| The sixties has been a decode of discovery and achievement, and no less in the field of historical research than in scientific skill. As each successive flight has brought man closer to an awareness of his place in the universe, so has each new discovery in the study of history provided the explanatory link between man’s past and present existence. |
| In the field of historical artistic research, particularly in that of miniature painting done in this sub-continent, the sixties saw a revival of interest resulting in the timely rescue of fragile paintings from disintegrating collections, and the preservation of much relevant data for future research on painters, their origins and their movements, and in some rare cases their opinions on contemporary reaction to their artistry. |
| The bulk of the credit for awakening our consciousness goes to dedicated, imaginative researchers such as Dr. M. S. Randhawa (co-author of the book under review) and Mr. W. G. Archer, both Indian civil servants turned historians who in their scholarly yet sensuous approach to the subject have set a standard of presentation. Dr. Randhawa’s “Kangra Painting of the Gita Govinda”, to which Mr. Archer contributed the introductory essay, was a model of the consonance of their fertile, attuned minds. |
| Not all their published research, and that of other scholars, has appeared in book-form. A substantial part is scattered in periodicals, reviews and infrequent articles in magazines. Occasionally, a scholar with the presumptive omniscience of a Will Durant attempts a consolidation of all previous researches, as did Mr. Khandalavala in his monolithic “Pahari Miniature Painting” in which he alternated revelation with refutation in a seemingly endless paper-chase. |
| But that was as long ago as 1958, and during the past twelve years survivors of “Pahari Miniature Painting’ have been compensated by Dr. Randhawa’s joyous (and increasingly ambitious) volumes on various facets of Pahari painting, with particular emphasis on the superlative sets of paintings in the Kangra style executed for Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra. |
| The announcement of the gestation of the book under review, therefore, gave those interested in the subject fresh hope that, in keeping with the scope envisaged by the title, the book would do for Indian painting in general, and for those neglected schools in particular, what Dr. Randhawa had already so conscientiously done for the more popular Pahari schools. That hope remains. The lay reader still waits. |
| Dr. Randhawa elicited the sympathetic services of Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, formerly U.S Ambassador to India, whose interest in Indian painting was, if we are to believe the publisher’s note on the dust-jacket, the reason for accepting the ambassadorial post. (A charming contention, but unconvincing). |
| Both Dr. Randhawa’s and Professor Galbraith’s separate writings reveal an informed yet informal approach to their subjects. The ratio of contribution by each to the literary style of this book is unclear but it would seem from the foreword that Dr. Randhawa has supplied the material upon which Professor Galbraith has prepared the text. All the more difficult therefore, for any admirer of both authors to understand how they could have sired such careless phrasing and irrelevant description. Examples abound with embarrassing frequency throughout the book and can be discovered after no more than a cursory examination of its 100 or so pages of staccato text. ‘Courtesans, or hetaera’ (p.18) with the incorrect coupling of the noun in the plural with a singular equivalent is an example. Or again the repetition of the allusion to the tangibility of nocturnal silence ‘One can but feel the hushed silence of the night and all but hear the tense beating…’ (on p.38) reappearing on P.88 shorn to ‘One can all but feel the silence of the night’ betray slipshod preparation and inattentive proof reading. |
| While some concession must be made for the inevitable limitation on style, and for the brevity of content that knowledge of its ultimate market must have imposed on the authors to have dealt with the subject in depth, can any such concession condone the exclusion of an entire school, that of the Deccan, from a survey of Indian painting? Or was it that since the Deccan fell below the broad belt of the mid-Indian centres of painting, it did not merit attention? |
| Throughout the book there is a repeated compromise to the point of defeat between intention and action; between intention and action; lack of it between the authors who seem to have fallen out mid-way in the book from the early amity of their relations (first-named author (vi) becomes by p.132 ‘the senior author’). With an intention to ‘reproduce the very best, of Indian paintings, or anyhow those we liked the most’ and specifically those ‘paintings that had not been previously reproduced and that were generally not accessible to the American and European public’, it was a pity to recant by reproducing, out of 34 plates, 6 pictures which have already been published. |
| Rightfully scorning the practice of their predecessors of describing what was visible to the average reader from the illustrations any way, they nevertheless (true to Wilde’s aphorism) successfully resisted everything except temptation itself. |
| By narrating in simple terms the complicated legends which form the substance and inspiration and subject-matter of Indian painting, they have made a bold attempt of presenting the popular eastern fables to western readers in summarized form, but one wonders whether it need have been done at the expense of accuracy. |
| Is it possible for any resume of the Ramayana to omit reference altogether to the anti-hero of the epic, Hanuman the monkey-king? The lessons of th4 Ramayana would include, it seems, not only the ‘lasting value of conjugal fidelity….. and paternal authority’ (as culled by the authors) but also apparently man’s ceaseless subconscious denial of his heredity. |
| Even the gallant Baz Bahadur, described as having gazed surreptitiously at the nude glories of the alluring Rupmati, is made to ‘reveal himself to her and her companions’, as if he were some voyeur-turned-exhibitionist. Was it necessary, the reader is entitled to ask of the authors, to exercise such a ruthless economy in the narrative and run the risk of the resulting banality? |
| That a venture of this sort, in the hands of two eminent and sensitive authors should have received such superficial attention from both, is disappointing to the reader and unfair to the subject, for some of the paintings reproduced are extremely interesting in themselves, even though individually they may not be able to substantiate the claim to being the best of their genre. |
| Plate 17, of Sohini crossing the river on her upturned pitcher to meet her lover Mahiwal, is of interest for in it Mahiwal is represented by Krishna playing on his flute. The unexpected supposition of Mahiwal (whose real name was Izzat Beg) by Krishna seems to have escaped the curiosity of the authors. In plate 23 one comes across an interesting stylistic cross-breeding in the painting of Krishna gathering lotus flowers from the lake for Radha the painting is identified as being in the Kishangarh style, and that is correct as far as the two central figures are concerned, who are painted with the crescent-shaped eyes and arched bodies beloved of the Kishangarh artist. All the attendant figures, however, to judge from their dress and features are the products of a hand trained in the provincial Mughal style as practiced in Oudh and Murshidabad. Perhaps a little nearer west of Delhi, but certainly not Kishangarh. |
