‘Engage With the Mind of the Painter’

BN Goswamy, India’s foremost art historian, shows us how to appreciate a painting in an accessible new book which explains 101 masterpieces

“What is art meant to do to the viewer? There is an expansion of the heart, agitation and so on, finally ending up with vibration. It is simple; you go to a concert, bahar log niklengey, aur bolengey ki ras nahin thha. But it is also complex,” says the old master. “What is important for me, as an art historian, is how to make a visual entry into a work of art; you enter a work of art and you see it from within. I might see a particular painting on the wall for a tenth of a second. But what can I get out of it unless I enter it? Unless I somehow come into contact with the mind of the person who made it… did he succeed? Dates and places matter to me; if you have understood the temper of a particular period, you have done well. And that’s what I find matters to me.”

A hail of praise anticipates The Spirit of Indian Painting: Close Encounters with 101 Great Works, 1100–1900, BN Goswamy’s 25th book. The prettily designed (and variously underwritten—Jnana-Pravaha, IndiGo and The Raza Foundation are noted as sponsors) text, glowing in peach and pistachio, is set to be a modern classic in that sub-genre that is popular art criticism; Goswamy is popular, even beloved, in the contentious world of art history and appreciation. “BN Goswamy’s work has a broader significance in matters of art and what he has to say is applicable not only to classical Indian art and miniature painting but to a great deal of art being executed today,” says artist Krishen Khanna; “No one knows more about Indian painting than BN Goswamy,” says Glenn D Lowry, American art historian and director of the Museum of Modern Art; “Close to half a century ago, it was BN Goswamy who revolutionised our perception of Indian paintings, taking these ‘miniatures’ not simply as decorative items produced for some royal patron’s fancy, but as master-works in their own right, in the process restoring to the artist the honour that belonged to him,” says Eberhard Fischer, president of the Rietberg Society.

Professor Emeritus of Art History at Punjab University and a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, Goswamy lectures widely and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Pennsylvania and California. Among the major exhibitions of Indian art he has curated internationally is Masters of Indian Painting at the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, and at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

When Penguin Books India’s Nandini Mehta approached Goswamy, she was looking for a book that would show us how to see Indian paintings, wherein he would write as he spoke in his acclaimed lectures. “I wanted to show the range of Indian painting, and chose a time frame of 1100 to 1900, because it leaves out the mural tradition,” he says, sitting by an advance copy of his book in a room at Delhi’s India International Centre. Smiling, his stronger ear tuned to questions, the elderly man is a more affable variety of the art historian than is usually encountered. “I decided to cite four examples, from the beginning. It’s very artificial and nobody has to agree (laughs). I’ve divided them in a broad fashion: vision, observation, contemplation and passion. ‘Are you out of your mind?’ anyone can turn around and say. It is all very personal. And if you ask me how many paintings I can recall, sitting and talking to you, they are thousands, not hundreds, not scores.”

How to select from among this bounty? “There is a Bengali proverb, bash maneh dom khana; in a forest of bamboos, the bamboo cutter goes nearly blind, unable to cut or leave.” What Goswamy has done is see through the thicket, setting valuable lessons down in chapters meant to be read and appreciated individually. From Jain paintings to the rich treasures of the Shahnama, Firdausi’s Persian epic to the forgotten labours of the carpenter community, this mostly traditional selection is a primer in measured, thoughtful understanding. But the selection is also instinctive. “I think it was Philip Roth who said, when you listen to music, an Indian stringed instrument like the sitar for instance, there are obvious ways in which you can see the fingers touching the strings, but underneath those fingers are fingers you can’t see, in that air—it resonates,” says Goswamy.

We turn to one of the most unusual selections in the book, a great example of this resonance: a 17th century work called The Cosmic Egg. It is one of the latest in this selection, and terribly modern in comparison. “How did it all begin? A golden egg, golden germ—hiranayagarbha—that which has in its womb gold. It starts by floating on water—not a Western point of view,” says Goswamy, pointing out the large eddies of water which also appear as rings of time, whorls on a tree. He elaborates: “One of the mistakes we make essentially is assuming that paintings were meant to be hanging on the wall. They were not, they were meant to be looked at in the hand—at a 75 degree angle, which allows a personal connection with the painting, and also allows you to manipulate it. The moment you shift it a little, the gold glistens. Those could be running waters, a pool—but it’s a vast ocean with no shores. It’s startling, really startling. I’m intrigued, and I’m working on this artist.”

The artist behind the work is a key concern. “One of the things I’m very keen on is that we underrate the painter. Because the tradition is nameless, I wonder: whose son was he, where did he earn, what kind of person is this man? I’ve spent three years of my life trying to trace the genealogy of certain artists, hardcore historical research—not air fairy. We may feel these artists must be placed on a pedestal, but they weren’t then. They were poor people. The poor man stands with a petition in his hand. These people got nothing.”

What is the value of giving them recognition and ownership now? “I believe the painter has mostly been taken for granted. He’s not a craftsman, he takes great decisions all the time—I’m talking about great painters, not hacksmen. I want to let people engage as much with a work of art, as with the mind of a painter,” says Goswamy. The painter has a valuable role to play in our understanding of our place in the world.

“Time—what is the painter’s notion of time? In painting, there is no connection to time,” says Goswamy. “But there is an understanding of time, as in The Cosmic Egg. Within the same frame, in the Hindu Rajput Jain tradition, the same figure will appear frequently a few times; a man entering the door, then sitting in his chamber. Time is fluid in the Hindi/Jain mind. The jati of kala—it’s flexible, like putty in your hand. How differently the Indian mind can conceive of time—it’s cyclical, and it can happen diagonally.”

There was puzzlement over these representations in some quarters. “In the entire range of Mughal paintings, I can’t see of two or three paintings where you can see the multiplicity of action. Nothing is rigid, time is malleable, flexible, can turn back. If you start believing in it, the more you think about, the more you start wondering what is real, what is unreal. It gives you a different perspective on life, and the life hereafter. The treatment of space, which I’ve drawn attention to, as well. Our eyes are ruined by photography, its fixed point of perspective, in the European perspective. But you don’t keep standing on that spot. Space is not manipulable.”

Remarkably, Goswamy had no formal training in his rigorous discipline. “We had no art in the family, virtually none. Except for some European prints or a panoramic view of Lahore, I had little exposure. All art history I know I taught myself,” says Goswamy. “I have not studied a day.” The art historian first studied history, and joined the IAS. “When I resigned, I wanted to do something different. ‘What kind of society threw up these paintings?’ I wondered. What community does it belong to? I read a book about Professor Randhawa, and got more interested in social history. At that time I had very little interest in art as such. But gradually, I got drawn into the foreground of art. After my PhD, I went abroad. I was teaching in Germany, and was blown away. Here, we have just a few museums, and half the time they are closed, chaabi nahin hai and so on.” He has also referred several times to differences of opinions within his professional community, and he laughs now when I bring it up.

“I’m a bit suspect in the eyes of my colleagues. No one understands what you’re saying, so therefore we appear very learned. Accessibility is important—unless you are able to bring your viewer to the subject at hand, you might as well be doing botany.” He also tells me the story of his enjoyment of William Archer’s work, an ICS officer who got interested in India while posted in Bihar; now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, he has the mind of a poet, says Goswamy, who got to know him as the examiner of his dissertation. The differences came, predictably, with cultural slippage. “Slowly I started discovering that he was not able to get rid of the European way of looking at things. What I was doing flew directly into the face of what he was doing, and I still believe in it—that the family is the unit. The style develops within the family.”

We move to a beautiful painting, inscribed on a palm leaf, which Goswamy says has a strong connection with works in Ajanta, with mural painting. “In Orissa, they continue to paint on the palm leaf. It has a tiny breadth, two inches wide, though it is longer (demonstrates with fingers). Within that, to make a statement is not the easiest thing in the world. Most are meant to accompany text, there may be hundreds within one. But then these are to be concentrated on; dhyana is concentration. Meditation, concentration, whatever it is. The intent of the scribe or the painter is to capture the essence of the teaching.”

EXCERPT

There are things, some of them passing strange, that happen when you confront a work of art: (i) unfolding of the heart; (ii) its expansion; (iii) its agitation; and, finally, (iv) vibration.

—From a reading of Kavyartha

Indian paintings have been variously described: as layered objects in which one thing, or thought, is gently laid upon another; like schist rocks, foliated and iridescent; like a couplet in Persian or a doha in Hindi, terse but meaningful; like a great floral carpet that lies rolled up but can be spread out endlessly, revealing new things with each mellow unfurling.

Each description is seductive, and contains much truth. They are also in their different ways saying a single thing— a painting presents to us a layered world of meaning. One needs to, thus, make an effort to receive from it all the riches that reside within. We must first summon utsaha—energy, enthusiasm, the excitement of anticipation. Then we need to make what can only be described as a visual immersion in the work. Thereon much can be expected—the joy of discovery, stimulus to reflection, visual excitement and, finally, heightened delight.

To attain delight one must then learn to read a painting. To begin with—oddly, to be sure, for this book is about painting— a relatively small south Indian bronze of c. fourteenth century, that the noted art historian Stella Kramrisch called ‘The Tree of Life and Knowledge’. There is allure in the form: a tree with a slender, straight trunk from which curving branches issue forth with symmetry and evenness, first dipping low as if borne down by their weight and then rising slightly at the bud-like tips. Each branch is connected to the one above or below it by carefully spaced single, flame-like leaves, creating a latticework effect. In the centre of the tree’s crown sits a curled naga with many hoods. Just below the naga, but also set against the trunk is a layered, ribbed disc, looking like the solid wheel of a chariot.

Lower down stand two crowned monkey figures, clinging to the trunk but each with one hand raised, a wondering finger to the lips. And at the base two small cows, one on either side, flank the trunk. Higher up, almost merging with the swelling bud-tips, sit small hamsa figures at the very edge of the branches, as if weightless, their upraised tails brushing against the buds.

It takes a while to take in the form in its entirety, and its grace and sophistication. Then one begins to wonder what the figures on the tree stand for. What did the maker of this bronze have in mind? Is the mythical many-hooded naga in the tree one of those serpents celebrated in the Puranic texts: Vasuki, Shesha, Muchalinda? Is the disc the Sudarshana chakra of Vishnu? Where do the crowned monkey figures come from—the Ramayana? Are the cows at the base of the tree waiting for Krishna?

The hamsa figures eventually intrude upon these questions. By including the birds in the bronze, is the sculptor drawing our attention to the old myth where the hamsa is the ultimate symbol of discernment? In traditional belief, the bird has the neera–ksheera viveka—the ability to separate milk from water, drinking only the milk, and leaving the water behind. Or do the hamsas allude to some yogic practice, the syllables ham and sa standing for incoming and outgoing breaths?

Many such questions arise, as one stands looking at the sculpture, admiring its skill. But are there any answers? Was the maker of this piece creating a riddle for his audience to solve? Was its description by Stella Kramrisch as ‘The Tree of Life and Knowledge’ purely intuitive, or was it based on some obscure text that only she knew of? One does not know, but one is repeatedly drawn back to the bronze, as one is drawn back to all great art: with the hope of understanding it yet being ready for failure.

Abu’l Hasan, that great painter at the Mughal court— Nadir-al Zaman is the title that the emperor Jahangir conferred upon him, meaning ‘Wonder of the Age’—moved away in one of his works from the glitter of power and opulence to paint an old, fragile man. The tone of the painting is hushed and one falls silent looking at the lone, hesitantly moving figure. The man—an old pilgrim perhaps or, possibly, a mendicant who has seen better days—stands barefoot, leaning on a thin, long staff.

The body bears marks of the ravages of time: the hunched back, the stooped shoulder, the snow-white beard, the lean, desiccated frame. But one can see, from the look in the eyes, that the mind is still keen and the bent of mind religious— he holds prominently a rosary of beads in his bony right hand and wears one round his neck. There are signs of indigence everywhere. The lower part of the body is bare, the feet are unshod, and the coarse apparel he wears consists mostly of a rough cloak used as a wrap, a folded shawl-like sheet thrown over the left shoulder, and an unadorned tightly bound turban.

Technically, the work is brilliant. One notices the roughness of the skin at the knees; the thinness of the fingers; the rendering of the beads in the rosary, each shrivelled and varying in size; above all, the face with its lines of age and experience. The painting, though, is as moving as it is skilful and it fills the viewer with questions. What did Abu’l Hasan intend by this picture? Did he know his subject? It is most unlikely that the painting was done for the man, but then—used as he must have been to royal commissions and grand themes— why did Abu’l Hasan pick him?

Was it simply a portrait or was the artist addressing an abstract idea? Whatever the case, Abu’l Hasan seems here to infuse a universality of feeling into this figure. Poets have spoken much about old age. It is the time when the meaning of things begins dimly to unfold, when the hollowness of life makes itself manifest. For the man of God, it has been said, there comes a time when he has to sit out his years with submission rather than defiance, for he knows that this edifice of life is built on walls that are but sand, and rests on pillars fickle as the wind. Is this Abu’l Hasan’s response to the subject, a painter’s intimations of mortality?

Now to a celebrated early Bhagavata Purana series, datable to the first half of the sixteenth century. The series as such is well known even though where it was made, who its painters were, and its precise date have been the subject of debate among scholars for years. What has never been questioned, however, is its remarkable quality: the verve, the spiritedness, the devotion, the emotional fervour, the glow of the painters’ conviction that what they were visualizing is the only way things must have happened in the past.

Each leaf is a celebration of the life and the deeds of Krishna and is accompanied by an excerpt from the original text of the Purana on its verso. To identify a scene, therefore, is easy. What is less easy is to decipher the visual language and the vocabulary that the painter/s use. For they play and trifle with natural appearances and abandon them at will in favour of poetically conceived conventions. It is all done assertively and with flamboyance—the lines soar, the colours sing.

Boldly distinctive figural types are established both for men and women— sharp profiles, large, languid eyes, heroic chests in the case of men, full ripe breasts in the case of women; generally lithe forms, cadenced stances, clear gestures that seem to come from the world of dance. The painters claim for themselves complete freedom in the rendering of dresses, furnishings and architectural details; sky and water and rocks are all depicted in an imaginary way; backgrounds are established through seemingly arbitrarily chosen colours. It is the sum of these parts which makes for the magical effect. They beckon and lead us in, challenge our ideas about the nature of appearances, establish startlingly different ways of seeing, and all the while quietly illumine the viewer’s surroundings with the glow and intensity of colours.

In this particular painting Krishna, having accomplished his mission on this earth by having killed Kamsa, decides to not return to Vraja to his beloved gopis but sends his close friend Uddhava instead with his message. It says that they will have to forget him, for he is not going to return to them. Uddhava’s therefore is not an easy task. When he breaks the news to Krishna’s many beloveds, they complain and shed bitter tears. How can He do this, they ask? Do you think that it is easy to let go of memories of Him?

In this painting Uddhava appears twice: once on the right and then again on the left, as if turning to listen first to one gopi and then to another, for each of them has her own thoughts, her own pain, to share with him. The two gopis on the right make emphatic gestures and even show him the footprints He had left behind as a promise, close to the trunk of his favourite tree. Two other gopis follow Uddhava as he is led away by another gopi. She is pointing to a cow that is standing atop a rocky ridge, craning her neck as if searching for Krishna.

For anyone who understands the context, especially for a devotee of Krishna, there is great beauty in the rendering. But the painting has also to be read with care. It is all emphatically but very subtly done, the painter taking every possible liberty in the process. The verdant groves of Vrindavan are reduced to three elegantly articulated trees. The Yamuna flows at the bottom of the page, astir like a pond with aquatic birds and blooming lotuses. The monochromatic colours in the background change from blue to orange to green in order to establish different spaces. The women are as beautiful and stately as ever, and the dark sky with its wavy horizon holds everything together. Floating above everything, however, the mauve-pink rocky ridge with its scalloped ends stands suspended in the air, asking pointed questions.

As a last instance, in this attempt at emphasizing the need to look at paintings with more care, and greater intent, than we generally do, one can turn to a leaf from a celebrated eighteenth-century Gita Govinda series from the Pahari area. Jayadeva’s poetic text in Sanskrit is famous for its celebration of the love of Radha and Krishna. ‘If remembering Hari enriches your heart / if his arts of seduction arouse you,’ the poet says at the beginning, then ‘listen to Jayadeva’s speech / in these sweet soft lyrical songs.’

Countless people, over the centuries, have listened. This leaf comes almost at the beginning of the poem. Nanda, Krishna’s foster-father, is out grazing cows when he suddenly sees ‘clouds thicken the sky / tamala trees darkening the forest’, and becomes concerned about young Krishna, for the thunderstorm and the approaching night might frighten him. He asks Radha, who is a little older than Krishna in this narrative, to take ‘the boy’ home. But then, as the two head homeward along the banks of the Yamuna, their love begins to unfold, their ‘secret passions . . . triumph’.

In the painting, stars have begun to appear in the darkening sky, the Yamuna, almost unnoticed, flows quietly in the background, the dark forms of the ‘tamala’ trees and palms loom over the scene. Against this are placed the illuminated forms of the two lovers. Krishna has thrown his left arm around Radha’s shoulder and gently reaches out to touch her breast with his right hand; she makes futile gestures, restraining his left hand and pointing with her own right hand towards the path that they should take. But there is no conviction in her resistance. She turns back, and gazes lovingly into Krishna’s eyes, standing elegantly like a dancer, left leg lightly crossed against the right, one toe barely touching the earth. It is a wonderfully quiet moment. Time seems to have come to a stop, nothing else seems to exist for the two lovers.

The stillness is strangely affecting. As a narrative strategy, the painter’s decision to devote a whole page to this quiet, tender moment is brilliant, for soon energetic, frenetic passion will take over. There is going to be talk of the ‘tamala trees’ fresh leaves absorbing strong scents of deer musk’, of ‘budding mango trees trembling from the embrace of rising vines’, and of ‘yellow silk and wild flower garlands’.

We too get lost in the moment: the unfailing sense of colour, the fluency and the elegance of line, the unlikely mix of precise detail and loose brushwork, all create an image of great vividness. But there is more in the painting that needs absorbing. Against all laws of nature, while darkness falls everywhere, the forms of the two lovers, standing as if in a masque, remain dazzlingly lit. The painter, too, is playing with the forms of the trees. The tree in the back has its trunk split into two, each limb moving closer to the other and entering into a gentle embrace next to where the lovers stand; one of them lighter in skin than the other. Radha, gleaming like lightning, and Krishna, dark as a cloud.

(Excerpted from ‘A Layered World’, the introduction to The Spirit of Indian Painting: Close Encounters with 101 Great Works, 1100–1900, by BN Goswamy, Allen Lane, 582 pages, Rs 1,499)

BN GoswamyIndian Painting‘A Layered World’