Bharat Mata
  by Abanindranath Tagore

 

Among the statements that attempted to define identity during the early years (1890-1910) of the Indian struggle for national independence from Britain was: India preserves that which preserves the world. That which preserves the world was India's famed spirituality, in which the subcontinent was considered to have a long unbroken tradition. The interpretative ambiguity of this statement is evidenced by the variety of directions that emerged as possible approaches to a post-colonial Indian identity. In the later and conclusive (1930-47) parts of the struggle for freedom, 'spirituality' took on a somewhat dubious secular, humanistic and socialistic meaning. Other definitions of national identity persisted however, and the contemporary neo-Nationalist resurgence in India, which rests on popular Hindu culture, is one such version.

The founder-prophets of nationalism in the subcontinent, such as Vivekananda or Sri Aurobindo, did not have moral idealism or standardized religion in mind, though, when they spoke of that which preserves the world. It was a living and modern subjective culture that they visioned as the destiny of the independent peoples of the subcontinent, a vision of society in which individuals pursued progress towards the experience and manifestation of an underlying spiritual reality. For them the genius of the subcontinent, its swadharma, was located in the continuous tradition of an experimental and synthetical inward practice, which had been creative and adaptive to changing historical conditions.

In recent times, this "spiritual view of India" has come in for much criticism, particularly following Edward Said's unflattering analysis of Orientalism. In this view, the Nationalist image of a spiritual Orient is the native furtherance of a mischievous or misguided epistemology at the service of colonial political intention. The invention of a spiritual East as the "other"' of a material West and its "realization" through patronage and propaganda is part of a western effort to convert erstwhile colonies into cultural capital for the museological enjoyment of the west, in this view - designs eminently satisfied by nationalistic spirituality. This view, however, in its exclusive focus on colonial intention, has ignored the cultural reality of the Indian subcontient - its native modes of knowledge and their strategic struggles for survival and expansion through hermeticism, adaptation or hybridity.

Spiritual experimentation has formed a very important part of that cultural reality, sensitive to changing historical conditions, and effective in influencing all strata of society throughout the subcontinent. Today, a little removed from the mainstream of academic discourse, this stream continues, and Divine Carriers is an attempt to present a sampling by contemporary Indian artists who aspire to a comprehensive spirituality and unity in the modern world.

From its early Buddhist beginnings, art in India has been the carrier of religious and mystic emotion and the subjective practices of yoga. Through a long uninterrupted history (2nd c. B.C. - 15th/16th c. AD.) this art has proliferated throughout the subcontinent and sought to express humanity's deepest meditations in form and posture, the realized ease and perfection of the deities. Figurative religious subjects and contemplation on episodes in spiritual literature are brought to life in sculpture and painting. Nature and secular life are represented, but as secondary elements in predominantly celestial narratives. Even the erotic is raised to the level of the metaphysical, expressing the calm rapture of the gods and goddesses, the image of a transcendental union of opposites. The means devised for these expressions are a deliberate simplification of form and the use of rhythmic line to enhance the meditational reality and unity of the compositions. Western naturalistic devices such as perspective and graded lighting are not part of the visual vocabulary of these artists, their aim being rather the recreation of states of profoundly inward consciousness, archetypal ideas that inform our existence and structure it with meaning. Nor are these ideas abstract intellectual analyses, but lived realities, depictions of and invitations to a higher dimension of perception and response within our lives, realities that are attainable through the transformative practices of yoga.

  Lakshman and Jatayu conversing
  at Panchavati hermitage

The first major stylistic disruption to the traditional Hindu art of the subcontinent came after the Islamic invasion and occupation of the thirteenth century. This led to a new expression that flowered during the rule of the Mughal kings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though the earlier classical art continued in non-occupied Hindu kingdoms and principalities, a new art form arose in the Muslim-ruled territories. The Mughals imported the painting style of Persia, mainly appearing in manuscript illustrations. These depicted subjects of a secular nature, relating to traditional narratives and to courtly life in the kingdom. Royal interest in portraiture and more elaborate settings of nature extended the thematic scope of painting and demanded from the artists a "new eye" turned towards outward detail, while the reduced scale of the page demanded the miniaturist's finesse. However, Persian secular art was also unconcerned with naturalistic verisimilitude, substituting perspective with structural abstraction and a two-dimensional unity achieved through rhythm and dramatic interaction between pictorial elements. In the hands of Indian artists, these paintings became embodiments of emotion-dense, mystic moods; the thematic material was subjectively transformed and substituted with lyrical representations of Sufi and Hindu devotional literature.

  New Court House
  by Thomas Daniel

The British occupation of India was well-established by the early nineteenth century and introduced the next major dislocation to its art. To the British mind, both the miniaturist and classical schools were unpalatable and viewed scornfully as the infantile scribbling of barbarians. Patronage of these schools was discouraged and replaced by a strong dose of European academic naturalism. Aesthetic imperialism decreed the aim of art was mimesis, that is, good art ought to imitate nature. By the end of the 19th c., the earlier traditions of Indian art had well nigh disappeared and been replaced by tutored versions of British Naturalism.

Through the latter half of the 19th c., a ferment of intellectual rethinking among the educated classes of Bengal, spawned what has been called "the Bengal Renaissance", a creative efflorescence which attempted to express a sense of native identity in forms adapted from the West. Art was the last of these expressions to be drawn into the ambit of cultural politics, finding a subjective idiom resistant to British Academic Naturalism, through the efforts of Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) and his students. This art was swiftly appropriated by the waxing struggle for independance and hailed as a nationalist art.

  Photo of
  by Abanindranath Tagore

Abanindranath's art, however, though deliberately invocative of subjective principles contrary to the dominant western Naturalism, did not lend its support unconditionally to a singular notion of a "traditional Indian Art". Sites of dialog between distinct local, regional, national and trans-national domains, his paintings can be seen as translations into a modern urban context of the hybrid mysticiam of medieval Bengal. Incorporating Vaishnav, Sufi, Zen and Pre-Raphaelite elements, he exemplifies a pluralistic and historically dynamic spirituality; his espousal of Indianness a strategic and performative extension of native ontologies within a colonial-national power matrix.

In this approach, Abanindranath wanted every painting to convey a mystic emotion, pathos, presence or yearning, making the work live inwardly as a subject of meditation. Thus, the work of Abanindranath and the best examples of his school can be seen as 'revivalistic' only in a modern expanded context - thematically Indian, but with a quality that embraces all influences that have historically integrated themselves in the national life; stylistically Indian, but permitting all techniques in the portrayal of subjective realities; subjectively Indian in expressing a creative and eclectic spirituality and mysticism, characteristic of the subcontinent.

This 'nationalist' phase of Indian art (today called the Bengal School) may be said to span the period 1890-1940, petering out through a progressive amplification of the weaknesses of its style, a mannered and decadent sentimentality. The history of art of the subcontinent following this period is marked by new concerns and the assimilation of new Western influences. The victory of subjectivity over mimesis in South Asia was paralleled by the contemporaneous overthrow of mimesis in Western art and its replacement by the 'subjective' principle, expressed as a sequential spectrum of rapidly succeeding isms - Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Social Realism, Abstraction and the like. From an initial aesthetic and philosophical subjectivism, this art moves to a post-modern grappling with society and the human psyche.

  Let There be Light
  by Shyamal Dutta Ray

Since the 1940s, the mainstream of contemporary art in India and Nepal has been largely swept by these concerns. The disappearance of the common enemy with political independence (15th August, 1947) brought an awakening to the enemies within, the subjections that characterize a post-colonial third-world society. Mirroring these concerns and fuelled by socialist and postmodern discourses, a dominant expressionism has emerged with its new thematic interests - the ugliness and squalor of consumerism, the angst of waking to godlessness, the perceptual and social analysis of economic, religious and sexual oppression. But below the agitated surface, the deeply inward life of the region has continued, like the hidden river Saraswati, with its undercurrent of serenity and heightened consciousness. Expanding once more from the Pan-Asianism of the Bengal School to a stylistic globalism, through the assimilation of the new experimental modes of the West, this art defines a new depth of the subjective, "ancient, yet ever young", in the language of the Veda used to hymn the goddess Dawn, carrying the message of a potent and transformative divinity.

Several of the artists represented in this exhibition can trace their lineage to the Bengal School. Working from diverse environments, ashramas, modern or ancient cities, or semi-rural suburban towns, they share a seeking for an experimental spirituality in their lives and their work, an inward depth that refashions ancient and recent history into "carriers of the spirit". The continuous intersection of South Asian art with traditional mythology, the spiritual literary tradition of the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and Tantras persists in these works, through representations that explore their communicative potential in present times. What are romantic and eclectic interests in the Bengal School, now transcend the boundaries of form in the use of symbolism, abstraction and new technology to express visionary states.

  Photo of
  Sri Aurobindo

Another important presence in this exhibition is that of the modern Indian philosopher and yogi, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950). After an education in England, leading to a Tripos in the Classics from Cambridge University, Sri Aurobindo returned to India (1893) to become one of the founders of Indian nationalism. In 1910, as a consequence of spiritual experiences resulting from yoga, Sri Aurobindo left active politics to work towards the materialization of a higher consciousness on earth. In 1920, he was joined by the French mystic, Mirra Alfassa, designated by Sri Aurobindo as his spiritual collaborator and called the Mother, and together they founded a community of seekers, aiming at the realization of a collective yoga, in which life is not denied, but seen as a field of manifestation for the spirit. Sri Aurobindo's highly articulate vision of a spiritual society, initiated during his nationalist days, thus came to find concrete embodiment in this community, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in South India. Today, this ashram is a flourishing community of two thousand inmates, and Sri Aurobindo's teachings, bridging the polarities of east and west, matter and spirit, yoga and life, have gathered increasing relevance worldwide. A number of the artists exhibited are inmates of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or followers of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Contemporary spiritual art in India is a diverse and exciting field, and Divine Carriers modestly attempts to introduce international viewers to it. All the work in this exhibition was created after 1965; all are informed with a concern for communicating visionary messages in the context of a national and global community of seekers for deeper living solutions in the contemporary world.

Debashish Banerji,
Curator, Divine Carriers.