Thoughts on Art

When I was younger, I didn’t quite know how to appreciate art. Somehow the common notion was that anyone who could reproduce something exactly as the original was considered a good Artist. I used to try and do that and while I may not have been the best, I thought I was not bad either. It is only much later in life that I realized that when I reproduced something well, I was only mastering a skill; it had nothing to do with Art. It was just a technique, and I was just mimicking on paper what already existed. Real Art has to be original, and has to create the right Rasa, and it happens spontaneously. The idea of Rasa comes from the genius of our tradition, and there isn’t one single word in English that can capture its meaning completely. Either Rasa is created or it is not; there isn’t any middle ground. Next time you go to a museum, and are trying appreciate modern art, try this. Most people can appreciate a Vermeer or Rembrandt but often struggle to appreciate a Picasso, Vangogh, or a Salvador Dali or then unfortunately lesser known, our own, Gaitonde. Well, Vangogh might be a bit easier since it is also an original technique.

The best Rasa is perhaps created when you start with no preconceived notions and let your hand reflect your state of mind. There could be a trigger, say like Ganesha, but somebody like Gaitonde, in his own words, never had any objectives. Trigger or not, everything is just images that you see spontaneously on paper as your mind flashes through a life time of impressions; flashes that we will term as random. Statistically, it may be random but when your mind is “sthir” it is something more than that. Try it. Pick a time when u r by yourself, and u feel joyful for no reason. Don’t think about what u r going to draw or sing or whatever it is you like to do, just do it spontaneously. See how it comes out. I think great insights come this way.  If you read biographies of great scientists, many talk about some of the greatest insights coming to them this way. The great mathematician Srinivas Ramanujam’s equations without proofs are still a mystery. Here I am digressing a bit but not entirely. Art and Science are two faces of the same coin. While the latter is constructed systematically from the rational mind, the former comes spontaneously from the depths of our being; science seeks to explain the rational structure of nature, Art helps you experience and connect with it.