Indian art Quotes

“Wikipedia: Indian art”

“Quotes about Indian Art”

“Before Indian art, as before every phase of Indian civilization, we stand in humble wonder at its age and its continuity.”

“"China also passed on to Japan the ceremonial dances of India with their music, which were Japanized as the solemn and colorful Bugaku".”

“At a more formal level, she was convinced that ‘the beautiful Maurya sculpture presupposes continuity in the artistic traditions since the Harappa period’.”

“So deep has the Mohammadan influence (on art) sunk that even in Ayodhya, the birthplace of Rama, the craft of wood work presents no image of the ever popular hero with the bow.”

“Indian Art demands of the artist the power of communion with the soul of things, the sense of spiritual taking precedence of the sense of material beauty, and fidelity to the deeper vision within...”

“The French Vedic scholar Jean Varenne also noted how ‘several of these [Harappan] themes (figures seated in the “lotus posture”, mythical animals, celebration of dance) appear as constants in Indian art’.”

“Gold and silver bangles, ear-ornaments, necklaces, and other jewelry “so well finished and so highly polished,” says Marshall, “that they might have come out of a Bond Street jeweler’s of today rather than from a prehistoric house of 5,000 years ago.””

“"It will be seen that stage practice in Asia owes a great deal to India as an ancestral source. Indian influence on dance and theatre which are one and the same thing in Asia was like some great subterranean river following a spreading course and forming new streams on the way".”

“I have, however, mentioned [in The Foundations of Indian Culture] that Islamic culture contributed the Indo-Saracenic architecture to Indian culture. I do not think it has done anything more in India of cultural value. It gave some new forms to art and poetry. Its political institutions were always semi-barbaric.”

“And it is precisely the totality of these devices of Harappan art that gives it an intangible yet unmistakable air of ‘Indianness’: thus Stella Kramrish, one of the most distinguished experts on Indian art, felt that ‘in certain respects some of the Mohenjo-daro figurines can be compared with the work by village potters and women made to this day in Bengal’.”

“There are many Hindus who are legitimately proud of Hindu art, architecture, sculpture, music, painting, dance, drama, literature, linguistics, lexicography and so on. But they seldom take into account the fact that this great wealth of artistic, literary and scientific heritage will die if Hindu society which created it is no more there to preserve, protect and perpetuate it.”

“Aurangzeb was a misfortune for Mogul and Indian art. Dedicated fanatically to an exclusive religion, he saw in art nothing but idolatry and vanity. Already Shah Jehan had prohibited the erection of Hindu temples;127 Aurangzeb not only continued the ban, but gave so economical a support to Moslem building that it, too, languished under his reign. Indian art followed him to the grave.”

“The Hindu architects produced buildings incomparably more rich and interesting as works of art. I have not visited Southern India, where, it is said, the finest specimen of Hindu architecture are to be found. But I have seen enough of the art in Rajputana to convince me of its enormous superiority to any work of the Mohammedans. The temples at Chitor, for example, are specimens of true classicism.”

“"India has always been an object ofyeaming, a realm of wonder, a world of magic."... "India is the land of dreams. India had always dreamt - more of the Bliss that is man's final goal. And this has helped India to be more creative in history than any other nation. Hence the effervescence of myths and legends, religious and philosophies, music, and dances and the different styles of architecture." ... "India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searched for."”

“It may also be noted in this connection that Hindu art practically went out of existence in Muslim States, though in a few places like Gujarat, its influence may be traced in Muslim architecture. After the thirteenth century, notable specimens of Hindu art are to be found only in the Hindu States of Vijayanagara and Mewar. Hindu culture did not flourish under Islam, and the few facts brought forward to prove the contrary may at best be likened to a few tiny oases which merely serve to bring into greater relief the barren desolation of the long stretch of arid desert. (Preface)”

““I am sad to note that Indians know very little about their folk arts or the artistes…using this medium (TV) to destroy one’s own originality and to spread foreign culture is dangerous…the intellectuals…should recognise the fact that their own culture is dissolving like delta in the sea”. .... [When he had visited Gujarat some years earlier, he had met a Bhavai folk drama artiste who knew 200 plays. But, this time, the oldest Bhavai artiste knew only 65 plays:] “Between two generations, 135 Bhavais were lost! Nobody bothered to record them. They were lost forever”.”

“In India the artist had not yet been separated from the artisan, making art artificial and work a drudgery; as in our Middle Ages, so, in the India that died at Plassey, every mature workman was a craftsman, giving form and personality to the product of his skill and taste. Even today, when factories replace handicrafts, and craftsmen degenerate into “hands,” the stalls and shops of every Hindu town show squatting artisans beating metal, moulding jewelry, drawing designs, weaving delicate shawls and embroideries, or carving ivory and wood. Probably no other nation known to us has ever had so exuberant a variety of arts.”

“[And here is what Sachs has to say about Bharata's ancient text the Natya-Shastra, which he agrees could be as early as the 4th century BCE and about which he tells us that it] "testifies to a well-established system of music in ancient India, with an elaborate theory of intervals, consonances, modes, melodic and rhythmic patterns". ... "Bharata's text was probably rehandled as early as antiquity, and it may confirm the idea that Bharata himself wrote his treatise much earlier" ... [He also tells us that this text establishes that it represents a stage where the] "slow transition from folk-song to art-song, from hundreds of tribal styles to one all-embracing music of India […] had long ago come to an end".”