Gallery

Artist: Gayatri Desai

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Moghul Miniatures : Reflection of flora and fauna

      

Jahangir with Falcon

     When we look at paintings, we slowly realize how these paintings communicate to us. Each line, each form, each colour, the spatial arrangement speaks volumes. By studying these paintings, we can realize what kind of culture prevailed during that period. The very word ‘culture’ itself denotes lot of things like material culture, the way of living, the behavioral aspect, tastes,  ideas, concepts and values. Keeping all these things in mind, one can have a look at these rich paintings for deeper understanding. When I look at these mogul miniature paintings in the backdrop of  fast growing urbanisation in recent years, which is a matter of concern for all of us,   these  paintings beautifully unfold before us the richness of vegetation, which the artists have captured in fine lines and colours. Now cities are growing both horizontally and vertically because of the greediness of real estate people and that too at the cost of beautiful, rich vegetation.  If urban development continues in the same manner, the next generations will see vegetation only in paintings and books.       

Moghul  and Rajput miniatures, two independent schools of art,  are considered to be the cream of Indian art, which flourished from 15^th  to 17^th century. The Moghul Dynasty was established in India by the emperor Babar. Emperor Babar was much more in interested in expanding his empire, so he could not give much attention to the developments of art and architecture, though he had a strong liking for art, literature and music.  But the emperors who followed  Babar have given India a huge collection of unforgettable miniatures  and architecture of excellence to India.  The emperor Barbar’s son Humayun, when he ascended to the throne, was forced in to exile to Persia in the beginning as one of his generals rose against him. Emperor Humayun as a refugee was given shelter by Safavid Dynasy which was ruling Persia then. During his stay in Persia, Humayun got acquainted with the Persian art and artists. As a result, while coming back to India after defeating the general with the help of Safavid  emperor, he brought a couple of famous artists from Persia. Those Persian artists and Indian artists worked together and produced a body of interesting works , which is the fusion  of Indian and Persian  sensibilities.  Today also, we see these works with great pleasure as these have tremendous charm.

Coming to the point, in Moghul miniatures we see a lot of importance being given to vegetation. The rulers and the artists as well gave priority to detail about the vegetation. It shows their close connectivity with nature and love for it. While going through the pages of Moghul history, I read that emperor Jahangir, the grandson of Humayun, was very much interested in collecting the rare spies of birds, plants and flowers. He used to instruct his ministers to collect rare things and document them through painting. And these paintings were preserved in a systematic manner in a chronological way.  As a result, we see mogul miniatures, especially the borders embellished with beautiful flora and fauna. Most of the portraits of these emperors and their family members have beautiful borders interlaced with flowers, birds and plants.  Human being as a part of nature, his/her association with nature is essential for harmonious living and these borders inhabited with vegetation reflect the same concept.

Shah Abbas II with falcon

During his time, the emperor Jehangir used to get his portraits done by famous artists. As a result, we see a series of portraits of Jehangir in various moods. Not only his portraits, his family members too had got their portraits done by the court painters. The court painter culture had developed during the reign of Jehangir, who was very much interested in art, literature and music. Those highly respected court painters were very skilled   and  each one was expert in a certain field. Sometimes the artists expert in a certain field used paint that part and other artists used to contribute their expert skills to the remaining parts, so it used to be a collective work. So, most of the paintings are not signed by the artists.  Due  to the existence of these court painters, the practice of painting had continued for a long time. The emperor Jehangir had an eye for beautiful and rare species;  the rich portrait of Jehangir with Falcon on his right hand is the indication of his genuine interest in nature. The falcon seems to be in a sweet mood as wings have been raised to cheer up the majesty and the emperor is looking at the bird intently. The most interesting fact is the long gown of the emperor has been covered with animals like deers, tigers, birds and plants.  Roland Barthes has written extesively about the dress and decoding, and we can apply the same decoding theory here to get deeper meanings.

Here is one more painting belonging to a dynasty called Safavid Dynasty, which  ruled Persia then. The portrait belongs to Shah Abbas II who ruled Iran from 1642 to 1666. He was the seventh Shah of Safavid dynasty. The emperor Jehangir’s portrait and the portrait of Shah AbbasII have similarities. Shah Abbas has been shown with a falcon on his right hand and the borders have been covered with the thick vegetation with animals and birds. Life of animals and birds has been observed closely and depicted naturally by the artists in both the paintings.  Romancing, copulating, killing – all have been depicted through delicate sensuous lines and colours. Though these borders give pleasure at the first sight, on the second and third look, the paintings reveal the secrets of the vegetation. The birds, animals, tress, plants have been rendered very realistically.

The Moghul Miniatures are a source of eternal inspiration for artists and the onlookers. Though small in size, they speak volumes.      

Gallery

 Artist: Madhu Desai

Untitled          6'x4'         Acrylic

Monsoon Friends       4'x4'         Acrylic

Monsoon friends        4'x4'          Acrylic

Art Blog by Gayatri Desai: Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci: World Art Day i...

Art Blog by Gayatri Desai: Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci: World Art Day i...:  Art has evolved significantly since the classical period and it needs a deeper look and understanding. Marcel Duch...

Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci: World Art Day is celebrated in the name of Leonardo Da Vinci - The contributions of Michelangelo, 20th century painters Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp are also important. Next to Leonardo Da Vinci, Marcel Duchamp is considered as the most Influential Artist all over the World. Art has evolved significantly since the classical period and it needs a deeper look and understanding.

 Art has evolved significantly since the classical period and it needs a deeper look and understanding.

Marcel Duchamp, who had worked in cubism, futurism and Dadaism, finally rejected the whole process as retinal art and turned towards conceptual art ­– which focused on mind – ideas. Like Leonardo, he was also interested in knowledge purely, so for many years he did not produce any work of art. One fine day, he keeps a man- made object namely Fountain as a piece of art, and that one art work revolutionize the whole art world.

Vitruvan Man’s drawing represents the Renaissance Humanism, because the perfect measurements of human body and proportions have been got with the scientific approach   – through the combined study  of art and science. Humanism covered many aspects under its wing and tried to revive many   legacies like literary legacy, moral  legacy and  classical antiquity. During this period, grammar, rhetoric, literature and moral values were appraised. Individual expression, intellectuality, and emotions were given priority.

When I was studying in art college, we always heard about Monalisa first and then about Leonardo. Since those college days, the painting of Monalisa has remained an enigma and the most sought after painting. Every artist seems to be obsessed with that painting. What has made that painting so popular? Now a day, anything can become famous and viral because of the social sites. But since decades the painting has been in news in or the other way. Because of today’s technological facilities, becoming famous or getting known to everyone has become very simple.

When my husband and myself planned to visit Kassel during Documenta, in Germany, we also decided to visit Paris to see the world famous painting Monalisa. We missed it narrowly by hours or by a day. We were there right in the louvre museum, but the museum had a holiday on that particular day. Instead of going through the Louvre Museum, we visited nearby another museum which had housed colorful impressionistic paintings, that was also worth visiting as we had opportunity to see some unseen paintings of Picasso and Vangough. Monalisa remained a dream for us.

This year 2019, artists all over the world are celebrating the 500 th year of the artist Leonardo Da Vinci death anniversary, a contemporary of Michelangelo. An Italian painter well versed in many fields. He was a genius! His enormous interest in human anatomy led him to dissect nearly sixty two human dead bodies. For his curiosity, he was penalized and kept into the prison as neighbors complained about his eccentric habit. His sketch books reflect how deeply he was engaged and engrossed in to anatomical study. In one of his sketch books, one gets to see a number of sketches of fetus, in different stages. All these have been documented with utmost care and precision. Under each sketch, notes have been made. But the writing is from right to left. Only with the mirror image, one can grasp the details. Some analysts are of the opinion that Leonardo wanted to keep his studies a secret.  

The contribution of renaissance period to the field of art is enormous. The innovation of linear perspective, scientific approach to art study, especially human and animal anatomical studies, light and shade usage, exploration of deep emotions, and intellectuality are the main characteristics of Renaissance. According to Leonardo” lights which may illuminate opaque bodies are of 4 kinds. These are; diffused light as that of the atmosphere; And Direct, as that of the sun; The third is Reflected light; and there is a 4th which is that which passes through [translucent] bodies, as linen or paper etc.[5]”  The study of light  enabled the artists to give three dimensional effect to the objects on two dimensional surface.  Linear perspective also helped to the three dimensional portraying of objects.   Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael are the famous artists of this period. Of the three, Leonardo turned out to be the most outstanding artist as his  studies continued into the various fields throughout his life time. We can trace and link today’s designs of helicopter and parachutes to the earlier futuristic sketches of Leonardo, who had designed these in the renaissance period itself, but the sad thing is, they remained only in sketch books. He was successful in architectural, armory and cartographic designs too. Throughout his life, he was interested in gaining knowledge. This habit made him to work on a painting again and again, and experiment. As a result, most of his paintings remained unfinished, because he never got satisfied with any of his paintings. According to the history pages, he has completed only fifteen paintings, and of those fifteen paintings Monalisa is also one, which remains unfinished with charismatic and enigmatic smile.

 To get the human and animal anatomy correct, he used to dissect the bodies so as to study muscles and bones and the movement in particular. As a result of this rigorous study, the enigmatic smile of Monalisa has become so famous and lures millions of visitors to Lovure museum. His sketch books speak volumes about his passion for studying the objects scientifically. Nude figure studies became very popular in the renaissance period. Freestanding sculptures became popular and these could be viewed from all the sides as these were freed from the walls. Because of his outstanding knowledge and contributions to the various fields, Leonardo was considered a renaissance man.

The famous Louvre Museum has a long history before it was converted into museum.  In the beginning the museum was a fortress, which was used as a defensive enclosure for Paris and it was built by King Phillippe Aguste in 1190. As its defensive role, the fortress used to monitor the unwanted entries from the river Siene to the castle. When Paris grew, the fortress lost its significance as guarding fortress. Then the castle was being used for occasional stay for the monarchs. For some years, it remained as the main castle for the successive kings, but when Louis xiv shifted to another palace, this place evolved as a center for art in 1725. Some artists used to work and stay here in this place – artists like Fragonard, Cardin used to stay here.

After the French Revolution in 1789, following the over throwing of monarchy, the government decided to convert this castle into museum. Now this famous museum has around 35000 art works and 10 million people visit the gallery every year. Main attraction of the museum is Monalisa painting.

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Photo Albums: Nostalgic moments of life

An old album containing several small and big snaps unfolds before me. I turn the pages passionately to catch the glimpses of my siblings, parents, relatives and friends.  With the passage of time, the pages of the album have worn out and become brittle; the photographs too have turned yellowish and look faded. The yellowed photographs frisk me from present to the past, with nostalgic memories flooding. The thin transparent papers alternating after each thick black sheet of paper have crumpled at the edges; some holes too have appeared in their fragile bodies. With the threads of space and time, these albums have preserved our memories and lineage gracefully over all these years. These albums stand as testimony for the evolving culture. Long skirt with a small top and a dupatta was the ideal dress for the grown up girls then.   Girls and women in their early thirties or so, sporting two plaits was quite a common sight. Slowly, the two plaits would turn into one plait or into a bun, or in to a knot as one aged gracefully accepting reality. These hair styles manifest the trends of those day, in the photographs. We as school girls have been photographed with colorful ribbons made with various materials and eye- catching designs with folded plaits. In those days, no woman was using safety pins to keep the sari in place, especially the pallu. In these old photographs, I look at myself and my

friends in saris, shoulders fully covered with sari pallu. We really look funny, innocent, and beautiful.

At the studios, the photographs of young women flaunting their long single plaits embellished with jasmine or sevantige flowers were quite common in 60s and 70s. For these exclusive photographs, the plait used to get extended with artificial supplements. The girls stood with their backs, with their embellished plaits, facing the long studio mirrors, which reflected the decoration of the plaits vividly. Every house showcased this kind of photos in the main hall in those days. For sheer fun,  sometimes, small boys would be photographed being metamorphosed into girls, with girl’s attire and hair decoration. Next comes the description of convocation photographs. In every house, a row of convocation photographs used to adorn the walls of the hall declaring proudly the number of graduates in the family. The medium sized photographs in black and white color, framed either in black or white color frames, used to be seen at each and every house in 60s and 70s. A graduate clad in a black gown and holding with both hands a rolled up certificate obliquely in front of her/his chest was the typical pose for convocation photographs. Sometimes, the poses slightly differed— a person would be sitting or standing near a tall table, which narrowed at the top. On the table top, a flower vase would appear invariably. This type of photographs was quite common in the albums, in those days.

When I was studying in college, in the early 70 s, the convocation function used to be a very big event for the graduates. In 60s and 70s, every graduate used to await this event with all the eagerness. After completing the course, it was everyone’s dream to attend the event in the black gown and get the certificate. Only the gold medalists and rank holders would receive the certificate by the chief guest of the prestigious function; others at the office.  When we friends graduated in 73, we were looking forward to the convocation function very eagerly. Standing up in queue, we got our respective gowns and certificates at the university office. On the function day, we wore those gowns  which were not tailor made for our physique, feeling a little bit uncomfortable, but with a bright smile on our face. A sense of fulfillment all of us had on that day.

  During the convocation event, the studios used to be very busy as graduates thronged