Experience notes of *Meta-Sounds-Visuals with a Wandering Sound Alchemist Michael Northam at Santiniketan
Centre for interdisciplinary art (CIA) Kalabhavan, Visva-Bharati University offers the possibility of sound art practice for visual art students through a discourse during one month long workshop by the artist in residence – Michael Northam.
Michael, defining himself as trans-media artist, is a US born wandering sonic artist who is fascinated by the mystery of nature. He started his journey as a creative artist in 1991 and has been continuously researching, excavating and exploring new artistic languages. Which has been a path through; graphic design to photography, then transformed to phonography, to performance, to sonic sculptures, and now to sonic compositions or installations. I think he will continue this meandering path untill he becomes satisfied with the medium, and at present, it seems- he is satisfied with the magic of meta-sound.
His work is spiritual and metaphysical, which comes from Tibetan vajrayana Budhism. But I don’t want to talk about that now. Simply, I would like to relate the energy of sound and its potential in its creative process. Which is quiet unwritten, philosophical, and purely experiential.
We met him on the 5th of February, the day we celebrated Artist K G Subramanyam’s birthday- exhibiting his final works, inaugurated by Manida’s daughter on the occasion shared by the whole Kalabhavan organised by Visva- Bharati University and Seagull Foundation for Arts followed by a musical evening. Budhadev Das played Esraj at the courtyard. The visual accommodated to that environment was cool enough in the last part of the winter season this year; Green of the trees in the typical Santiniketan-yellowish light background. Sanchayan da introduced Anudev to Michael Northam ;well, suggested for a collaboration with him.
Back to the Sound art workshop organised by the CIA. Faculty coordinators include Sanchayan Ghosh (painting), Arpon Mukherjee (graphics), Anshuman Das Gupta (art history), Sajad Hussain Hamdani(sculpture), and Sisir Sajana (design).
Sanchayanda and Arponda opened the CIA-hall for the workshop which was not in use for long time. So we had to do some set up to make and feel the workshop-studio under the leadership of Michael. We started working as a core team.
Michael Northam is an amazing contemporary sonic artist who, I would say ; deeply rooted. Diligent, our conversation continued while we worked setting up stereo speakers and mixer.
I wonder why in India we are forced to pay more than international standards for the ‘good quality’ products? I can say this as Anudev was researching some electronic equipments for our needs- like camera, microphone, speakers… in these days, where the advanced and quality products are not available to Indian, even through shipping. And when we find some better one on Amazon India, we have to pay high which is more than affordable to a common man. Michael was sharing the price of his mini rig speaker: Indian Rupees 5000/- in US for his UK made speaker. When we check it in India it costs 22000/- !!! What to say… ?~ That’s another matter, any ways.
Michael often talks about spontaneous ideas, experiments with sounds from found objects and location recordings. We witnessed him collecting recordings from faucets. Later, trashed sewing mechanical machine found on the ground floor, is brought to the CIA-hall. Michael and Anudev were creating various sounds out of rubbing the plastic led surface against that machine wheel. Later on, the experimentation was on the sound field of a conch. For him, creating a sound-effect for a particular situation is also very important. Rather that is special about his sonic works. This surfacial-textural sound is what he talks about the ‘stochastic topographies’ in his works. Various surface-texture sound perceptions are just like the tactile and visual inputs of material surfaces. Observation and listening is essential for knowing the material.
The fundamental starting is ‘listening’. Do we have time to listen? Not in usual conditions among us or we are loosing the power of listening some way. According to Michael, listening is the initial and crucial criteria to enter in to sonic arts. Therefore he planned the workshop with listening, the awareness sessions and recording and editing, the technical sessions.
Why don’t you work with music department as it is about sound compositions? The sudden response by Michael was; “they don’t usually understand me, And I am not doing Musical paradigms either. So I prefer working and collaborating with visual artists.”
When he came to our home, we made typical kerala treat- Idli, Sambar, and Chutny which seems one of his favourate. I have read in an interview by Josh Ronson, in which Michael shared the yummy feeling he had for the food from Kerala, especially Idli. While, he was sharing his experiences; life trajectories- in his words. The comparison he made with layering of sounds and cooking was momentarily momentous. We felt he explored the places in India more than us, during his past five visits.
The introduction to the workshop initiated at Nandan gallery-first floor on the 9th evening at 4.00pm by Michael’s presentation on his art followed by his performance based listening session. The gist was his trans-journey from graphic-photographic explorations to sonic live actions. The performance was an intervention in that space- a listening space where; students were hearing his presentation and been asked to close their eyes and just listen. Michael started making several sounds out of his instruments and electronic equipments installed in the heart of that hall. Those things- his mobile sonic system- was topped with or enclosed using dry leaves collected from Kalabhavan Campus. Afterwards the students could actually go live through the sonic zone created by Michael.
Here is one chinese character for ‘listen’ which Michael shared with us;
Veena Varrier holds a distinguished creative endeavour in Mohiniyattam, one of the classical Indian dance from Kerala. She continuous her pursuit through research, practice and teaching. She was born in a family where traditions are alive. Vazhenkada, her native place is known for its Kathakali heritage. Veena’s father is a Kathakali percussion (chenda) artist-Vazhenkada Krishnadas and mother Girija, a document writer. She got married to Kalamandalam Arun.B.Varrier who is a Kathakali performing artist.
Her initiation in learning dance was at the age of eight. At the age of twelve, she moved to Kerala Kalamandalam with a life-decision to achieve proficiency in classical dance. She has completed her graduation, post graduation and M.Phil from Kerala Kalamandalam after continuous austere training imparting Gurukula system of education of twelve years under the guidance of eminent Gurus. And now, She is pursuing her doctoral research in the same premier public institution on the topic: Use of movements in Mohiniyattam (Charikaludeyum Gathikaludeyum Prayogam Mohiniyattathil). Apart from these honours, she has also learned Kathakali lessons from renowned Kathakali performing artists Kottakkal Devadas and Kalamandalam Udayakumar. Since then she has performed a few female roles. This knowledge and practice helped her to absorb the nuances of it and apply the minimal form in Mohiniyattam. Her contributions in the cultural realm is persistent, including remarkable performances at several venues in India, Mauritius and UK. Veena has done one year internship from Kerala Kalamandalam, where she got chance to teach and perform. She holds four years of experience as Guest faculty in Mohiniyattam at R.L.V College of Music and Fine Arts. She was lucky to have opportunities to be part of the dance productions by the exponents Padmashree Kalamandalam Kshemavathi, Pallavi Krishnan and Kalamandalam Leelamma. She has facilitated several workshops for Mohiniyattam organised by SPIC MACAY.
Academic Qualifications & Achievements from Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University for Art And Culture;
Higher School Leaving Certificate-Art : 2002
Higher Secondary Examination-Art : 2004
B.P.A. Degree Examination- Mohiniyattam- First Rank : 2007
M.A- Mohiniyattam- First Rank : 2009
M.Phil-Performing Arts : 2012
Ph.D- Performing Arts : Joined in 2013
Notable Performances;
Program at U.K organised by the Govt.
Program at Mauritius organised by the Govt.
Anannya Festival at New Delhi conducted by Prasar Bharathi.
Nritya Pratibha Festival at Kendra Sangeeta Nataka Academi, Patna.
Konark Festival at Orissa.
Iskon Temple Festival, Bangalore.
Sadhana Sangama Festival at Bangalore.
Nishagandhi Festival Trivandrum conducted by Kerala Tourism Department.
Thiranottam Fest Thrissur.
Three Performances conducted by Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Academy; Aarangottukara Paadhashala Thrissur, Palakkad Finearts Society & Natana Kaishiky Irinjalakkuda Thrissur.
Khajuraho Festival organised by Madhya Pradesh Kala Parishad, Madhya Pradesh.
Lasya Festival conducted by Lasya Academy, Kerala.
Awards / Recognitions;
Balakrishnakkurupp award for Mohiniyattam.
Prof. Kalamandalam Leelamma Endowment for Mohiniyattam.
Mukthika Puraskaram, Chilanka Dance and Music Academy, Aaranmula.
Research Experience and Training;
Teaching Experience : Internship at Kerala Kalamandalam
M.Phil Dissertation : Communication through gestures in Mohiniyattam. A study based on the texts; Natyashasthram, Balaramabharatam, and Abhinayadarpanam
Paper Presentations;
Presented a paper with demonstration at UGC National Workshop (Performing Poetry in Malayalam) conducted by Department of Malayalam, Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur.
Presented a paper with demonstration at UGC National Seminar conducted by Department of Malayalam, NSS College, Ottappalam.
Seminar / Workshop Participations;
Bharathanatyam Workshop by Vasundhara Dorai Swamy conducted by Kerala Kalamandalam.
Bharathanatyam Workshop by C.V. Chandrashekhar conducted by Kerala Kalamandalam.
Bharatham Seminar Conducted by Sangeetha Nataka Academy Thrissur.
Mudra Festival and workshop at Vailoppilly Samskrity Bhavan , Trivandrum.
Mohiniyattam Workshop by Dr. Kanak Rele conducted by Kerala Kalamandalam.
Bharata Nrithyam Workshop by Dr. Padmasubahmanyam conducted by Kerala Kalamandalam.
You can contact her at email id: lasya122@gmail.com
Public Art Education PAE:171(Short version)
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Featured Artist : N.N Rimzon Nedumgottil .
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I have heard a lot about the Puja of Bengal (Kolkatta) from my father who was in Kolkatta for more than 30 years. I saw it for the first time from Santiniketan in the year 2017. We were on festive mood, not just by clicking the face book feeling-smiley. We felt kind of carnival or public exhibition happening more than a religious festival. I was watching people with slippers getting inside the pandal and taking photographs of the Durga statue and decorations (selfies-times).Extremely secular circumference instead of the icons used for Puja. Very rarely, I could see a devotee gives prayer in-front of goddess Durga. It was not the exact time when the Pandit offering ritual with mantra to the goddess. But it is not the case with Kerala. This time the Bengali Keralites (After Bengalis migration to Kerala in these years) started the same festivities in some parts of Kerala while making more amalgamated new designs for the Pandal. In Kerala the celebrations in the temple system is totally different from any other states in India. Keralites worship Goddess Saraswathi (goddess of letters) instead of Durga on the same occasion and it is called Navarathri (nine night) festival.
Tapati Guha Thakurta says; “it is a time of mass public festivity, a mega consumerist carnival, and a citywide street exhibition.” She traced the evolution of old Durga Puja – from the Banedi Bari (aristocratic household) to the Barowari (begun by friends and associates), to the Sarbojanin puja (belonging to all).
Here is some photographs from Santhiniketan Durga Puja sites….. The artistic qualities and experimental nature of these people is appreciable. I was amazed seeing the materials and designs used in the Pandal. Some Pandals were resembling the Christian Church Architecture to my excited eyes. As the Pandal set-up is transient, they use thermocol, kitchen utensils like disposible glass, plate, plastic pots etc. etc….
“The past lives on in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards. The landscape also changes ,but far more slowly; it is a living link between what we were and what we have become”.
Margaret Drabble (1979, p.270) in A Writer’s Britain: Landscape in Literature referring to Virginia Woolf’s sense of loss of a loved place.
It used to be in the humid afternoons ofSantiniketan when we stops our morning session of Painting and starts a drowsy chattering about works done in that day. It will start casual and slowly merge in theme with a controversy in latest art and deal or a hot red exhibition by sanchayanda in experimenta. Subjects was vast like the bhirbhoom landscapes… this compilation of words are based up on renji’s thoughts about his works and my responses to that.
Though the whirled explorations of todays cultural navigations are mainly coursed on the Images of maps and Images of navigators, we used to enquire ourselves about the possibilities of explorations deep into the ever expanding textual and active realities of legible absurdities in the society right in front. I saw his thoughts touched a vernacular view of practice rather than to follow a stereotyped themed curatorial exercise. May be his past from a strong residue of naivety helped him like most of keralite artists who practiced out side Kerala. This naivety I think positively kept him from stereotyping himself from metropolitan notions of contemporariness. On this aspect the training that he got from a strong tradition; to look at art from an alternative way of thought that has been being followed in Mavelikkara RRV College of fine arts helped in forming his basics.
To my surprise, even while painting a series of exotic temple ritual voyeurisms of a Travancore cultural sphere1 he was thinking seriously about our santiniketan(amaar santiniketan…) traditional thought of looking in depth on landscape, rather than politicizing his Images to a commoditized Mumbai gallery piece. The tangled tormented images of Chooral Murinja Kunjungal is a reference I want to use here, the preserved nature of memories about the loss of a loved place is also important when work of art is dealing more on the explorations to an underneath lost culture that lies behind hundreds of years. The local icons of fan, betel leafs ,banana leaf dress, all icons he used were selectively inherited the Lang of the traditional Onattukara Cultural space . So his approach to tense a viewer with strong coded language will work in a way that the outside viewer will either enjoy the momentary pleasure of view or learn the visual language of the elements to read his work. This in terms I think is a victorious smile he always possesses. While studying in santiniketan, though his smile was always easy to translate in to any language, Bengali was way too difficult for him to understand. I felt it was through his coded images in a way he responded to that translatability difficulty. His research in to the evidences of Human sacrificial ceremony and its related social formations in past were being translated in to visual language towards his last days of work. If one looks at the volume he raised in the upper position of Chooral murinja Appoopanmar work one can assume the Wight of the legends/secrets he possessed from those images.
On the occasions of our friend’s visits to Santi; he used to reveal about future projects to our friends circle. It was during one of these gathering with Balagopal he told us for the first time about the project to make a memorial site-specific work in the name of tsunami victims. By that time he had done one collaborative work in memory of Parvez Kabir on a workshop. The discussions continued for a long time until his unexpected departure. Though he prepared the ground works for that site specific work; it was again our visit to his memories and the cultural landscape2…that he managed to own by his secret knowledge. A knowledge that west termed as “Associative Cultural Landscape”. This can be understood as a conceptual landscape which is identifiable or excavatable for the study of Historical past by powerful religious, artistic and cultural associations of the natural element rather than the material culture elements. and its importance in intangible heritage formations. This is the foot note on which global situations are looking anxiously on to the non-explored south and Southeast Asian deep hidden vernacular histories.
He was well aware of the space and its tranquility of Santiniketan to identify a strong self in a way to re interpret that self as a re-enactment of a more relevant neo avant-garde self. His post graduate studentship seriously took practice with all aspects theoretical backup well maintained by the goodness of the ambience. May be this was the point of departure of my view from his Image making process towards a research scholar in him.
I remember an instance, On the day of my interview, he was sitting with Ajeesh, Rajeev and Nilkanta holding a file in his hands…we started a talk on his work. suddenly he showed me, rarest of a manuscript , a study from 70ies done in madras university about the kuthiyottam that he was reading at that time. That document was extremely difficult to get and a whole story came up on the legend of collecting that text. Kuthiyottam and its associated ceremonies are included in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Chart, but study that penetrates in to the depths of this subject is very rare.
He was a person of memories …who never wanted to lose any moment. Sketch books filled with short notes to remember…books racks filled with journals and magazines.. collected artifacts and manuscripts of people from various streams of life. we all lived happily in his ipad photo stream… never losing a moment.. the text in Renji Viswanath’s works are best termed and reinterpreted in context with the concept of revisited memorial or legacy in constant remembrance.
Notes:
1. It’s a strong criticism we friends put to his face, but I am using it here the way he reacted to this criticism is contextual
Anudev Manoharan
2. ‘cultural landscapes are at the interface of culture and nature, tangible and intangible heritage, biological and cultural diversity – they represent a closely woven net
of relationships, the essence of culture and people’s identity … they are a
symbol of the growing recognition of the fundamental links between local
communities and their heritage, humankind and its natural environment.’ (Rössler 2006)
Our country is going crazy for militant chauvinism. The much criticized identity crisis Of our times. we are seeing the division of this majority chauvinist supporters doubling as violent, self proclaimed “motherland supporters”.It; the overwhelming pseudo- nationalism of these days continues to create the worst of its destructive tremulous in this poetic “landscape of peace”, first in the form of destroying our financial back bone, then carving to bite as cancerous on in the Intellectual and emotional backbone.
Gurudev visited Japan three times. He is in the middle, first row. sitting women are teachers of Japan Women’s College. the picture was taken in Dr. Masujima’s garden. Professor Nakagiri of Waseda University is sitting to the right of Tagore. Miss Alexander’s friend, Ujaku Akita, is sitting second from the right. Year: 1916 during Tagore’s first visit.
Even the use of the term “right – wing” to denote this type of anarchic powers won’t justify my cause. we are witnessing the ill-effect of this “mob turned blind killers”in work these days. I got shocked to read about the death of several Freethinkers in these years.., I was thinking of a message of peace in these times of catastrophic anarchy.
And this is definitely worth criticism.This assault is thus an assault on Intelligentsia who is rational towards the above stated identity crisis. Or who ever is critical towards a Frenzy consumerist state. Quite often the ill-nationalism is seeking the support for military – patriotism. The case was similar in Japan some times in past.
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore predicted the worsening. It was when he visited that nation when it similarly overwhelmed with a strong affection towards its “Physical powers”, And less concentrated on the soft skills side. I can easily understand why these things are given very less importance in our current academics. We are living in a very bad situation. When people are thinking “less” and confused “more” then only they are good consumers.The system wants us to utter”more”.
Ramkinkar working on Tagore Bust
let it be its a need of super market grocery or cold drink tag-line “ we are people supposed to utter “yeh dil mange more”. Yes there are symptoms on our outer lines of population which shows the Nation… A Nation when invisibly governed by Market economy and leading consumerism; it acts as a “digital-transformer” at its core psyche. What it needs..? It needs only the Users/Consumers,.. Not Thinkers or Players. It’s super power is in creating alienation inside its own population in the form of un-bridged educational and digital divides. Its also need to be added this digital divide or educational divide is making the lives of millions in sore trouble of misery.
Tagore was a virtual citizen..(not a virtual reality citizen)” if one pays attention there are three layers of this sage. one as a sage whose leading light falls on to India, one as a torch bearer to Asia and the lastly the Luxor to the world. Gurudev was patriotic towards the world” a virtual citizen who wanted to stick to the “vasudhavia kudumbakom”(the world as family in sanskrit) meta thought. How could Gurudev sense… the difference between the cultural nationalism and Power based nationalism..?, Cultural Nationalism of Japan is based on the ancient values Its not that hard for him to realize that the earlier is better than the Politically biased “then -new” Japanese nationalism of 1916’s..
Japan was in a situation of new patriotism similar to India’s new religious patriotism.I believe because he was a Visionary; who could see things in the different time and space scapes.
Tagore had warned japan in a slight language about the bad effects it going to face if they stick to that fake militant patriotism. After a couple of years when the japan invaded to Chinese areas; Gurudev displayed the sorrow of his distress in the form of a letter to one Japanese poet. Gurudev wrote to Yone Noguchi. That letter of contemplation in one side showed the invisible pampering that tagore had towards China and Japan.In his own words the sisters china and japan. Gurudeb considered China and Japan as two sisters of India. He never liked the tensions in between these sisters especially, I wonder if other countries are not excluded from his diviner concern of peace full existence.
He wrote in his letter to Noguchi,
Yone Noguchi
“….and through laborious centuries they will have to clear the debris of their civilization wrought to ruin by their own warlords run amok. They will realize that the aggressive war on China is insignificant as compared to the destruction of the inner spirit of chivalry of Japan, which is proceeding with a ferocious severity.”
It will be interesting to study Yone Noguchi’s political shift from Leftist Nationalism of 1920ies japan to a More sensible right wing of his country. One important source of his change was his interactions with Rabindranath Tagore. Earlier in his life Noguchi Was an ardent leftist who published in leftist journals like “Kaizo”. Noguchi can be seen as a general view point of Japanese intelligentsia. In fact he is the representatives of a thinking Japanese ideology who have seen the apocalyptic view from a De-ja vu state. But sadly he also have to see the worst of militant nationalism.
Everybody believed the Democratic dreams of Taisho side. In 1930ies Noguchi was sent to India as a propagator and ground maker for the Japan’s interest in east Asia. Sadly by the time Naguchi received the famous Letters of contemplation from Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore; Japan had fallen in to the hands of a Militant Imperialist nationalism. If they had properly Studied this lecture which I am going to post Underneath; Lecture given by Gurudeb in 1916;and if they acted according to that idealist vision… They could have saved from the doomed Imperialist wrath and worst consequences followed there after.
May be its not only the case of this Japanese poet who experienced Gurudev’s knowledge working in their life, another Japanese identity, I would like to quote on this regard is a very rarely discussed artist Hiroatsu Takata.
HiroatsuTakata
Any one who have seen the works done by this Japanese Sculptor will suddenly think about Auguste Rodin or Aristide Maillol . No surprise he have studied these Parisian mega0- influential peoples while his academic years in Paris. I don’t want to have a discussion about his Parisian influence. But it will be interesting to look at this japanese Artiste from a different perspective. First while being in Tokyo he was a student who knew Italian and was translating Michelangelo’s writings. Joined with communist ideology he lived inside a commune(type of Ghetto) on the out skirts of Tokyo. Fixed in his ideologies he earned a living from farming and breeding Goats. By 1928 the communist government was abolished by the rule “preservation of peace”. By 1931 he moved to Paris in search of the “self”.
Romain Rolland Bust Made By Takata
This time influenced by the philosophies of Romain Rolland he had made several busts of the iconic figure. He also had letter correspondence with the Rolland. At that time his circle included Paul Signac, Émile Chartier, Charles Vildrac, Georges Duhamel, Jules Romains, Georges Rouault and Jean Cocteau etc.. His Ideological influences showed Indian Political figures Like Mahathma Gandhi ; of Whom he made respectful Sketches.
His journalist activities were at a hype in those days . This was the time Germany invaded the France 1940ies. The sculptor doubled as a war reporter during the fighting front for leading news paper company Mainichi Shimbun. While seeing the atrocities of the war Takata changed against Militarism from inside. 1944 by the order of Japanese ambassador to Germany; sculptor was evacuated to Germany. After the fall of Berlin, Takata was captured and put in the Soviet Union Prisons. See the fate of a young communist who lived in a commune while farming Goats…eventually by luck or charm he was repatriated to Japan in 1946. I am not against the Communism or leftist ideologies but i am thinking against a militarism that aroused from the above stated. Brutality can originate from any where; Some times fromeven peaceful religions..provided, if it is lacking the vision.
Once again if you have a close look at takata’s Tagore Bust..
Tagore Bust by Hiroatsu Takata
May be this is what one can read from Takata’s portrait of Tagore that he done in the same Institute where gurudev gave the lecture to Children gathered . Who else can make such a charming Portrait of Gurudeb unless he have gone through the teachings and things that he predicted in 1916.It would be worth remembering the prayerful and devotional gurudev Bust that Ramkinkar had made.
Posting here the Full Version of his Speech and would like to rename this Speech “Warning to who want to become Militant Imperialist” .
Tagore Giving Lecture to Japanese students
This epic speech of Gurudeb in Japan Delivered for the Students of the Private Colleges of Tokyo and the Members of the Indo-Japanese Association, at the Keio Gijuku University, should be re read in the current conditions of a Digitally Militant wanna-be Imperialist conditions of our Society.
A Lecture By Rabindranath Tagore
July 2, 1916.
“I am glad to have this opportunity once more of speaking to you before I leave Japan. My stay here has been so short that one may think I have not earned my right to speak to you about anything concerning your country. I feel sure that I shall be told, that I am idealising certain aspects, while leaving others unnoticed, and that there are chances of my disillusionment, if I remain here for long. For I have known foreigners, whose long experience has made them doubtful about your moral qualifications,—even of your full efficiency in modern equipments of progress.
But I am not going to be brow-beaten by the authority of long experience, which is likely to be an experience of blindness carried through long years. I have known such instances in my own country. The mental sense, by the help of which we feel the spirit of a people, is like the sense of sight, or of touch,—it is a natural gift. It finds its objects, not by analysis, but by direct apprehension. Those who have not this vision, merely see events and facts, and not their inner association. Those who have no ear for music, hear sounds, but not the song. Therefore when, by the mere reason of the lengthiness of their suffering, they threaten to establish the fact of the tune to be a noise, one need not be anxious about music. Very often it is mistakes that require longer time to develop their tangles, while the right answer comes promptly.
You ask me how I can prove, that I am right in my confidence that I can see. My answer is, because I see something which is positive. There are others, who affirm that they see something contrary. It only shows, that I am looking on the picture side of the canvas, and they on the blank side. Therefore my short view is of more value than their prolonged stare.
It is a truism to say that shadows accompany light. What you feel, as the truth of a people, has its numberless contradictions,—just as the roundness of the earth is contradicted at every step by its hills and hollows. Those who can boast of a greater familiarity with your country than myself, can bring before me loads of contradictions, but I remain firm upon my vision of a truth, which does not depend upon its dimension, but upon its vitality.
At first, I had my doubts. I thought that I might not be able to see Japan, as she is herself, but should have to be content to see the Japan that takes an acrobatic pride in violently appearing as something else. On my first arrival in this country, when I looked out from the balcony of a house on the hillside, the town of Kobe,—that huge mass of corrugated iron roofs,—appeared to me like a dragon, with glistening scales, basking in the sun, after having devoured a large slice of the living flesh of the earth. This dragon did not belong to the mythology of the past, but of the present; and with its iron mask it tried to look real to the children of the age,—real as the majestic rocks on the shore, as the epic rhythm of the sea-waves. Anyhow it hid Japan from my view, and I felt myself like the traveller, whose time is short, waiting for the cloud to be lifted to have a sight of the eternal snow on the Himalayan summit. I asked myself,—’Will the dense mist of the iron age give way for a moment, and let me see what is true and abiding in this land?’ I was enveloped in a whirlwind of reception, but I had my misgivings and thought that this might be a violent outbreak of curiosity,—or that these people felt themselves bound to show their appreciation of a man who had won renown from Europe, thus doing honour to the West in a vicarious form.
But the clouds showed rifts, and glimpses I had of Japan where she is true and more human. While traveling in a railway train I met, at a wayside station, some Buddhist priests and devotees. They brought their basket of fruits to me and held their lighted incense before my face, wishing to pay homage to a man who had come from the land of Buddha. The dignified serenity of their bearing, the simplicity of their devoutness, seemed to fill the atmosphere of the busy railway station with a golden light of peace. Their language of silence drowned the noisy effusion of the newspapers. I felt that I saw something which was at the root of Japan’s greatness. And, since then, I have had other opportunities of reaching the heart of the people; and I have come to the conclusion, that the welcome which flowed towards me, with such outburst of sincerity, was owing to the fact that Japan felt the nearness of India to herself, and realised that her own heart has room to expand beyond her boundaries and the boundaries of the modern time.
I have travelled in many countries and have met with men of all classes, but never in my travels did I feel the presence of the human so distinctly as in this land. In other great countries, signs of man’s power loomed large, and I saw vast organisations which showed efficiency in all their features. There, display and extravagance, in dress, in furniture, in costly entertainments, are startling. They seem to push you back into a corner, like a poor intruder at a feast; they are apt to make you envious, or take your breath away with amazement. There, you do not feel man as supreme; you are hurled against the stupendousness of things that alienates. But, in Japan, it is not the display of power, or wealth, that is the predominating element. You see everywhere emblems of love and admiration, and not mostly of ambition and greed. You see a people, whose heart has come out and scattered itself in profusion in its commonest utensils of everyday life in its social institutions, in its manners, that are carefully perfect, and in its dealings with things that are not only deft, but graceful in every movement.
What has impressed me most in this country is the conviction that you have realised nature’s secrets, not by methods of analytical knowledge, but by sympathy. You have known her language of lines and music of colours, the symmetry in her irregularities, and the cadence in her freedom of movements; you have seen how she leads her immense crowds of things yet avoids all frictions; how the very conflicts in her creations break out in dance and music; how her exuberance has the aspect of the fullness of self-abandonment, and not a mere dissipation of display. You have discovered that nature reserves her power in forms of beauty; and it is this beauty which, like a mother, nourishes all the giant forces at her breast, keeping them in active vigour, yet in repose. You have known that energies of nature save themselves from wearing out by the rhythm of a perfect grace, and that she with the tenderness of her curved lines takes away fatigue from the world’s muscles. I have felt that you have been able to assimilate these secrets into your life, and the truth which lies in the beauty of all things has passed into your souls. A mere knowledge of things can be had in a short enough time, but their spirit can only be acquired by centuries of training and self-control. Dominating nature from outside is a much simpler thing than making her your own in love’s delight, which is a work of true genius. Your race has shown that genius, not by acquirements, but by creations; not by display of things, but by manifestation of its own inner being. This creative power there is in all nations, and it is ever active in getting hold of men’s natures and giving them a form according to its ideals. But here, in Japan, it seems to have achieved its success, and deeply sunk into the minds of all men, and permeated their muscles and nerves. Your instincts have become true, your senses keen, and your hands have acquired natural skill. The genius of Europe has given her people the power of organisation, which has specially made itself manifest in politics and commerce and in coordinating scientific knowledge. The genius of Japan has given you the vision of beauty in nature and the power of realising it in your life. And, because of this fact, the power of organisation has come so easily to your help when you needed it. For the rhythm of beauty is the inner spirit, whose outer body is organisation.
All particular civilisation is the interpretation of particular human experience. Europe seems to have felt emphatically the conflict of things in the universe, which can only be brought under control by conquest. Therefore she is ever ready for fight, and the best portion of her attention is occupied in organising forces. But Japan has felt, in her world, the touch of some presence, which has evoked in her soul a feeling of reverent adoration. She does not boast of her mastery of nature, but to her she brings, with infinite care and joy, her offerings of love. Her relationship with the world is the deeper relationship of heart. This spiritual bond of love she has established with the hills of her country, with the sea and the streams, with the forests in all their flowery moods and varied physiognomy of branches; she has taken into her heart all the rustling whispers and sighing of the woodlands and sobbing of the waves; the sun and the moon she has studied in all the modulations of their lights and shades, and she is glad to close her shops to greet the seasons in her orchards and gardens and cornfields. This opening of the heart to the soul of the world is not confined to a section of your privileged classes, it is not the forced product of exotic culture, but it belongs to all your men and women of all conditions. This experience of your soul, in meeting a personality in the heart of the world, has been embodied in your civilisation. It is civilisation of human relationship. Your duty towards your state has naturally assumed the character of filial duty, your nation becoming one family with your Emperor as its head. Your national unity has not been evolved from the comradeship of arms for defensive and offensive purposes, or from partnership in raiding adventures, dividing among each member the danger and spoils of robbery. It is not an outcome of the necessity of organisation for some ulterior purpose, but it is an extension of the family and the obligations of the heart in a wide field of space and time. The ideal of “maitri” is at the bottom of your culture,—”maitri” with men and “maitri” with Nature. And the true expression of this love is in the language of beauty, which is so abundantly universal in this land. This is the reason why a stranger, like myself, instead of feeling envy or humiliation before these manifestations of beauty, these creations of love, feels a readiness to participate in the joy and glory of such revealment of the human heart.
And this has made me all the more apprehensive of the change, which threatens Japanese civilisation, as something like a menace to one’s own person. For the huge heterogeneity of the modern age, whose only common bond is usefulness, is nowhere so pitifully exposed against the dignity and hidden power of reticent beauty, as in Japan.
But the danger lies in this, that organised ugliness storms the mind and carries the day by its mass, by its aggressive persistence, by its power of mockery directed against the deeper sentiments of heart. Its harsh obtrusiveness makes it forcibly visible to us, overcoming our senses,—and we bring to its altar sacrifices, as does a savage to the fetish which appears powerful because of its hideousness. Therefore its rivalry to things that are modest and profound and have the subtle delicacy of life is to be dreaded.
I am quite sure that there are men in your nation, who are not in sympathy with your national ideals; whose object is to gain, and not to grow. They are loud in their boast, that they have modernised Japan. While I agree with them so far as to say, that the spirit of the race should harmonise with the spirit of the time, I must warn them that modernising is a mere affectation of modernism, just as affectation of poesy is poetising. It is nothing but mimicry, only affectation is louder than the original, and it is too literal. One must bear in mind, that those who have the true modern spirit need not modernise, just as those who are truly brave are not braggarts. Modernism is not in the dress of the Europeans; or in the hideous structures, where their children are interned when they take their lessons; or in the square houses with flat straight wall-surfaces, pierced with parallel lines of windows, where these people are caged in their lifetime; certainly modernism is not in their ladies’ bonnets, carrying on them loads of incongruities. These are not modern, but merely European. True modernism is freedom of mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European schoolmasters. It is science, but not its wrong application in life,—a mere imitation of our science teachers who reduce it into a superstition absurdly invoking its aid for all impossible purposes.
Science, when it oversteps its limits and occupies the whole region of life, has its fascination. It looks so powerful because of its superficiality,—as does a hippopotamus which is very little else but physical. Science speaks of the struggle for existence, but forgets that man’s existence is not merely of the surface. Man truly exists in the ideal of perfection, whose depth and height are not yet measured. Life based upon science is attractive to some men, because it has all the characteristics of sport; it feigns seriousness, but is not profound. When you go a-hunting, the less pity you have the better; for your one object is to chase the game and kill it, to feel that you are the greater animal, that your method of destruction is thorough and scientific. Because, therefore, a sportsman is only a superficial man,—his fullness of humanity not being there to hamper him,—he is successful in killing innocent life and is happy. And the life of science is that superficial life. It pursues success with skill and thoroughness, and takes no account of the higher nature of man. But even science cannot tow humanity against truth and be successful; and those whose minds are crude enough to plan their lives upon the supposition, that man is merely a hunter and his paradise the paradise of sportsman, will be rudely awakened in the midst of their trophies of skeletons and skulls. For man’s struggle for existence is to exist in the fullness of his nature,—not by curtailing all that is best in him and dwarfing his existence itself, but by accepting all the responsibilities of his spiritual life, even through death and defeat.
I do not for a moment suggest, that Japan should be unmindful of acquiring modern weapons of self-protection. But this should never be allowed to go beyond her instinct of self-preservation. She must know that the real power is not in the weapons themselves, but in the man who wields those weapons; and when he, in his eagerness for power, multiplies his weapons at the cost of his own soul, then it is he who is in even greater danger than his enemies.
Things that are living are so easily hurt; therefore they require protection. In nature, life protects itself within in coverings, which are built with life’s own material. Therefore they are in harmony with life’s growth, or else when the time comes they easily give way and are forgotten. The living man has his true protection in his spiritual ideals, which have their vital connection with his life and grow with his growth. But, unfortunately, all his armour is not living,—some of it is made of steel, inert and mechanical. Therefore, while making use of it, man has to be careful to protect himself from its tyranny. If he is weak enough to grow smaller to fit himself to his covering, then it becomes a process of gradual suicide by shrinkage of the soul. And Japan must have a firm faith in the moral law of existence to be able to assert to herself, that the Western nations are following that path of suicide, where they are smothering their humanity under the immense weight of organisations in order to keep themselves in power and hold others in subjection.
Therefore I cannot think that the imitation of the outward aspects of the West, which is becoming more and more evident in modern Japan, is essential to her strength or stability. It is burdening her true nature and causing weakness, which will be felt more deeply as time goes on. The habits, which are being formed by the modern Japanese from their boyhood,—the habits of the Western life, the habits of the alien culture,—will prove, one day, a serious obstacle to the understanding of their own true nature. And then, if the children of Japan forget their past, if they stand as barriers, choking the stream that flows from the mountain peak of their ancient history, their future will be deprived of the water of life that has made her culture so fertile with richness of beauty and strength.
What is still more dangerous for Japan is, not this imitation of the outer features of the West, but the acceptance of the motive force of the Western civilisation as her own. Her social ideals are already showing signs of defeat at the hands of politics, and her modern tendency seems to incline towards political gambling in which the players stake their souls to win their game. I can see her motto, taken from science, “Survival of the Fittest,” writ large at the entrance of her present-day history—the motto whose meaning is, “Help yourself, and never heed what it costs to others”; the motto of the blind man, who only believes in what he can touch, because he cannot see. But those who can see, know that men are so closely knit, that when you strike others the blow comes back to yourself. The moral law, which is the greatest discovery of man, is the discovery of this wonderful truth, that man becomes all the truer, the more he realises himself in others. This truth has not only a subjective value, but is manifested in every department of our life. And nations, who sedulously cultivate moral blindness as the cult of patriotism, will end their existence in a sudden and violent death. In past ages we had foreign invasions, there had been cruelty and bloodshed, intrigues of jealousy and avarice, but they never touched the soul of the people deeply; for the people, as a body, never participated in these games. They were merely the outcome of individual ambitions. The people themselves, being free from the responsibilities of the baser and more heinous side of those adventures, had all the advantage of the heroic and the human disciplines derived from them. This developed their unflinching loyalty, their single-minded devotion to the obligations of honour, their power of complete self-surrender and fearless acceptance of death and danger. Therefore the ideals, whose seats were in the hearts of the people, would not undergo any serious change owing to the policies adopted by the kings or generals. But now, where the spirit of the Western civilisation prevails, the whole people is being taught from boyhood, to foster hatreds and ambitions by all kinds of means,—by the manufacture of half-truths and untruths in history, by persistent misrepresentation of other races and the culture of unfavourable sentiments towards them, by setting up memorials of events, very often false, which for the sake of humanity should be speedily forgotten, thus continually brewing evil menace towards neighbours and nations other than their own. This is poisoning the very fountain-head of humanity. It is discrediting the ideals, which were born of the lives of men, who were our greatest and best. It is holding up gigantic selfishness as the one universal religion for all nations of the world. We can take anything else from the hands of science, but not this elixir of moral death. Never think for a moment, that the hurts you inflict upon other races will not infect you, and the enmities you sow around your homes will be a wall of protection to you for all time to come. To imbue the minds of a whole people with an abnormal vanity of its own superiority, to teach it to take pride in its moral callousness and ill-begotten wealth, to perpetuate humiliation of defeated nations by exhibiting trophies won from war, and using these in schools in order to breed in children’s minds contempt for others, is imitating the West where she has a festering sore, whose swelling is a swelling of disease eating into its vitality.
Our food crops, which are necessary for our sustenance, are products of centuries of selection and care. But the vegetation, which we have not to transform into our lives, does not require the patient thoughts of generations. It is not easy to get rid of weeds; but it is easy, by process of neglect, to ruin your food crops and let them revert to their primitive state of wildness. Likewise the culture, which has so kindly adapted itself to your soil,—so intimate with life, so human,—not only needed tilling and weeding in past ages, but still needs anxious work and watching. What is merely modern,—as science and methods of organisation,—can be transplanted; but what is vitally human has fibres so delicate, and roots so numerous and far reaching, that it dies when moved from its soil. Therefore I am afraid of the rude pressure of the political ideals of the West upon your own. In political civilisation, the state is an abstraction and relationship of men utilitarian. Because it has no roots in sentiments, it is so dangerously easy to handle. Half a century has been enough for you to master this machine; and there are men among you, whose fondness for it exceeds their love for the living ideals which were born with the birth of your nation and nursed in your centuries. It is like a child, who, in the excitement of his play, imagines he likes his playthings better than his mother.
Where man is at his greatest, he is unconscious. Your civilisation, whose mainspring is the bond of human relationship, has been nourished in the depth of a healthy life beyond reach of prying self-analysis. But a mere political relationship is all conscious; it is an eruptive inflammation of aggressiveness. It has forcibly burst upon your notice. And the time has come, when you have to be roused into full consciousness of the truth by which you live, so that you may not be taken unawares. The past has been God’s gift to you; about the present, you must make your own choice.
So the questions you have to put to yourselves are these,—”Have we read the world wrong, and based our relation to it upon an ignorance of human nature? Is the instinct of the West right, where she builds her national welfare behind the barricade of a universal distrust of humanity?”
You must have detected a strong accent of fear, whenever the West has discussed the possibility of the rise of an Eastern race. The reason of it is this, that the power, by whose help she thrives, is an evil power; so long as it is held on her own side she can be safe, while the rest of the world trembles. The vital ambition of the present civilisation of Europe is to have the exclusive possession of the devil. All her armaments and diplomacy are directed upon this one object. But these costly rituals for invocation of the evil spirit lead through a path of prosperity to the brink of cataclysm. The furies of terror, which the West has let loose upon God’s world, come back to threaten herself and goad her into preparations of more and more frightfulness; this gives her no rest and makes her forget all else but the perils that she causes to others, and incurs herself. To the worship of this devil of politics she sacrifices other countries as victims. She feeds upon their dead flesh and grows fat upon it, so long as the carcasses remain fresh,—but they are sure to rot at last, and the dead will take their revenge, by spreading pollution far and wide and poisoning the vitality of the feeder. Japan had all her wealth of humanity, her harmony of heroism and beauty, her depth of self-control and richness of self-expression; yet the Western nations felt no respect for her, till she proved that the bloodhounds of Satan are not only bred in the kennels of Europe, but can also be domesticated in Japan and fed with man’s miseries. They admit Japan’s equality with themselves, only when they know that Japan also possesses the key to open the floodgate of hell-fire upon the fair earth, whenever she chooses, and can dance, in their own measure, the devil dance of pillage, murder, and ravishment of innocent women, while the world goes to ruin. We know that, in the early stage of man’s moral immaturity, he only feels reverence for the god whose malevolence he dreads. But is this the ideal of man which we can look up to with pride? After centuries of civilisation nations fearing each other like the prowling wild beasts of the night time; shutting their doors of hospitality; combining only for purpose of aggression or defence; hiding in their holes their trade secrets, state secrets, secrets of their armaments; making peace offerings to the barking dogs of each other with the meat which does not belong to them; holding down fallen races struggling to stand upon their feet; counting their safety only upon the feebleness of the rest of humanity; with their right hands dispensing religion to weaker peoples, while robbing them with their left,—is there anything in this to make us envious? Are we to bend our knees to the spirit of this civilisation, which is sowing broadcast over all the world seeds of fear, greed, suspicion, unashamed lies of its diplomacy, and unctuous lies of its profession of peace and good-will and universal brotherhood of Man? Can we have no doubt in our minds, when we rush to the Western market to buy this foreign product in exchange for our own inheritance? I am aware how difficult it is to know one’s self; and the man, who is intoxicated, furiously denies his drunkenness; yet the West herself is anxiously thinking of her problems and trying experiments. But she is like a glutton, who has not the heart to give up his intemperance in eating, and fondly clings to the hope that he can cure his nightmares of indigestion by medicine. Europe is not ready to give up her political inhumanity, with all the baser passions of man attendant upon it; she believes only in modification of systems, and not in change of heart.
We are willing to buy their machine-made systems, not with our hearts, but with our brains. We shall try them and build sheds for them, but not enshrine them in our homes, or temples. There are races, who worship the animals they kill; we can buy meat from them, when we are hungry, but not the worship which goes with the killing. We must not vitiate our children’s minds with the superstition, that business is business, war is war, politics is politics. We must know that man’s business has to be more than mere business, and so have to be his war and politics. You had your own industry in Japan; how scrupulously honest and true it was, you can see by its products,—by their grace and strength, their conscientiousness in details, where they can hardly be observed. But the tidal wave of falsehood has swept over your land from that part of the world, where business is business, and honesty is followed in it merely as the best policy. Have you never felt shame, when you see the trade advertisements, not only plastering the whole town with lies and exaggerations, but invading the green fields, where the peasants do their honest labour, and the hill-tops, which greet the first pure light of the morning? It is so easy to dull our sense of honour and delicacy of mind with constant abrasion, while falsehoods stalk abroad with proud steps in the name of trade, politics and patriotism, that any protest against their perpetual intrusion into our lives is considered to be sentimentalism, unworthy of true manliness.
And it has come to pass, that the children of those heroes, who would keep their word at the point of death, who would disdain to cheat men for vulgar profit, who even in their fight would much rather court defeat than be dishonourable, have become energetic in dealing with falsehoods and do not feel humiliated by gaining advantage from them. And this has been effected by the charm of the word ‘modern.’ But if undiluted utility be modern, beauty is of all ages; if mean selfishness be modern, the human ideals are no new inventions. And we must know for certain, that however modern may be the proficiency, which clips and cripples man for the sake of methods and machines, it will never live to be old.
When Japan is in imminent peril of neglecting to realise where she is great, it is the duty of a foreigner like myself to remind her, that she has given rise to a civilisation which is perfect in its form, and has evolved a sense of sight which clearly sees truth in beauty and beauty in truth. She has achieved something, which is positive and complete. It is easier for a stranger to know what it is in her, which is truly valuable for all mankind,—what is there, which only she, of all other races, has produced from her inner life and not from her mere power of adaptability. Japan must be reminded, that it is her sense of the rhythm of life and of all things, her genius for simplicity, her love for cleanliness, her definiteness of thought and action, her cheerful fortitude, her immense reserve of force in self-control, her sensitiveness to her code of honour and defiance of death, which have given her the power to resist the cyclonic storm of exploitation that has sprung from the shores of Europe circling round and round the world. All these qualities are the outcome of a civilisation, whose foundation is in the spiritual ideals of life. Such a civilisation has the gift of immortality; for it does not offend against the laws of creation and is not assailed by all the forces of nature. I feel it is an impiety to be indifferent to its protection from the incursion of vulgarity of power.
But while trying to free our minds from the arrogant claims of Europe and to help ourselves out of the quicksands of our infatuation, we may go to the other extreme and blind ourselves with a wholesale suspicion of the West. The reaction of disillusionment is just as unreal as the first shock of illusion. We must try to come to that normal state of mind, by which we can clearly discern our own danger and avoid it, without being unjust towards the source of that danger. There is always the natural temptation in us of wishing to pay back Europe in her own coin, and return contempt for contempt and evil for evil. But that again would be to imitate Europe in one of her worst features which comes out in her behaviour to people whom she describes as yellow or red, brown or black. And this is a point on which we in the East have to acknowledge our guilt and own that our sin has been as great, if not greater, when we insulted humanity by treating with utter disdain and cruelty men who belonged to a particular creed, colour or caste. It is really because we are afraid of our own weakness, which allows itself to be overcome by the sight of power, that we try to substitute for it another weakness which makes itself blind to the glories of the West. When we truly know the Europe which is great and good, we can effectively save ourselves from the Europe which is mean and grasping. It is easy to be unfair in one’s judgment when one is faced with human miseries,—and pessimism is the result of building theories while the mind is suffering. To despair of humanity is only possible, if we lose faith in the power which brings to it strength, when its defeat is greatest, and calls out new life from the depth of its destruction. We must admit that there is a living soul in the West which is struggling unobserved against the hugeness of the organization under which men, women and children are being crushed, and whose mechanical necessities are ignoring laws that are spiritual and human,—the soul whose sensibilities refuse to be dulled completely by dangerous habits of heedlessness in dealings with races for whom it lacks natural sympathy. The West could never have risen to the eminence she has reached, if her strength were merely the strength of the brute, or of the machine. The divine in her heart is suffering from the injuries inflicted by her hands upon the world,—and from this pain of her higher nature flows the secret balm which will bring healing to those injuries. Time after time she has fought against herself and has undone the chains, which with her own hands she had fastened round helpless limbs; and though she forced poison down the throat of a great nation at the point of sword for gain of money, she herself woke up to withdraw from it, to wash her hands clean again. This shows hidden springs of humanity in spots which look dead and barren. It proves that the deeper truth in her nature, which can survive such career of cruel cowardliness, is not greed, but reverence for unselfish ideals. It would be altogether unjust, both to us and to Europe, to say that she has fascinated the modern Eastern mind by the mere exhibition of her power. Through the smoke of cannons and dust of markets the light of her moral nature has shone bright, and she has brought to us the ideal of ethical freedom, whose foundation lies deeper than social conventions and whose province of activity is world-wide.
The East has instinctively felt, even through her aversion, that she has a great deal to learn from Europe, not merely about the materials of power, but about its inner source, which is of mind and of the moral nature of man. Europe has been teaching us the higher obligations of public good above those of the family and the clan, and the sacredness of law, which makes society independent of individual caprice, secures for it continuity of progress, and guarantees justice to all men of all positions in life. Above all things Europe has held high before our minds the banner of liberty, through centuries of martyrdom and achievement,—liberty of conscience, liberty of thought and action, liberty in the ideals of art and literature. And because Europe has won our deep respect, she has become so dangerous for us where she is turbulently weak and false,—dangerous like poison when it is served along with our best food. There is one safety for us upon which we hope we may count, and that is, that we can claim Europe herself, as our ally, in our resistance to her temptations and to her violent encroachments; for she has ever carried her own standard of perfection, by which we can measure her falls and gauge her degrees of failure, by which we can call her before her own tribunal and put her to shame,—the shame which is the sign of the true pride of nobleness.
But our fear is, that the poison may be more powerful than the food, and what is strength in her to-day may not be the sign of health, but the contrary; for it may be temporarily caused by the upsetting of the balance of life. Our fear is that evil has a fateful fascination, when it assumes dimensions which are colossal,—and though at last, it is sure to lose its centre of gravity, by its abnormal disproportion, the mischief which it creates before its fall may be beyond reparation.
Therefore I ask you to have the strength of faith and clarity of mind to know for certain, that the lumbering structure of modern progress, riveted by the iron bolts of efficiency, which runs upon the wheels of ambition, cannot hold together for long. Collisions are certain to occur; for it has to travel upon organised lines, it is too heavy to choose its own course freely; and once it is off the rails, its endless train of vehicles is dislocated. A day will come, when it will fall in a heap of ruin and cause serious obstruction to the traffic of the world. Do we not see signs of this even now? Does not the voice come to us, through the din of war, the shrieks of hatred, the wailings of despair, through the churning up of the unspeakable filth which has been accumulating for ages in the bottom of this civilisation,—the voice which cries to our soul, that the tower of national selfishness, which goes by the name of patriotism, which has raised its banner of treason against heaven, must totter and fall with a crash, weighed down by its own bulk, its flag kissing the dust, its light extinguished? My brothers, when the red light of conflagration sends up its crackle of laughter to the stars, keep your faith upon those stars and not upon the fire of destruction. For when this conflagration consumes itself and dies down, leaving its memorial in ashes, the eternal light will again shine in the East,—the East which has been the birth-place of the morning sun of man’s history. And who knows if that day has not already dawned, and the sun not risen, in the Easternmost horizon of Asia? And I offer, as did my ancestor rishis, my salutation to that sunrise of the East, which is destined once again to illumine the whole world.
I know my voice is too feeble to raise itself above the uproar of this bustling time, and it is easy for any street urchin to fling against me the epithet of ‘unpractical.’ It will stick to my coat-tail, never to be washed away, effectively excluding me from the consideration of all respectable persons. I know what a risk one runs from the vigorously athletic crowds to be styled an idealist in these days, when thrones have lost their dignity and prophets have become an anachronism, when the sound that drowns all voices is the noise of the market-place. Yet when, one day, standing on the outskirts of Yokohama town, bristling with its display of modern miscellanies, I watched the sunset in your southern sea, and saw its peace and majesty among your pine-clad hills,—with the great Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance,—the music of eternity welled up through the evening silence, and I felt that the sky and the earth and the lyrics of the dawn and the dayfall are with the poets and idealists, and not with the marketsmen robustly contemptuous of all sentiments,—that, after the forgetfulness of his own divinity, man will remember again that heaven is always in touch with his world, which can never be abandoned for good to the hounding wolves of the modern era, scenting human blood and howling to the skies”.
On 09/09/17 an exhibition mainly focusing the Drawings Sketches and Scribbles of two Kalabahvana teachers startedat nandan Gallery here in Santiniketan. Both of these artists are worth noticeable at the process of their art where they maintains to balance with the experimental and traditions of Indian Art. These artists while sticking to the form based traditions of Saniniketan; exemplifies the process based contemporaneity.That’s the point, where these artist comes to highlight for a reportable textual content. I have visited the putting up of the show and, I could see a prevailing glee in the arrangement of the works. The sheer enthusiasm in displaying the simple and elegantly mounted works made me think of a blog entry on the moment;I visited gallery..even before the show got inaugurated.
I like the way people display the works. That’s why when ever I wants to document a show ; I try to see the people’s response to the work as palpable objects. Dilipda’s ( the way we call our teachers in Santiniketan is by adding a “da”/”di” to the name. It simply shows the warmness of the relationship”) works were handled with love and respect. In many shows I have seen people mis-handling works.. Just like a duty they have to execute. But here the delicate drawings , scribbles..minute and miniature sources of works.. were brought to galley as if they are handling cute little kittens… Ya sure if you are lucky to be here before 17th September there you will get to see literally cute little kittens..!!!. Before I write some thing of the works of Dilip da I would like to Quote something from PankajDa’s(Prof. Pankaj Panwar) words which I over heard while visiting one of the displays of our sculpture students. Students Displayed the immediately available fruits, vegetable and other natural forms, worked it in clay and displayed with randomly looking real leaf installations. At the first look there was a contrast of the real and sculpted. I got curios tolisten what PankajDa was commenting.He said.. “ the form could showcase the vitality of the object… Or it could hold the life- pulsating and full of the Vital forces” that was one moment I got in to a deep thought about the life content that form in this schoolingcarries in its spacial formation of the Santiniketan atmosphere, both in its formal and textual epistemology.
Dilipda’s sketches and scribbles remained me about his smile. He is pleasant almost all the time I have seen him.Shortly after the inauguration he was busy with a lot of questions and interviews. I got bit nervous in this rush. I stepped back and waited until i could get him alone. It was when I made a second round in the galley space and started looking at Sahjahanda’s works.He started to talk with a smile “these are not my works.. These are shahjahan’s.. “ I laughed.. I told I know … We smiles and then he started to talk about the practice. These scribbles and sketches are put up intentionally to showcase the conceptual space that works behind our works. Some times when the sources and outputs are displayed together it makes greater meanings. Yes in the concept of Dilip Da these tiny little spaces of sketchbook we quite often forget to keep are the Origin points of our creative energy. Fine art is like Classical Music he adds;
“when the Sur” tonality” is good ; it doesn’t need to understand what scale or harmony it have.. But important is whether it evokes a sentiment inside some one .. Some one; not even bothered about the ragas/sargas.. Or lyrics. So the act of art is working like santal family or Mill call which evokes same excitement in a viewer whether he is trained in art or not..it doesn’t need a guided walk as suchto communicate other than if we leave its construction, medium, creative language aspects and other technicalities .Its very much similar to Nature and its Natural communication. For Example if there is a tree,for some one its the color of the tree..For some its the form that fills the space or for some its the memories that fills in the mind and for some it could be all above stated together in a mix stature. Painting is having this similar Nature..I think Painting should be like nature”.
Dilipda’s works were simple in the first looks as we tries to enter int to it. It vigorously questioned the way we look at how we deal with the spaces surrounding those simple things. Spaces in visual and textual world. Spaces of reality and spaces of dreams. I could categories the drawing of Dilip Da into two types; one of the type showed animals that we could find in and around Santiniketan and the others were his experience based scribbles from travels places etc.. It created the indented tension and a peaceful out look at the same time.
Then I moved to Sahajahanda. my gallery experience with the works of this artist was close to heart. I felt like some of the works are most touched in the corners of my mind as if i have done those. It showed sublime external features and contained the burning sensation from within. When I say burning how far one can think of the burn. Its still shows that burns in one way or the other. We started our talk with the sources of his inspiration. All the media news television up to social media acts as a redundant source in his works .. These memories from our interactions with mediatic space and communications remains in our inner consciousness. Layered and turbulent.. This subconscious is what comes out when we work. This is most visible when we scribble. He pointed me towards one series which I had specially noticed, lately during my walk;
“I had very much liked in the making process. These are Landscape .. Objects and things which you can identify. If you look close there are a lots of sources in this. The interesting fact is that if we are not drawing out those sources those are lost..some times in the lack of that preservation its lost for ever. In that way also the scribbles and sketches are very important. While preserving them it might be abstract.. Like an abstract we want to make before doing the big essay.. A brief…”
Then I asked him: why its looks like a paragraph in form..?
Yes definitely it gets the shape of its existence in brain.. clumsy crippled and coagulated.he continued.Some times it may be serious .. Some times it may not be.. But you have to look close and seriously to these sketches to find what could be painted next. This is what I do for most of the time in my studio space. And these sketches shows what I am thinking”.
Sahajahan’da’s works shows the aesthetic resources he possess…Either I could be reading the outputs of his works especially those etchings; as a dance of the lovely duos with graceful sync, which may denote the mutual interaction of beings in relationship… or I could read the violence that prevails in the anxious in between-ness of those dances. I might be sticking to the latter,.
I could link between what Dayanita singh once told me about Importance of editing table for a photographer. A photographer’s real creative process according to her is not on lazy shots or highly paid sessions in studio. but it starts when these shots are put up in to thumbnail size miniatures and put together in a table surface. I could sense it on another demonstration she had in Delhi where she demonstrated the editing session of the thumbnail size photographs. She is very sensitive to her table. Some students were lazily siting on of her table she displayed with Photographs .She got disturbed to see the students sitting carelessly as if as they disturbed the ‘table’. She shoots frenzynumbers of photographs . The toughest part is to select the images from those thumbnails.
I think for the painter that selection happen in two layers. one editing table is when you put together all your mental images .. Memories in your invisible “identity table” and selects your out put.. Another selection is when you put together your source and references to make a composition. Free and relaxed scribbling could eliminate these two stage selection to certain extent. When you scribble your subconscious works, at some point of this subconscious is a very advanced “You-Being”.
By the end of this review I want to add what Dayanita told about the choosing and editing you do on a table.
“Let it be the written materials.. Let it be the drafts.. sketches or thumbnail photographs..If you are not choosy on what you select there is no difference between me and a four year old with smart phone camera in her hand calling herself as the photographer”.
…….
“These are the times of troubles”. SahajahanDa don’t even wanted to complete the words… I could sense what he meant by troubles. When I read what he told me about mediatic influence and what he wanted to convey by exhibiting his seventeen year old fire burned canvases… I could easily read these are not the dances of merry what he is showing. Above all he had mentioned about the burning and burnt places in canvas what he had fixed with a binder. While pointing towards one of these places of burn; he told .. “Its seventeen years old.. Still appropriate right..?” That burn was in my mind. These are relations ships of forms in pain which tries to over come the pain by it’s movements. There are more similarities in thinking pattern of sahajanda and manida. Apart from the arrangements of motifs they share the spirit of the epistemology I stated earlier in this blog; a tradition in contemporary.I think that’s the main importance of this show to look in to the spaces we left blank…Intentionally… as in the drawings of Dilipda… Or Spaces burned.. the spaces which needs an binder… As Sahjahanda expresses.. Art is “Turbulent” Inside.
Anudev.M
Research Scholar, Dept.Painting , Kalabhavana , Santiniketan
Thousands of years various political charges wiped off everything in Supur, but survived its ancient name, a clue which led to my further research. Supur is a terracotta-brick architectural site near Santhiniketan of West Bengal.
Linguistics when combined with cultural geography and de-sign is a best key to know the roots of a place-name. The place-name ‘Supur’ is such a design which travelled across time and region. My surfing through its historiography connects it with a Saracen (same feel as at Surul) in design and witnesses the histories of manipulations by the modern scholars.
Let’s have a look at some;
1.One reference for the word ‘Supur’ in the ancient India lies in the book titled ‘The Ancient Geography of India” by Alexander Cunningham. Cunningham writes about Supur (a village in Jammu Kashmir);
“Surapura the modern Supur or Sopur, is situated on both banks of the Behat, immediately to the West of the great Wular Lake. It was originally called Kumbuva, and under this name it is mentioned in the chronicles of Kashmir as early as beginning of the fifth century. It was rebuilt by Sura, the Minister of Avanti Varmma, between A.D.854 and 883, after whom it was called Surapura”.
“…~ the only considerable remains are a bridge which spans the Behat and a canal which leads direct towards Supur to avoid the tedious passage by the river through the Wular Lake”.
Water-colour painting of a ruined temple at Boniar by Charles J. Cramer-Roberts 1876 (Image Source: a123lad)
2. Siddeshwar writes about a Surpur in Karnataka in his blog titled Journeys Across Karnataka;
“Shorapur was originally known as Surpur. Part of today’s Yadgiri district, Surpur was ruled by Nayaks from 1639 to 1857 with Surpur as their headquarters. The original capital of Surpur principality was Wagengera which was ruined during the attack of Moghul emperor Aurangazeb. However Nayaks forces defeat Moghul forces at Wagangera and repossess the fort. With Wagangera in ruins, Nayaks established Surpur as the new capital and build two palaces there. Local folks call one of the palaces as Raj Darbar. The last ruler of Shorapur kingdom was Raja Venkatappa Nayak. He was one of the first to oppose British inference in his kingdom’s internal affairs. Besides Darbar, Surpur is known for its historical temple dedicated to Shri Venugopalswamy. Venugopalswamy temple was constructed between 1726 and 1893 during the rule of Raja Pittambhra Bairi Pidda Nayak. Surpur is also known for its ancient hilltop bungalow Taylor Manzil built by Philip Meadows Taylor. Taylor was a British agent who was in friendly terms with Nayak rulers. Surpur is also known for its painting of Garudadhari”.
Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama eye hospital blog titled ‘Sight to the Sightless’ says;
“Venugopalaswamy temple at Surapura is an ancient temple maintained well. It is on the top of a hillock in the middle of the town”.
This Surapura/Surpur/Shorapur is a village in Karnataka.
Surapura Venugopalaswamy temple column design in Karnataka (Image Source: vivekeyecare,color corrected by CP)Surapura Venugopalaswamy temple complex in Karnataka (Image Source: vivekeyecare,color corrected by CP)
3. Now, the stories behind the Supur in West Bengal by Amitabha Gupta, a photographer and travelogue writer;
“Taking a cue from Markandeya Purana of the Hndus, it is usually believed that Supur was a part of the Kingdom of Kalinga’s King Suratha. The king was desperate to get a win over Karnat Empire, but suffered immense loss. On advice of Sage Medhas, he prayed to Goddess Chandi and with her blessings attained victory. As a gratitude, he offered Goddess Chandi one lakh sacrifices (Humans, not Goats. Traitors and Enemies, to be precise). As per this opinion, the kingdom of Suratha has been named in the Purana as Swapur and the present name of Supur is considered to be derived from it. There used to be a Suratheshwar Shiva temple at this village, which no more exists. A modern temple replaced the old one”.
A regional Author Gurulal Gupta has written in his book “Rural Sketches”;
“Supur was not a king, but just a Zamindar named Surath. The Zamindar was a tyrant. Once he had a dream of his dead enemies chasing him. To which he prayed to the Goddess and offered her one lakh human sacrifices to clear him of his sins. Although I am not sure how one offer can repeated Manslaughter to the Goddess to relieve him of earlier killings”.
Details at Supur, near Santhiniketan
4. And finally, see this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supur and find Supur as a commune of 4,712 inhabitants situated in Satu Mare County, Armenia.
Church in Supur village, Romania (Image Source: Wikipedia)
It is not the only case with the place-name ‘Supur’. However what my interest in these various ‘Supur’ is that of art/design link especially a travelling arch, particular craft motifs and a shams psyche (In Arabic Shams refers to the Sun and for English Shams means Fraud !!!).
Arch at Supur
Arch at Qutub Complex (Image Source: wikipedia)
5.Now it’s my turn to suggest the origin of the place-name ‘Supur’; The basis is absolutely art and cultural de-signing of a Saracen association with India.
Surkh, the arabic origin means red which has a root in Shams (arabic word means ‘Sun’). Surkhpur, the red house (complex) where the fired brick and terracotta making tradition exists since long back. Chhath Puja is an ancient festival dedicated to the god of Sun (Surya) still remains in West Bengal, some other parts of India and Nepal. And Zoroastrians called ‘Sukhar’ for sandalwood (red in colour) which they offer to the fire keeping priests.
While being inside the gist of Santhiniketan, a West Bengal region, it reflects; The music of Baul singers (a nomadic origin) and felt like Sufi inside Krishna, The ‘Kantha’ quilt tradition which depicts that of nomadic saracens and their horses (continuing its practise and trade in both the Hindu and Muslim religions), Geometric and interlace ornamental design elements and arches of the terracotta temples (revived Saracenic architecture) and pandal designs.
Kantha Quilt design (Source: Generic internet image)
Bottom view design of Supur ArchitecturePandal parts near Supur, on the way back to Santhiniketan
Kantha quilt is well famous in West Bengal especially in Bolpur. As we saw, the compulsory insist to fix the etymology of Indian heritage sources in Sanskrit, Wikipedia says the word ‘Kantha’ originated from the sanskrit word ‘kontha’ means rags as ‘kantha’ is made of rags. Then what about this ancient ‘Kantha’, the origin in a sakian (of Sakas) etymology? Click this link:https://www.jatland.com/home/Kantha Those ‘kantha’ regions consists of rich quilt /embroidery culture as well.
19th C. Kantha Quilt design (Source: Generic internet image)
For a better understanding is possible through the migratory history in India and central Asia. That will connect even as other Supur cities mentioned above (Kashmir, Karnataka, Bengal, Armenia, etc.) with a migratory pattern and its travelled designs (I am not talking about the anthropological stock but a design stock).
As a continuance to the visit at terracotta temples near Santhiniketan, we went to Supur in this week. It was a beautiful journey where the horizon of the vast lands (fields) touch the circular contour of the sky in the globe. It’s very clear now that the vastness and horizontality (paragraph) in Anu’s works of art. This horizontality (a stillness without progression) is what the farmers here, I feel.
On the way to Supur from SanthiniketanArtwork by Anudev
We reached the spot with the help of google map. On the right side of the main road situated deul terracotta temples. The tendency of scholars identifying these architecture styles to that of Orissa is inescapable. A critical view is what necessitate the situation. As an art historian/researcher I find several dissimilarities between Bengal terracotta Architectural styles and Orissan Architectural styles. Image would not lie.Here it is;
dome-like roof (not a shikhara and no amlaka on top) of a deul temple in Supur, W. BengalShikhara with Amalaka on top of anOrissan temple (Lingraja Temple)(Image Source: wikipedia)
Sketch plan of a Orissan temple complex (Image Source: wikipedia)
Shikhara of the Orissan nagara is long with its particular disk-like latha motif consisting of an amlaka on top of it. For Bengal terracotta temples, it is not a shikhara, but it must be evolved out of a dome like structure with no amlakas, and the dissimilarities are so on comparing its vimana, sculptural style and temple plan.
We assumed the one deul temple on the road side is the Jora Shiva temple. It has a linga shrine and puranic depictions on the terracotta panels of architecture. Then we moved towards the pocket road. We lost the way in between and forced to enquire the right way to our hoping temple complex. We asked about ‘jora shiva mandir’ and ‘mattgi mandir’. Anudev tried with his faltered Bengali. No way! They are found unfamiliar with these words. Then sudden, Anu asked ‘Takur Bari’, thankfully they could respond to that. Illiteracy is in its peak. At the moment, I felt sad about the present condition of that historic city of Supur in one hand and proud of Kerala’s literacy and democracy in the other.
Following them we found a ‘thakur bari’ (House of an Aristocrat) and a badly renovated temple plastered with brick colour destroying the terracotta relief works. We were not satisfied with those what we saw. Enquired several times to several villagers about the expected temple complex, then again re-discovered the same spot on the right side of the main road. Through out the way there are very few remains of its past apart from its tragic indigo past.
Indigo planting, a colonial crossness became more and more commercially profitable because of the demand for blue dye in Europe. It was introduced in large parts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, north 24 Parganas, Jessore (present Bangladesh) etc. The indigo planters pursued the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. Folks cannot eat indigo. They were not getting its profit too. What else can be the reason for tragic famine deaths in Bengal.
At home, we were discussing our trip and the Supur architecture. I was wondering about the people’s loose faces and filthiness. Then Anudev was pointing the indigo farming initiated by the British rule in Bengal which lead to the famine mainly. That’s where these feudal monuments becomes just a farce.
Indo-Saracenic revivalism in art and architecture is a well defined term for a 19th century architecture move in British India. The word ‘Saracenic’ was my quick response during recent visit at the Laxmi-Janardan Temple at Surul in Santhiniketan. May be I am contradicting to your belief, but confirming your eyes.
I am wondering about the place name ‘Surul’, for us Malayalis: it is churul, a scroll. The words of this Surul story begins scrolling up the Rajbari (Aristocratic Palace) and nearby temple complex.
Me with Anu geared up for an outing by one of our friend’s Rajdoot. Anu wanted to show me a terracotta temple, the Bengla Architectural identity. It was not a long journey, not more than 3 kilometres from Simantapally. On the way, just before our destination point, there was a hall and administrative kind of building. I shouldn’t wonder, he explained the feudal ruling space of the Rajbari Sarkars where the rulers used to torture and beat the convicts. I could notice the painted terracotta horse, the symbol of sacrifice in that building nexus. A turn with a course put a stop to our drive. We took some photographs and a few videos of the heritage architectural complex deprived of its historical details. One thing was sure that their heritage lasts even long back to Rabindranath Tagore’s Santhiniketan. And I was reluctant to believe that I am standing on a Vaishnavic Hindu Pantheon. At that time, Anu reminded me that: the first Ramayana illustrated Manuscript was by Mughals. I had an idea about the time period and the style of this temple architecture in my mind, which could be interpreted as an Indo- Sarsanic Architecture after colonial invasions.
We were back home by afternoon and was eager to know the history behind. Not much could find, but there are travel bloggers who photographed and described Surul gravitas.
Sarkar Rajbari was built in 1750s by Srinivas sarkar. By 19th century, thousands of temples were built by several aristocrats in Birbhum district of West Bengal. Those terracotta temple tradition in Bengal holds a multi-cultural vibe in the aesthetics of its Art history. This multiplicity in architectural style took after Bengali traditional thatched roof (Chala), Orissan nagara, sultanate, mughal, and portuguese and a very similar sculptural style with Indonesia: A pre-indo-sarcenic revivalism.
Crystal Ball 