This
art is an interpretation of the religious creed of Vaishnavism, the religion of
love, which inspired the poetry of Keshav Das, Sur Das, and Bihari. No doubt,
the verses of these poets inspired whole cycles of painting in Rajasthan, but
the manner in which Khushala, the Kangra artist, matched his imagination with
the poet Bihari's is unique indeed. With what depth of feeling, and sincerity
he has painted the love poems of Bihari! As in the art of China and Japan,
there is a close association of poetry and painting in the art of Kangra. The
aim of the artist was to embody in the picture the emotion caused by reading
the poem. In this he achieved unique success, and in the process of translating
poetry into painting, he also evolved an art which has lyrical quality. This
explains the emotive power of these paintings, which are really love lyrics
translated into line and colour. In no other art does one see such a successful
and harmonious association of literary and plastic ideas.
The
aesthetics of an age grows out of its environment, physical, cultural,
spiritual, technological and economic. We have already mentioned the cultural
and spiritual background of Kangra painting in the religion and poetry of the
Vaishnavas. We will now explain the influence of physical environment on Kangra
art. 'I do not want to exaggerate the importance of climatic factors,' says
Herbert Read, 'but the fact remains that when-ever an ideological movement whether
merely stylistic or profoundly religious and spiritual is transplanted into a
region of different climatic and material conditions, that movement is
completely transformed. It adapts itself to the prevailing ethos that emanation
of the soil and the weather which is the characteristic spirit of a
community.'" This is what happened to Mughal styles of painting when they
reached the Punjab hills. Mughal painting had already achieved excellence in
portraiture and scenes of the zenana. The fluid line and delicate colouring of
some of the Mughal paintings is truly admirable. It is the religious paintings,
however, in which princes and emperors are shown in conversation with saints,
which are the most inspired products of the Mughal school, and have a rare
mystic quality which is the hall-mark of great art. Such paintings are,
however, few and the main preoccupations of the Mughal artists were durbar and
hunting scenes, and portraiture. It is only when the later Mughal style reached
the valley of Kangra and absorbed the elements of a new environment that it
blended beauty and lyrical quality with exquisite flow of line. Mughal
paintings were usually painted against the background of the drab and
monotonous plains of northern India. When the artists introduced the gently
undulating hills, rivulets and the characteristic vegetation of the Shivaliks,
painting in the Kangra valley acquired grace and loveliness. In fact, it is the
passionate love of hill scenery which dominates Kangra painting and lends it
charm. The sophistication of the court, its dullness, and regimentation were
forgotten. And instead the atmosphere of the hill village, with its joy,
freedom, contact with nature, and serenity, makes its appearance. Take away the
hills, the rivers, and the groves of trees from these paintings, and see how
much they lose in beauty!
The
Kangra valley is undoubtedly one of the beauty spots of the world, and people
who are sensitive to beauty of nature, when they happen to visit it, come back
full of praise for it. On the one side is a snow-covered mountain range
towering to an altitude of 16,000 feet above sea-level. Below it is a green,
sloping valley, at an altitude ranging from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, strewn with
enormous lichen-stained boulders. Tropical mangoes and plantains jostle with
temperate cherries, crab apples, medlars and rambling roses. No scenery
presents such sublime and delightful contrasts. Carefully terraced fields,
irrigated by streams which descend from perennial snows, present a picture of
rural loveliness and repose which cannot be seen elsewhere in India. The
terraces sparkle like mosaics of mirrors when they are flooded with water in
the month of June. Then follows the velvet green paddy crop. Green is a
soothing colour but it is hard to match the rich shade of paddy plants which
shine like emeralds in the sun. Nowhere in the vegetable kingdom can we see
such an exquisite shade of green, so comforting and so pleasant. Spread all
over are homesteads of farmers, buried in groves of mangoes, bamboos,
plan-tains and kachnar. Unlike most hillmen, the people of Kangra are conscious
of the beauty of their land. In one of their folk songs, they thus pay homage
to their native hills:
Oh mother Dhauladhar, you have made Kangra a paradise.
Green, green hills, and deep, deep gorges with rivers flowing.
Lithe and handsome young men, and lovely women who speak so
gently.
Oh, my dear land of Kangra, you are unique.
If
common people could feel the beauty of the valley, sensitive artists could not
remain immune to it. In fact, they responded enthusiastically to the charm of
gentle hills and rolling valleys.
It
is, however, surprising that though the artists were living and working in a
valley, where the snow-covered mountain range of the Dhauladhar is constantly
in sight, in none of the paintings do we find the snows painted. The Dhauladhar
is perhaps too domineering, cold and forbidding. That is why it seems the
artists preferred painting the gently undulating Shivalik hills among which
they lived.
The
Kangra artists were hereditary painters who worked in the quiet of their
cottages in the sylvan retreats of the Kangra valley. Sons and nephews were
usually accepted as pupils and they served the master artists by carefully
grinding mineral colours, a work requiring skill and patience. It is thus they
were initiated into the art and technique of painting. Life was simple, and the
Rajas provided foodgrains and a cow for milk to the artists. Whenever they
presented a beautiful painting to the Raja, they were handsomely rewarded. Thus
their economic needs were taken care of by their patrons, and they were free to
devote their entire time to painting. Miniature painting requires infinite
patience and care, and it is a type of art which could flourish only in an age
of leisure, under a benevolent feudalistic system. At the close of the
nineteenth century, art also languished because of the lack of patronage. Apart
from this, the inspiration was gone, and the generation of geniuses, who
painted the well-known masterpieces, had also passed away. Why, in particular
periods, certain countries reach a high level of creativeness, is one of the
unsolved riddles of history. The spell of creative enthusiasm which gripped the
Kangra valley for a century and then ebbed away likewise remains only partially
explained.
Here
is an art which celebrates life and love. And with what delicacy the ecstasies
of love are depicted! This art is truly a record of human joy. The eyes of
lovers meet and a world of feeling and tenderness is revealed in them. There
are chance encounters in the courtyard, and Radha who is keeping her secret
from the prying and inquisitive sakhis, conveys her message in the language
which the lovers alone mutually understand. Radha meets Krishna suddenly near
the entrance door of her house. While he looks at her with hungry eyes, she
stands veiled, with her face bent down, and she looks like a painted image, a
picture of innocence, swayed by the crosscurrents of youthful passion and
virgin modesty. We find her gazing at Krishna from the terrace, the windows and
balconies of her home. With what elegance the artist has depicted the
restlessness of love!
Clad
in a white sari, the lovely girl is cooking. The beauty of her face, and the
charm of her personality have brightened the kitchen.
Another
characteristic of these paintings is the manner in which dramatic relations and
expectancy are expressed through design, as well as expression, on the faces of
the lovers.
Others
are present, and, due to modesty, physical contact is not possible. She glances
at Krishna with loving eyes through her veil, and on some pretext she moves
away brushing her shadow with his shadow.
The
lovers are standing in the balconies of their houses facing each other. Their
fixed gaze has provided a rope on which their hearts travel fearlessly like
rope-dancers.
Demonstrates
the strength, as well as the weakness, of this form of art. While the delicate
profile of the Nayika is so fascinating, the full face of her companion is
positively repulsive. When these artists make an attempt to paint the full face
they fail.
Clad
in white, the lady has gone into the moon-light to meet her lover. It is white
everywhere and hidden in it only the fragrance of the body enables her sakhi to
follow her. The white radiance of the moon and its pale silvery light has been
marvellously evoked by the artist.
The
artist has shown considerable skill in painting night scenes. The night is
pitch-dark and the lane is narrow. The lovers coming from opposite directions
brush against each other, and only the light touch of their bodies enables them
to recognize each other. How brilliantly the artist has painted the inky sky,
resplendent with stars!
Against
the background of a paddy field and her home stands the demure village beauty.
Wearing a fillet, and holding a stick, stands she of the slender waist, with
eyes downcast, unconscious of her innocent charm and beauty. A garland
decorates her round breasts.
Excepting
two, all the paintings of the Sat Sal are designed in an oval with an arabesque
in the border.
Apart
from forty paintings, out of which twenty-seven have been reproduced in this
book, there are about twenty drawings or unfinished paintings. This suggests
that the artist who had taken up the project of illustrating the seven hundred
verses of Bihari may have died, leaving his work unfinished. It seems that the
inscriptions on the back of the paintings were written later on. Out of the
paintings reproduced in this book hardly ten bear correct inscriptions. The
remainder have no inscriptions or have wrong ones, the situation shown in the
painting being entirely different from that described in the poem. Out of the
drawings ten are reproduced in this chapter.
The
Nayika sits under a leafless tree, immersed in grief, while her companions show
deep concern. The love-sick Nayika is sitting in the courtyard reclining
against a pillow. Her sakhi thus addresses her: "O deceitful girl! you
cannot conceal your feeling of love, even if you make a million efforts. Your
simulated indifference is itself disclosing that your heart is saturated with
love."
In the
Nayika is sitting behind the trellis and is looking at Krishna, who is standing
below. The poet says, "Although slanderous talk surrounds them, the lovers
do not give up the joy of exchanged glances." The anxiety of the Nayika to
have a glimpse of Krishna is great. The sakhis are standing on the stairs.
Commenting on the eagerness of the Nayika, one says to the other, "Look
hither a while, if you wish to see a marvel. Having torn the fence with her
fingers, she has been looking at him with unblinking eyes for a long
time."
Both
the poetry and painting have a spirit of closeness to life, and in Radha,
Krishna and their friends and playmates, we find farmers and herdsmen of the
Kangra Valley, in their familiar surroundings of thatched cottages, nestling on
the spurs of mountains, against the background of lakes and rivers.
Though
it depicts the life of the rustics in the villages of the valley, Kangra
painting is not a folk art. It is essentially an aristocratic art, the patrons
of which were the Rajas who had fine sensibility and good taste. Thus, like the
best art of Europe, Kangra painting is the art of an elite.
The
Gita Govinda is a forest idyll, and in its Kangra paintings, the drama of the
loves of Radha and Krishna is played in the forest, or along the river-bank. In
the paintings of the Bhagavata Purana, the incidents in the life of the boy
Krishna are depicted against the background of the forests of Vrindavana and
the river Yamuna. It is the trees of the forest, and the current of the river
which are most prominent in these paintings. On the other hand, in the
paintings of the Sat Sal-the background of architecture provides the setting
for the love drama of Radha and Krishna. It is against the background of
straight lines of walls, windows and balconies that the games of love are
carried on by Radha and Krishna, watched by the sakhis.
The
parallel straight lines and right angles create a compositional pattern of
restfulness and calm, illustrating Kafka's observation that 'closed areas are
more stable.' Here we find the beauty of geometry in harmony with the beauty of
the female form. Against the repose of the static architectural compositions,
we feel the restlessness of love. While the architectural setting has
precision, the human figures have a fluid grace matching the elegance of a
waterfall against the straight vertical lines of a mountain. With what gliding
grace lovely female forms flit across courtyards! And always there is a pair of
confidantes discussing the course of love of the divine couple. They are
unhappy and have an expression of serious concern on their faces, when there is
dissension or misunderstanding among the lovers, and they are never tired of
coaxing, cajoling, or giving advice. When the course of love runs smoothly,
they are unrestrainedly happy.
The
knitting together of form and colour into a coordinated harmony is the essential
of great art. In these Kangra paintings, form and colour are so blended that
the effect is musical. To achieve such a harmony, the artist made use of both
line and colour in these paintings. The line which he used is the musical,
rhythmical line, which expresses both movement and mass. The type of line which
Blake admired, and regarded as the golden rule of art as well as life, is this:
"The more distinct, sharp and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the
work of art, and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak
imagination." And what a rhythm the dancing line creates, a pure limpid
harmony! That is why these pictures are so comforting and so soothing, like the
concertos of great Western composers of music such as Bach and Mozart. This
line was effectively supplemented by colours the blues, yellows, greens, and
reds, the pure colours of earth and minerals, which shine like jewels and have
not been dimmed by the passage of time. The combination of fluid line and
glowing colours ultimately produced an art which combines the beauty of figure
with dignity of pose, set against the calm of the hills.
Writer Name: M.S. Randhawa
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