Indian ART or what
In
an interesting lecture about Anand Coomarswamy’s photography, the material
intrigued me. Mr. Chanchal there compared works of modern photographer Alfred
Steiglitz and those of Coomarswamy, both as artists, art promoters as
significant contributors to photography as an art form. Though the lecture was
fine, the material brought up numerous old questions upfront. With interesting references
to his essays like Hands and feet in Indian
Art, and the photographs taken of ample limbs by the two artists, the need
to re-look at Coomarswamy’s works and impact on art vitalizes. Rather one would
like to look back at the so referred Indian revival art of late 19th to early 20th
century.
In
speaker here tried to locate relationship of oriental with the modern western
art, also where the multiple limbs in Indian imagery are cited as a very
motion/cubist oriented trait by Coomarswamy. Infact in some exuberant photography
of Nataraja,[1] he
expresses his thought better, (with an interesting applaud about the sculpture
from Roger Fry and Rodin).
Although
there is a dire need to interrogate the Indian revivalism[2],
is it always essential to prove all with reference to western art
accomplishments? Whether oriental took from west or vice versa, how does it
elevate or demean any art? There are undoubted influences, borrowings,
parallels in any art forms/works, but shouldn’t art history be engaging itself
in finding sources of idea itself than locating what supersedes. I have no clue
how would it elevate art if we are able to prove that rodin took ideas from Indian
sculpture or Indians already were aware of cubist simplification. It would be more fruitful to find roots of
things where and how they exist. Here we have people trying to elevate Indian art
above western while our ASI labels the monastery study halls and Viharas in Ellora as dining halls and
music halls respectively, and guides narrate
jatakas saying bluntly that Dr. Ambedkar is the latest bodhisattava (with all due respects to Dr. Ambedkar).
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