Indian Arcadia
Krsna Sporting with the Gopis Kishanghar, c. 1820I don’t know much about Indian Miniatures, but – as they say – I do know what I like! I have always been fascinated by the extraordinary detail in these miniature artworks, which I have also admired in English miniatures of the sixteenth century.
During my first year of art college I saw an exhibition of the Sultan Suleiman Collection at the National Gallery of Victoria. (My friend Rapunzel remembered the name of the exhibition, but I am not sure why the collection was named after the Emperor of the Ottoman Empire.)
Malasri Ragini, Ragamala – Malwa, Central India, c.1640
I was in awe of the incredible detail and the extraordinary patience it must have taken on behalf of the artists to create these pictures. On some of them every leaf on every tree was painted individually, and the equivalent of yards and yards of fabric were embroidered in paint. The colours are always so joyous and lively too – they sparkle like jewels, bedecked in gilt – some in fact incorporated pure beaten gold and precious gems.
… the equivalent of yards and yards of fabric were embroidered in paint
Lady with deer
The art of Indian Miniature paintings can be traced back to the 6th or 7th century AD, evolving and influenced by other cultures over time. Unlike Western miniatures, Indian artists employed multiple perspectives in order to convey the idea that reality existed beyond a single vantage point. (Similarly the Egyptians paid little attention to realistic perspective, and showed people or objects from their most recognisable angle.)
Indian Miniature artists worked on paper, ivory panels, wooden tablets, leather, marble, cloth and walls, using pigments made from minerals and vegetables. Pieces were finished with burnishing to achieve an even, enamel-like lustre.
Here are some gorgeous pictures painted in my favourite warm, golden tones – landscapes of Arcadia.
Read more about the history of Indian Miniatures here. Click on images for sources.
Man with falcon, Akbar period, 1600–1605
Lady holding a lotus
(Top, left) Raga Kalinga, (top, right) Raga Panchama, (above left) Ragini Gunakali, (above, right) Raga Lalita.
Eggs for Art’s Sake
She Crushed His Heart Like a Bug (detail)Continuing my theme of broken hearts and clichés of love comes She Crushed His Heart Like a Bug, a mixed media piece made with love from 80-odd-year-old paper torn from a romance novel, pen and ink, red foil, grey thread and vintage lace. (Yes Mr Taxman, I really did buy those chocolate strawberry-cream filled Easter eggs just for my art.)
I very much enjoyed making this piece – even if sewing those fishnet stockings was torturous on such fragile paper – and had a good giggle. Not that there’s anything funny about crushing hearts underfoot of course*.
* No hearts were harmed during construction of this piece of art.
She Crushed His Heart Like a Bug
She Crushed His Heart Like a Bug (detail)
She Crushed His Heart Like a Bug (detail)
Twilight
Last weekend I visited the Castlemaine Autumn Festival for a daytrip with two of my sisters and my brother-in-law (the chauffeur). We had a lovely time wandering around this quaint country town, listening to some great music, enjoying some delicious food, browsing in vintage stores and quirky boutiques, and gallery-hopping.
Out of all the galleries that were within walking-distance, the exhibition I most enjoyed was Carolyn Graham’s linocuts in Between Daylight and Dark, showing at the Falkner Gallery.
It’s not often I go for landscape art, but these are anything but traditional with strong and stylised shapes in a palette of grey and green. Most of the pieces were landscapes of rolling hills, and stark silhouettes of trees, but there were a few enjoyably quirky creatures too, such as this rabbit (below). It’s refreshing to see linocuts as opposed to etchings (as much as I love these) and prints that take such a painterly approach too, thus achieving a softness that is rarely seen in linocut printing.
Roman Holidays
The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888Today is the Ides of March. While many today would associate that phrase with the recent film, or perhaps with the quotation, ‘beware the Ides of March, in reference to Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, the Ides is a day in the Roman calendar corresponding to March 15th.
The Ides, determined by the phase of the moon, are the middle days of a month. March was the first month of the year in the Roman calendar, and so this was a New Year period. It was also the Feast of Anna Perenna, the goddess of the year, whose festivities concluded the New Year’s ceremonies. The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the hoi polloi with picnicking, drinking and revelries.
Ask Me No More, 1906While most of us are probably not dining al fresco whilst reclining on chaise longues and slaves peel grapes for us, let us instead admire the romantic paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) from the dubious comfort of our office chairs.
His work has gone in and out of popularity and his reputation has dropped to the greatest lows from the rarefied heights (affecting the cost of his work to an astonishing degree), but no one can deny the breathtaking scope of his work and his commitment to depicting an utterly romanticised and Victorian notion of ancient Rome.
A Reading From Homer, 1885Alma-Tadema’s people are beautiful, the scenery breathtaking with glorious skies and sparkling light, the fashion charming and the architecture classical – and the latter rendered remarkably accurately after meticulous research. Ridley Scott even used his paintings for reference for the film Gladiator, as did Hollywood filmmakers before him.
Whether it’s a style of painting art critics take seriously or not, they are certainly a pretty enough tribute to halcyon Roman holidays – and what’s wrong with pretty every once in a while after all?
Read more about the artist, or click through a gallery of his work.
A Kiss, 1891
Unconscious Rivals, 1893
A Favourite Custom 1909
Silver Favourites 1903
She Was of the Moment
This random poem was one that I wrote years and years ago, when I first started creating these word collages. It’s been through several incarnations while I have been distilling this new style, but the words had not changed, and the picture of the woman is still the same too.
This time I took an envelope from 1952 – front and back – and split the poem into two. I love the imagery of the words: ‘a traveller’s letter will away in the ocean’, which drove the pen and ink scribble of a rainy port, and also the words ‘it’s like wearing a rare enchanted dream’ – the tailor’s mannequin here echoes the hourglass shape of the nude in the first collage.
It’s fascinating to wonder where this envelope carried someone’s words – over oceans perhaps.
She was of the moment
a sweet summer’s legend
stories of inspiration
written until the end of time.
It is wrapped like a flower
where the warm waters
come to a rainy port
and a traveller’s letter
will away in the ocean.
What a charming heavenly quirk
of the season’s essence
it’s like wearing a rare enchanted dream
since you imagine the end.