the crush of the splendid phantoms.

As against this deep, swelling, nearly unstructured vision, consider the control'led surface tension in 'the rock-cut relief of the Mahishasuramardini at Mahabalipuram where the Goddess and the titan Mahisha are for once superbly matched. Beginning with the l i s s o w many-armed Goddess poised to shoot the arrow from an outstretched bow, lines of foice fan out in a series of arcs and it is this concentric flow of energies which i s here withstood bv Mahisha. Now, if a t the metaphysical level this i s only the apparent vortex of t i n e and action withits still centre, the Goddess, eternally intact: at the formal and possibly h i s to r id

seain and'- any point in the interlocking pattern of the body contours (4 who caasay k v L U the flow of energies may even b e reversed, and with that h tews of as

is seresi3iennt as aiso perfectly fym. ,:. . I . , .. .. .

tales m Sanchi ?ndered in an eccentric =cause all manner of vlsual manipulations - of figure-type and spatial relationships - are needed to accommodate entire stories into serial panels and medallions. These sculptures correspond specifP2ally to an early phase of Buddhism when it is closest to the people and infused with tkis hwnble intimacy but this narrative mode, as such. survives throughqut the Indian art

NIRUKTA

tion. And the combination of function and whimsy, practiced a t the simple aentational level here, allours the quick transcendent element of p]ay implicit in folk

to flourish alongside the grander manifestations of mythology.

t this parallel tradition continues and comes right into our own times in the various of folk and semi-urban art forms, as for example in the terracotta temples of Bengal

reliefs of which have this lively hybrid quality of popular illustration. This is a quality very different from the more or less contemporary convention of Pat painting in the

;tern region. If pictorial narration takes an expressly functional form it is in these bardic 011s which pack in lofty and triv~al myths, and the entire universe in a shorthand of nial relations. There is a rough and tumble in the multitude of figures pressed up against shallow ground and the bodily expression, at once humorous and frenetic, corresponds doubt to contemporary popular theatrics. All these examples, alive in some measure

today, are not only marvelous for their own sake but give a lie to any of the too

r d interpretations of Indian art.

urda&m ,cry rich convention of narration develops as we know in the late medieval period in the mat of the miniatures, which are usually manuscript illuminations, Though they interact Itinually, Rajput and Mughal miniatures set up parallel modes of depiction. The Rajput @S- I am referring mainly to Mewar, Malwa and Basohli - work essentially on decorative p using landscape and architecture a s elements of the design within which the

are emblematically placed. There is a narration of the s tow through gestures; the element is pronounced; but the drama occurs in the simple encounter between

Eve0 love, which is the pervasive theme of so many of these pictures, and which their brilliantly vivacious quality, is not the expression of a particularised

m; is a typical and transcendent emotion. And this finds its correspondence in mncept of time. Within the eccentric structures of these pictures tima

M social history. It is time a s in a game or ritual. Narratian i s titus - like the experience of divine play.

-.W a m a c o d e x vision within mare wmBy

,-~.

hich everywhere and encircle the story like a magic maze. ~h~~

en~~osures W a for example, and selected pictures from the imperial chro ~ B ~ ~ ~ $ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ; beyond ttie level oi historical genre painting and reach,

their exquisiteness, a truly epic dimension. 1 '4

I II Remapping 'Ihditional Territory Scholars of lndian art as well as twentieth century artists have been inclined to ,he narrative sections of Indian art to a secondary position. Defending Indian art ,he gross misinterpretations by the English. Indian art historians led by Coomaras have, as we h o w , stressed the metaphysical nature of Indian art. This means th symbolic aspect has invariably come to the fore - not incorrectly, except that W

rigorous minds symbolism, instead of being seen a s a way of comprehending and pres the complexity of the life-process, appears to perform a merely magical function. A symbol is frequently regarded as a way of trapping attention within a closed syste meanings. This sets up a selective process in reverse. The occultist properties of an and themore abstract or diagrammatic images gain priority when in fact the art traditi teeming with depictions of everyday life.

BY a curious coincidence the narrative aspect is underplayed on account of another set reasons. From the late nineteenth century primitive. a s well a s the very sophisticated **orient - from the Persian to the Far Eastern, es~ec ia l lv the Jananese-set indu . . ~~~~. ~ --r- ~-. - - -~ ~

m movement. Matisse introduces a new aesthetic by looking at . . tha ~hf lhmic confiaurations of desian in oriental art. Shilar

wings. Let me give an example: because Paul ~l~~ is seen to defy a certain set of b values, partly under the inspiration of oriental ( ~ ~ ~ ~ h ~ f ~ i ~ ~ ~ / ~ ~ ~ ~ ) art, lndian kb wili reciprocate not only by preferring Klee to all other artists but also prefer in YlpRln tradition precisely those features which might have appealed to Klee - for , .

ax&e, a latent primitivism. a lyrical and mystical strain, and more o~v ious ly of course m 6ksuisite sense of colour and design. To be sure these qualities exist in the immensel; , .- rric of Indian art; questions arise when this kind of selective emphasis provides :o&nient Solutions. Identifying himself with the modernist preoccupations, via K ~ ~ ~ , an

W

! n d p artist will also claim an identity apart and beyond, for while his western counterpart S @en to be struggling away from the post-Renaissance conventions of a literary

an artist can treat himself like the privileged heir of an intrinsically more advanced o practice, in all innocence, an age-old modernism. Beside the contradictions in ment there is a peculiar short- circuiting of values in the process. The alternatives

ds in oriental art develop into a series of mutations the substance of which is n European heritage with its scientific approach to nature, its sense of method. c antecedents and also a distinct psychology-his elusive wit. And transmutatians to yield many more unexpected results while the same attributes appear me-

I if they are lodged too securely within a given tradition. Lovely as it is, the , for example, becomes precious when it receives exclusive attention.

the alternatives soul-ht by the Western artists derive from quite specific h i s t o w develop often enough into a rebellion- the primitivist element in expressionism

m tq perform this function. We cannot be too certain that the rebellion can be fa the very culture which is its source. And, finally, if it is a question Of finding

ems in modern art, then let these be several and variegated so that different views can open up. rf we were to look more closely at Chagall, let us say, and *of i]luswation instilled by the modernist outlook, follow him in his cram

&l, aussian ~ ~ ~ i ~ h mythology, we may be led to quite amtzinx m e n u e s k r ~ L we might among other things be persuaded to celebrate the fact

ccentric and humane as it is with lofty 3 berevaluated. It is also time that we

btc images in Ir: W s . This. in I

k i i - 4 - Fand ideal

d-h6soIute values

p:.: , , ,,;,.;: ,, . . ,~.

f

~. Marxistdefinition of the it has relevance for the Indian artist. It gives him

i.. , th parameters to work with when painting an individual person. Again, the various structur

devices used for pictorial narration, especially the wonderful overlapping schemas of miniatureSWhereby the life-story of the protagonist can be told in different ways- actor to the myths he lives by a s also the history he

to the Indian artist today.

p,nd there are signs that such concerns are gaining priority with an important set of & artists. 1t maybe that this is merely the periodic reversal of intention and style, or that it%

the result of similar deveiopments in the West -

will be clear only after a -certain time. What is clear is that these artists believe l e s h

some mystical notions about the symbolic pote

energies between art and life. And that passing through the region of the dream they shacdb arrive as surely a s any self-consciously spiritual artist a t the visionary possibilities of a$

m a W k s s imitation of visible form, fro

from a falsely sentimental mysticism, W

. / . .

affective forms c

E not to say that differentiating categories must be abolished, only that we should esort to reductive options or fall into the trap of a stylistic turnover in avant- ms. To this day protagonists will place an avant-garde badge on the breast of

nsider Clement Greenberg's role. But heresies and orthodoxies change places we now offer the badge of radicalism to figurative artists? Yes, if by radicalism

-,$he most advanced view of change along democratic lines, for to let people come the pictures and tell their stories must indeed merit the name of radicalism. But

k&ky'ground and it is best to let it go. The argument can be conducted at nther -. "

kieas about progressivism are false, so are those of revival. In any case Leger, ,.&ckmann, died not so very long ago; Picasso was painting till very recently; $W1 is. With so many figurative masters near at hand, and artists all over the world

contribution to the human image with express reference to their own jife e figure should not be in need of any great defense.

ssionate case for the human image, an artist like Kitaj, for example, dae&'put modernist tradition to trial. But it is only so as to find the connective v i s i

h o l d e r and newer modes of representation, between say Degas and&self.lle s t to find in historic circumstance and personal temperament, cfues : gf , contour, structure, - that gave the figures of the post-impressionist x&p , ; e a shape, connecting them in this respect to what he calls "a humane @&S

g way. back in time".' The stakes that Kitaj places on the hum+ . .: to map out social destinies through the art of narration. Asswe@,.~e (e

b&ed positims on the subject confronting Kitaj's, but they can be c o s v i n e

Jungian theories about creative relationship between archetype and Person must remain tentative until the possibility of transmitling the collective unconscious can be proven. But images can, in a sense, do away with the problem of transmission. Gauguin, for example, is able to hold time. In his manner of delineation, and the rhythm of contour and colour. he starts up an e bb and flow between forms where the identities of the persons portrayed acquire what we may call metamorphic possibilities. In other examples of early modern art the subject-matter of which is not, a s in the case of Gauguin, overtly symbolic the core of the image may still irradiate a spiritual presence - I am thinking of the portraits of Van ~ o g h . But then by the time we come to a Soutine portrait or a Kokoshcka, this very presence is overlaid by the ego, the queer sensitive wrapping of the soul through whichno numen may shine - instead, we s e e the peremptory stirrings of the individual self. Alienated from the other, this self offers no descriptions and only negative clues for making sense of the world to which it belongs. And yet this kind of subjective expression (drawn from the romantic movement where it represents the revolt of the individual against the market values of capitalist culture), continues right through the modern times to appropriate certain modes of social criticism. The existential content of the work of Picasso, for example, includes areas of social indictment, although we should add that anarchic protest of this kind finally becomes a metaphysical rather than a political proposition; and the image becomes, therefore, a means of canonising and transfixing the individual. As a symbol it retains something of the iconic presence but acquires over and above that an urgent ontological status within which the element of protest is lodged.

'With Francis Bacon the human image, already alienated, reachks the extreme state of dislocation. Splayed against the butcher's:slab the image lets up a cry that i s not so unlike 'ttie cry across'tbe waters in Camas' The Fall. But that cry. we must remember. carried a sense of irony because such a conception of despair is now open to the charge of self-

l kub&eaee. making it necessary to question the romantic identification between the Self

i., arrd the world, to revaluate the manic view of life-and, with that, a i l i s n a? ~agc$? pf should place Bacon at the terminal point of the subjective tradition it is

ed that point; or that it must need situate itself in a dirnensim ha% 9 longer run - this i s the epic dimension. i

~ . - ' - -""..."-.~,.y.. *,a".,

-kern- philosophies, and styles (including a classical fc

I both of which raise the question of art for mrr'= *,b,> D

udes t h ~ u ~ h t s about [he universe, about nature, and about the wo,~ld, but always at the c a t a t e point-the Point of transcendence. The abstract principle, when i t is adopted by R k i a n c~nstruct ivis ts , maintains an affinity with the first phase in that the transcendent

i s predominant: the image of the future is altogether detached from individual gY. This allows new perspectives on art and society, but it also tends to turn the

utionary idea into pure speculation.

the original spiritual impulse and the ideological moorings recede, abstract art. ally when it is transferred to capitalist contexts, tends to lapse into formalism. Even

tforward consideration of figurative art, however. it is important that we reckon conceived at the margin where language and metaphysics have met, thus raising

question of meaning. For these images, however attenuated, help to understand not ,the function of art in our times but the historical moment itself. Pushing this argument a more complex polemic, Theodor Adorno suggests that the most genuinely political

that which comprehends the crisis of meaning (or the problem of reification) in

cont&nporary cultures. Including orthodox Marxists in the polemic, he insists that only an acutg linguistic concern - by restructuring the signs - can the modern artist elude the -"po$tiVist subordination" ' of meaning taking place under advanced industrialism. Thus

-the remote style of expression, and the abslracted form is what we should pay of reality occur in a work of art a s the

of Modernism

m f ~ r m : modernists, both figurative and abstract, tend to work with the k h e meanings are so fused a s to make t6e . ;

. Alternatively, the constructivist methad

, pull in a single direction

. .

, . , .

l find that the moment a number of figures get involved You immediately come to the storytelling aspect of the relationship between figures. And that immediately sets up a kind of narrative .... 1 don't want to avoid telling a Story but I want very much to do the thing Valery said - give the sensation without the boredom of its conveyance. And the moment the story enters the boredom comes upon you. Francis Bacon.5

~t seems interesting tome that the period that separates us from 1900, surely one of the most terrible histories of bad faith ever, should somehow conceive and nourish a life of forms increasingly divorced from the illustration of human life which had been art's main province before. It seems fated to me that art should have turned away (in horror) to a great introspective romance ... R. B. Kitaj.6 I Brave and splendid as its achievements are the modern movement involves this major psychic- retraction. a back~ng up against the void. And from this withdrawn position an entire metaphysics of anxiety develops, a s also some of the important aesthetic theories that stress the need to see meaning a s the immanent property of form. In a sense, form . becomes the symbol. and there is no need to consider symbolic content, leave alone subject- matter that spells out the human story. I Indeed, the fear of boredom that Bacon speaks about above may be the obverse of the despair to which I have earlier referred. I also suggested at that point that this despair may have reached a terminal point unless it places itself in a dimension where individual destiny has a longer run - the epic dimension. This is precisely where the polemics and the flew figuration begin; post-Bacon, so to speak, defying the fear of boredom in conveying meanings. It begins with narration, which may bring in allegory and realism in mediated forms, and builds up to an epic position where by the artist can introject his subject-mattec

.. . .

., ' .. i is iuuxed precisely in this overlappina paradigm of imagination and hirton re

b about. Now the Past, a s historicd memory, is different from dream and

mbrance. Dream enhances the present. and gives it a foothold in an alternative @l remembrance connects us by vestigial associations with primitive, mythic, less. An artist like Chagall works quite marvellously, but quite simply. with both

mes without touching on history. in recent Years, film makers like Jansco, and

*both interestingly from socialist societies - and the Columbian Marxist writer ~ ~ ~ .... ,

W c i a Marquez, in his surreal novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, succeed in

&the modalities of dream and myth in such a way a s to telescope historical memop,

remembrance helps to go over the ground and reveal current areas of faIse * ess , except that even great art is so often the tainted flower of bad faith that we. ;;

ale this whole business with extreme sensitivity. One can draw upon historical

recisely for the purpose of repentance and subject it to a cathartic transformation:. 3 tory can then acquire the quality of the Passion. The murals of the Mexicans.

CO, and the great triptychs of Beckmann such as the Departure give us this ssion - the cycle of suffering, struggle, and re6emption. -worked out iR the

m:

I,

1 st fully developed in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. Drawn from its '.

, personal hubris is here interlocked with historical insuffic suffering that emerges from this pattern serves to bring classi

viable realism in to just equation. It is important that white & persistent he does not subsume the real under the metaphsskak --

jrgccomt, make suffering a condition of fate. That is why We

@S of struggle and redemption in the perspective

k & tnatte ..,. . ,..,..,;c

- . . . . . l . . . .J .,-< > ,.:. <,*. >\,. .; ?

l*' .- ' .

T ~ U S if at the base of Breeht's drm *m

is a critical exegesis of the given social or that he can virtually catapult the situation into radical praxi

of historical materialism he there by gives it a far more complex propellant than it 1 hitherto possessed in relation to history.

"As flowers turn towards the sun, by dint of a secret he1 the sun which is rising in the sky of h~story . A historical materialist must be aware of & most inconspicuous of transformations." Walter Benlamin.'

An Affirmative Art

Everything today points to an affirmative art. The word affirmation has connotationsof a religious existentialism: the spiritual content of that can be transformed into a sense & personal integration uzhich i s reflected in t h e a r t i s t ' s l i fe and a r t including interrelationships between figures he paints. I am not speaking of health, or morality, .". of comprehending psychological complexity and resolving it for the sake of a positive survival. Affirmation can mean comprehending, by an act of generosity, the anarchy of tide: and it can mean revealing the pristine moments of perception in images that apear re' epiphanies.

Affirmation also suggests a more mundane kind of historical optimism which should be turned into a paradox if we agree with Marcuse that art is - - . . -b- - - - - - - - :A. . - - - - - - -A +h-+.

in the "authentic works the affirmation does not cancel ti.- . . .., ".......-..-.. . then springs from fierce acts of the imagination ( " A L - -----. -..---+ :-

acts of We imagination. - - ", Harold Rosenberg") _.., .. , afutvre society in order to find such paradigrns that can oevelop utoplan ailgnmenIb wru*.

history.

Benjamin's historical matnrialir+ +L.- .. -. .~ .

ewers turn towards the sun. Andyet, a s Marcusesays, "EEOS itself liv* e, of pain" 'O So does history, and perhaps the wager of ar t will still

e a fix we are in now, on recently scorched and revisionist earth, when so nters have to urge their depictions, a s if through a fog toward an unknown an uncommon ease, a manifest social destiny, a better life" R. B. Kitaj.18

++++.E

7

A~RLRCTA

M~~~~~~~ Questions and Dialogue

A dialectical situation arises i n the cultural arena. A Krow art ists consciously reject

coordination and intellectual and moral order. For a mass of people to be led to coherently and in the same coherent fashion about the real present world, is a "philosop

of a truth which remains the property of small groups of intellectuals."

in modem times with the global expansion of capitalism is, what is man? and, what can

or humanization of man. In the swamp of class-society, the swamp filled darkness

N I R W A

Nationalism, for all its passion and sincerity has been unable to develop this

culture" originating in 19th century England, has failed to fully undertake the

t f oms , in the attitude of the bourgeoise, the educated petty bourgeoise and the sia, there emerges under the veneer of liberalism, secularism, nationalism, quasi- and scholarly practice, the philosophy of the dominant majority, the hindu

y, which has turned the state, its supporters and its slogans into fascist ones.

society is a complex class and caste society, hooked onto the diabolic

from across the line, to overlook this fact in any dialogue on Indian history,

ri'sitive scholarship of sts like Abaninctiaanatil

advanced humanistic thoughts of the time arising out of the philosophy of dialectic- . hut turned instead to idealist organic streams of thought which were incapable

of understanding the world under capitalism a s a totality. The arlists associated with such scholarship, in the Bengal revivalist movement, dispersed strategically to all the prominent art in India, at Santiniketan. Lucknow. Delhi. Lahore and Madras to entrench this 1 parochial vision on a national scale.

~h~ after life of the same vision continues today in the philosophy of the 'Living tradition2, which stems to be a fetishistic form of the earlier Nationalism. It contains an inability to live in one's own time, and is also a strategy to survive in it. K.G. Subramanyan, searching for a 'total1 holistic vision of art a s against the' fragmented' sensibility of the modern,' locates his philosophy on the idea of an "electric plurality" within the traditional hierarchic interpenetration of the little' and the 'larger' manifestations in a r t and culture. In an essay 'Do we need an Art movement' he writes "If one walks through the s ta te of Orissa, for instance, village to town, you can s e e a whole spectrum of these simple wall decorations of untrained tribal housewives, the work of the village potter, metal worker, muralist with greater skill inputs the works of various skilled craftsmen like the silversmith, whose filigree work is n o l e s s refined than a 'Lippold' and weavers whose geometricism and colour sense will do credit to any modern artist or designer, then the well known temples with their astounding sculpture. You can s e e this in many parts of India. The ordered circuits of their activity a s against the adventurous and self defeating cross circuiting of the modern s c e n e I have descr ibed should cer ta in ly m a k e u s think and recall Coomaraswamy's statement that while artists can be special kinds of men all men can be special kinds of artists (without each being a Michelangelo o r a cezanne). fact some of the specialities of certain levels of these activities come from their simplicity or ~mambitiousness, even unconcern about being art".

Today, in our situation, it is difficult to accept subramanyans great-nostalgia for the '*ethe practices of proto-capitalist, moribund village and town economics. What i~ his

. .

MKUKTA

alse-humanism of a feudal bourgeoise. Obviously for him state capitalism and ety are eternal unchanging institutions3. Yet, capitalism having destroyed at the lective way of life, has destroyed the raison-de-etre of folk art. Therefore to a living tradition in art and culture, outside the perspective of socialism is to

a pastiche of the same. This is increasingly evident in the cultural policies where folk art and culture are being preserved and marketed a s precisely a

nomically sustain in any honourable fashion, the craftsmen involved in it. What reason for its survival if not a s a Political act of resistance against the phenomena g' that capitalism entails. Organic historic memory is a preserve of these pockets one which cannot be seen formally or appropriated o r sold in a sophisticated

nand rejection, to the whole revolutionary drama of 'Modernism' played out in

ogy and sociology. Its objective materialist engagement with reality. history.

of the 'human substance' under capitalism, expressed in psychopathological Protest to attempts at objectively and scientifically interpreting reality as a

multifasceted dimensions, both individual and typical. Art under modernism

old syntax of visual language, its untenable philosophic content, in t k

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spirit was in fact 'vulgarized'. Ironically they have usurped the anarchic classless

freedom of the modern artist not a s a struggle. but simply a s a corollary to their profession. This conveniently place them outside the problems of 'real' history, outside q workings of subjective consciousness and p h e n o m e n ~ l ~ g ~ . From such a position the imaginary, personal and historic events and characters are put in inverted commas a s part of their commodification which can serve the artist as 'referrants' to make all kinds of critical gestures, even gestures of anarchy and protest.

This is related in fact to the cannonization or institutionalization of 'modernism', its reduction to a set of dead classics in Europe around the 250s' when the Indian artists Contacted it, The waning of its effect was giving rise to a whole new phenomena of Post-modernism. This philosophy was the cultural logic of multinational capitalism, in which a new populist rhetoric was slowly taking over the older modernist, metaphysical concerns with truth and utopia. Ideologically it was celebrating a commodification of culture and demonstrating that the omnipresence of the class struggle which had haunted modernism was now in retreat. When we examine broadly the features of the post-modern (after Frederic Jameson's brilliant analysis of it in an essay 'the cultural logic of capital", we find that with the exception of a few artists like Amrita Sher Gil & Binode Bihari Mukherjee, themajority of our artists have submitted in a lesser or greater degree to the over- powering logic of the same What is this philosophy then, which is freezing the blood of artists all over the world. Frederic Jameson writes "... aesthetic production today has become integrated indo c o m m d i t ~ production generally; the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever m e novel seeming goods (from clothing to air plants), at even greater rates of t m ~ ~ e r assigns an increasingly STRUCTURAL function and position to aesthetic innovation and experimentation. Such economic necessities then find re-cognition in the institutional w m r t of all kinds available for the newer art, from foundations and grants to museums

ith it an obvious superficiality. it focuses a- '

~hisiognomy. 'the producers of culture have nowhere to turn to but the paSts,. rEes a "random canibalization of all the styles of the past, the pity at random 1

l ~ s i o n " . ~ Here Lhe Past or history becomes a mere referrant, concerned wi* and the 'glossy qualities of the image'. All this is prompted by a growing

S appetite for a world transformed into sheer images of itself and for pseudo 'spectacles". In post-modernism then, parody and pastiche, kitsch and

the museums and all ,

sophies are made to look alike, to compete. Glamour irons out all radical al choice reigns supreme and

g character, from the British continuing a tradition of colonial patronage and approval; is the Indian version

story of art, Narration has been a, special method which places the 'Individual'

thin the narrative mode also lies the danger of dramatic incidental storyteuing.

and in the process devalue almost anything, even the past.

historical processes. With the

NIRtm'zA

the politics of visual language and subjects, (i.e. their particular existence under bourgeo. aesthetics) how it works, for whom and from whom. to attempt the 'historical' is to 'vulgarize, the same. Further, to pledge a preoccupation with the human figure and to be draw and paint it freely and imaginatively, with a depth of observation and knowledge, certainly speaks for the shrinking , sincerity and ability of artists, one that can never lac 1 justified with any theoretical argument.

Any art tradition, Indian or Western, offers a philosophy of understanding 'man7 in his surroundings. Within each exists a definite method of observation, of study, of gathering knowledge, a developed linguistic system by which this can be expressed. In any case, whatever his or her choice, an artists skills must be sharp enough, his means viable enough, to penetrate the world around him in its material and philosophic truth.

-- I Related to this whole new phenomena of art practice is a growing cultural leadership has acquired a determinist role in the arts. Pure-intellectualism indulges in polemical complexities and exercise in thought in a rarified atmosphere. As professionals and specialists they articulate their thoughts outside class-terms. Antonio Gramsci discussing the role of such scholars writes. "The Pure intellectuals a s elaborators of the most developed ruling-class ideology were forced to take over at least some Marxist elements to revitalize their own ideas end to cheek the tendency towards excessive speculative philosophising,

We do not want to see the relationship between intellectuals (artists a s special kind5 of intellectuals) and the masses in mechanistic, terns . In a theoretical leadership of intellectuals '

of the faceless masses (outside any real contact) we see distinct fascist tendencies. The

artists to recover lost pedagogic-didactic values of art. BY organizing outside the dominant cultural itenary we believe we may stand somewhere

a, =-inaful and truthful engagement with reality. : . ' .

takes character on the decision of its members, not on anything else. the times, we believe that a philosophy of praxis other than one of an isolated

ollr real past, understand history outside the will of the dominators with the

ainst all farms of kitsch; national kitsch international, kitsch. social-fascist kitsch, feminist kitsch. The jargon of generalixatiansis mess mundanity, banality make us nauseous. The battle, a s much as it