Unknown
Indian (active Rajasthan, Mewar)
Shiva as Bhairava Dancing, with Vishnu and Brahma as Musicians, 1750-75
color and gold on paper
7 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.
SBMA, Gift of Julia Emerson
1994.53.3
RESEARCH PAPER
Bharaiva Dancing, dated 1760, is a Rajput painting from the Mewar School of central India, a miniature opaque watercolor on paper, just 7 7/8 x 5 3/8 inches. It shows Siva, the indefinable absolute, in one of his many manifestations; this time a Gajantaka, the slayer of the Elephant Demon, Nila (the “Dark”), who raised the animal’s flayed skin behind his head, dancing fiercely. In the dance, he is Bhairava, the god of dread and terror, but in a prettified rendition, calm-faced and gesturing amiably, just two-armed. He wears the necklace of Brahma heads that he cut off in past eons, the terrible deed of patricide for which he roams the cremation grounds in reparation.
This artist surrounds the god’s head of short black hair with a golden nimbus, overlapping the leaping elephant, instead of the traditional presentation of whirling hair. With a geometrical patterning, two celestials in cock-shaped boats scatter white blossoms from the rectangular heaven to mark the spot where he dances. Two heads have dropped off his beads. It is a four-headed, four-armed Brahma on the right, beating the drum as Indra, god of sky and storms, clashes the cymbals. Mewar paintings were often framed in bands of red, yellow or orange, a reference to music.
This painting appeared in a major exhibition of Indian art, Manifestations of Shiva, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1981, subsequently traveling to Seattle and Los Angeles.
Indian art historian, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy states that Rajput painting had two distinct meanings. 1. It intended to refer to Indian miniatures of the 16th to 19th centuries that were not-Islamic in spirit and execution to separate the foreign Mughal style of painting from a more national form of Indian expression. 2. It aimed at vindication of a type of art connected with a special group of non-Muslims, the soldierly Rajputs. He continues Rajput and Mughal styles although two distinct contemporary styles of painting could not be more diverse in temper.
Mughal art is interested in individuality, not an idealization of life, but a refined and accomplished representation of one very magnificent phase of it. It is dramatic, splendid and attractive, but it rarely touches the deep springs of life. Its greatest successes are achieved in portraiture and in the representation of courtly pomp and pageantry. The subject matter is of purely aristocratic and professional interest. However magnificent its brief achievement, was but an episode in the long history of Indian painting, it was too extreme to survive. Rajput art, hieratic and popular and often essentially mystic, belongs to the mainstream. It is universal.
The Technique:
A painting was the work of several artists. The master of the studio began by drawing the model on the emperor’s advice. Various artists, each with their own specialty, carried on from there. Paper, introduced to India in the 14th Century, was first prepared by crushing the grain with a polisher. Then the sketch was traced either in black ink or in graphite. Next, a layer of translucent white was applied to the composition, and the details drawn with red lines. Finally the colors made of plant or animal based pigments, mixed with glue or gum Arabic was applied.
Indian miniature paintings in gouache on paper flourished as the art of the courts from the 16th through the 19th centuries, dependent on the patronage of the presiding rulers. Entwined in this medium is the history of Islamic conquest and Indian tradition as imported Persian artisans worked with native craftsmen in the palaces of Mughal emperors or Hindu nobility, eventually merging their skills and their styles.
Formalized vegetation in lush splendor, freedom from perspective, and some freedom from symmetry in composition were Persian elements. Indian artists were products of an intensely romantic tradition with a strong rhythmic line and geometric conventions of organization, some bringing to the mix the Jainism style of vigorous distortion and others a vigorous naturalism. Finally, Western influence introduced mood, perspective and character delineation.
The Mughal court in Delhi commissioned art to reflect itself, focusing on its rulers and their pastimes. Brilliant and varied Persian colors applied with enamel-like delicacy was used to convey luxury and refinement. In the mid 16th century, Himayun brought with him from Persia two court painters to instruct his son, Akbar, who married a Hindu princess and expanded the court to include Hindu painters, whom he preferred because they painted “closer to nature”. Miniatures of the time were executed on fine linen. Akbar as emperor aspired to create a philosophy that would reconcile Muslim, Hindu and Christian thought. On his walls he hung European paintings of Christian subjects and Dutch landscapes. “It always seems to me,” he said, “that a painter has very special means for recognizing God, for when he draws a living thing and contemplates the thing in detail, he is driven to thinking of God, who creates life which he cannot give his work.”
His son Jahangir brought in fine papers, brushes and expensive pigments. This included ground lapis lazuli and gold leaf. He demanded that artists record the wonders he encountered on this travels. In the next generation, Indian artists under Shah Jahan assimilated European techniques into their style. Subsequently, painting languished in Mughal courts with the reign of Aurangzeb, devoted Muslim who frowned on figural art. Artists had to leave the imperial household to seek other patrons.
Where Indian nobility reigned, art most often depicted the great legends of the Hindu religion and the erotic outpourings of its poets. The intense reds, yellow, greens and the blues of Indian miniatures expressed the passion of the characters portrayed. Such were the characteristics of Rajput painting, which had an air of folk art in those independent city-states that maintained a measure of independence thanks to their geographic isolation. Color was not linked to realism as in Mughal art but more arbitrary as in modern painting, concerned with expressing the atmosphere of an idea, it’s Rasa.
Rajput style integrated two influences: 1) that of the Indo-Persian painters who migrated there and 2) the Indian Medieval traditions of Jain and Hindu manuscripts made in western India for wealthy monasteries and merchants. Jainism styles grew out of necessity when that culture was threatened and its artists recorded their beliefs in hastily drawn works, free of perspective, lacking in depth and modeling. This style persisted after the dangers had passed as a kind of respectful tradition. Hindu art, in contrast, was naturalistic, voluptuously defining the female figure with romantic delight, drawing her with wide staring eyes in the Indian manner.
The four Indian miniature paintings that have come into the Santa Barbara collection as gifts from Julia Emerson originated in the 18th century in three different settings: in Mewar, Guler, and late Mughal in Delhi. All illustrate Hindu legends of gods and heroes, one of Siva, one of Krishna, and two of Rama and his beloved Sita.
Written By Shirley Dettman and prepared for the Web by Mooneen Mourad 2005 / Loree Gold 2006
BIBLIORGAPHY
Archer, W.G., Indian Painting, the Iris Color Books, London, 1956
Kramrisch, Stella, Manifestations of Shiva, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1981
Lee, Sherman E., A History of Far Eastern Art, Fourth Edition, Harry N.
Abrams, Include, New York, 1982
Rawson, Philip S., Indian Painting, Universe Books, Inc., 1961