Sri Aurobindo
Early Cultural Writings
(1890 — 1910)
Part Eight. Reviews
|
|
|
The appearance of this superb quarterly admirable in its artistic get-up and its fine reproductions of Indian sculpture and painting, admirable in the accomplished excellence of its matter, — the name of the editor, Mr. O. C. Gangoly, the one man most especially fitted by his knowledge and capacity for this work, is of itself a sufficient guarantee of excellence, — is a significant indication of the progress that is being made in the revival of the aesthetic mind of India. Assailed and corrupted in a time of cultural decline and arrest of its creative and artistic faculty by an alien aesthesis and ideals antithetic to its own spirit, it is returning to a right view and understanding of its past greatness, and though much way has still to be made before there can be any universal recovery of the artistic eye and taste, the first steps have been taken with some rapidity and firmness and are all in the right direction. This new and fine effort of the Indian Society of Oriental Arts is likely to be of invaluable aid towards this reawakening; its magnificent illustrations are in themselves a revelation of the old beauty and greatness and, admirably selected and supported by illuminating articles, ought to be sufficient to open even the most blinded vision to the meaning and value of our ancient painting and sculpture.
The subjects of the four articles in this number are all of a considerable interest and touch points or raise and answer questions which have either a central importance or a vital though second-plane prominence in Indian art, and each article is a remarkably just, full, efficient and understanding interpretation of its subject.
The frontispiece is a panel from a Pallava temple at 
Mahabalipuram intended to convey at once the essential character and appeal of Indian sculpture by an example which offers no difficulty of understanding or appreciation even to a non-Indian mind or to an uninstructed knowledge, and it is accompanied by a brief but clear and sufficient article.
This example from one of the great styles and periods shows, as is justly said, and shows very perfectly, the Indian principle in the treatment of the human figure, the suppression of small particulars and trivial details in order to secure an extreme simplicity of form and contour, — the best condition for accomplishing the principal object of the Indian sculptor which was to fill the form with the utmost power of spiritual force and significance.
The figure of this princely doorkeeper of the temple in its union of calm, grave, sweet and restful serenity with a latent and restrained heroic energy in its stillness, noted by the writer as the distinctive power of this creation, is indeed equal, as he suggests, in its dignity and repose to any Greek statue, but it carries in it a more profound and potent meaning; it is a perfect interpretation of the still and intense Godward feeling, seized in one deep mood, in one fixed moment of it, which was the soul of the great ages of Indian religion.
There is here a perfection of form with a perfection of significance.
This restraint in power, this contained fullness opening an amplitude of infinite suggestion, is not rare or exceptional, it is a frequent greatness in the art of India2.
The second article on Garuda in Bengal and Java by Akshaya Kumar Maitreya, besides its interesting and discerning treatment of its subject, the inception and humanising of the Garuda figure and the artistic use of the mythus, touches an issue which has not yet, I think, received sufficient consideration, the place of the art of Gauda in the development of the spirit of Indian sculpture.
The putting side by side of the two sculptures from Java and Varendra, on one side the heroic force, majesty, dignity and beauty of the ancient art in one of its finest developments, on the other the moved nobility, grace and loveliness and the fervour of spiritual emotion and tenderness of a time when the antique Aryan spirit was softening into the sweetness of the religions of bhakti, makes of itself an illuminating suggestion.
This sculpture is eloquent of that transition and the art of Gauda with its lyrical sweetness of emotion and, at its best, suggestive depths, begins the curve of the stream of spiritual feeling which came down through the Vaishnava art and poetry, found its most gracious and lucid embodiment in the poets of Bengal, has now taken, enriched by new elements, a large and living development in the lyrics of Tagore and the paintings of the Calcutta school and has yet a vital part to play in the spiritual future of India.
Another article contains a full and discriminating account, copiously illustrated by numerous figures, of the history of the Kirtimukha, a standing feature in Indian architecture, and the development of its use as a constant decorative element and in Java a prominent structural motive. The right understanding of these details is a necessary equipment for the complete comprehension of the art of India. The writer handles his subject with a consummate mastery and includes in a small compass all that is needed to give us a full idea about this “glory face”. The one thing not included in his intention is its psychological significance, a question of great interest, for it is an evolution as the writer indicates from an element common to the ancient art of Asia and there were kindred things in Greece and mediaeval Europe. It is the result, I would suggest, of an imagination or an experience that has entered into the subtle worlds and found there a side of things dangerous and distorted and terrible that have yet to be compelled by the adventure of the self-conquering spirit into an element of divine harmony and significance.
The remaining article by Mr. E. Vredenburg on the continuity of pictorial tradition in the art of India treats a question of the most central importance and brings to it a fine aesthetic instinct even more necessary than historic and archaeological accuracy of information in such a discussion, for one may have the latter and yet miss the truth for lack of a more essential equipment of the art critic.
Mr. Vredenburg enters a still much-needed protest against the constant tendency to attribute a foreign origin to whatever survives of Indian creation.
The instances he gives are indeed evidences of an extraordinary perversity of judgment, such as the well-known refusal to leave the credit of the Tajmahal 
to India, “the numerous attempts that have been made to ascribe the Ajanta paintings to the Greeks, Persians or Chinese”, and last but not least colossally absurd, “the truly astounding statement that the Kangra paintings are of European inspiration and that they were painted for the English market”!
Only yesterday while reading Mr. Jouveau-Dubreuil’s able historical monograph I found myself brought up short by the sweepingly positive but hardly judicial and certainly not judicious statement that “the Deccan like the North was inspired by the Greek and Roman arts and the marbles of Amaravati can be compared to the sculptures of Gandhara”.
The plain fact is that whatever outside influences there may or may not have been in India as elsewhere, even the earliest work shows a characteristic Indian mentality and touch; and, as for Gandharan art, it has the air of an inefficient attempt of the Hellenistic mind to absorb this spirit rather than an effort of India to imitate Greece.
And in any case the great characteristic work could no more have been the creation of a foreign mind or of its influence than the sculptures of Phidias can be attributed to an Assyrian, Egyptian or Chinese origin.
A psychological insensibility to the spiritual significance of Indian work is probably at the root of these errors and, so long as that subsists, the most erudite knowledge will be no protection against gross misunderstandings.3
Mr. Vredenburg is chiefly concerned in this article with filling up the gap between the Ajanta frescoes and the later art of India.
He is able to do this up to the eleventh or twelfth century: for the beautiful coloured reproductions of exquisite Buddhist miniatures from an illuminated manuscript of that period which are the most attractive feature of this number, evidence a complete continuity of the Ajanta style.
Most striking are the two enlargements which show at once and conclusively that these miniatures are in their whole spirit, method and every 
characteristic reductions of the old style of mural painting.
He appeals also to the typically Ajantesque character of the coloured panels of Man Singh’s palace which date from the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
It will be interesting to follow the farther development of this argument in the forthcoming number.
I could wish I had space for adequate comment on the many points of stimulating interest with which this number abounds, but I have, I think, indicated enough to show that every lover of Indian art and culture ought to possess “Rupam”. He will find it one of the luxuries that are necessities.
Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 17.- The Hour of God and other writings.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 406 p.
1 An illustrated quarterly journal of Oriental Art, chiefly Indian, edited by O. C. Gangoly.
2 1972 ed.: Indian
3 The attitude and regard of the cultured European mind on Indian and Eastern art has immensely changed since this was written and there has been a great progress towards sympathy and understanding and even developments due to an oriental influence. There is indeed some survival of old prejudices but this is no longer the characteristic standpoint of the aesthetic mind of Europe towards the creative achievement of India or of Asia.