CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVII

'INFINITE IN FINITE'

AS SEEN BEFORE, a true resurgence of India implies her rebirth into the truth and light of her soul. And this in modern times began when her mind sensed its spiritual roots and started coming to its own—a psychological revolution of very great promise, part indeed of the rise and growth of a renascent India. Her mind, so awakened, attempted to express itself in various ways, often reflecting its inherent intuitive bent. A new and powerful prose was born opening up larger possibilities. An inspired poetry pointed to its brilliant future. Even science turned its austere face to the light of the Spirit. It was now the turn of art to seek and reveal that light.

As in her other cultural creations, so too in her art, and perhaps here more concretely, India in the past had shown the characteristic trend of her mind. Indeed, the relics of her visual arts—architecture, sculpture and painting—testify to what are acknowledged as among the greatest achievements of mankind. That they had their origin in her dim past and evolved through the ages till they attained in the Classical Age their exquisite forms is now an authentic fact of history borne out by impartial researches. And of these the art of painting was the most popular and widely cultivated because its externally sensuous character enabled the synthetic spiritual mind of the Indian painter to attain his highest success—'to spiritulise its sensuous appeal by making the most vivid outward beauty a revelation of subtle spiritual emotion so that the soul and the sense are at harmony in the deepest and finest richness of both and united in their satisfied consonant expression of the inner significances of things and life.'¹ This the Indian artist was able to achieve because his object was to catch the reality behind the appearance of things, to suggest things unseen rather than to reproduce things seen.

'The Indian artist', says Sri Aurobindo, 'has been taught by his philosophy and the spiritual discipline of his forefathers that the imagination is only a channel and an instrument of some source of knowledge and inspiration that is greater and higher; by meditation or by Yoga he seeks within himself that ultimate centre of knowledge where there is direct and utter vision of the thing that lies hidden in the forms of man, animal, tree, river, mountain. It is this samyak jnāna, this sākṣād darśana, the utter, revealing and apocalyptic vision, that he seeks, and when he has found it, whether by patient receptivity or sudden inspiration, his whole aim is to express it

¹ Sri Aurobindo : The Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 275.

utterly and revealingly in line and colour. Form is only a means of expressing the spirit, and the one thought of the artist should be how best to render the spiritual vision. He is not bound by the forms that compose the world of gross matter, though he takes them as a starting-point for his formal expression of the vision within him; if by modifying them or departing from them he can reveal that vision more completely, his freedom and his duty as an artist emancipate him from the obligation of the mere recorder and copyist.... 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 of the lover of art demands the power to see the spirit of things, the openness of mind to follow a developing tradition, and the sattwic passivity, discharged of prejudgements, which opens luminously to the secret intention of the picture and is patient to wait until it attains a perfect and profound divination.'¹

This is Yoga in art, a union of the creative consciousness of the artist with the self-manifesting Spirit of the universe, 'with infinite life of the Spirit thrown out in its many creations.' The practice of this Yoga in ancient India flowered forth into those wonderful creations which characteristically fulfil the real, that is to say, the spiritual intention of Indian art. This is the reason why in ancient India artists were called yogins or śilpiyogins for whom purificatory rites were prescribed in the śilpaśāstras, which they had to go through before sitting in meditation on their iṣṭadevatā or 'Tutelary Deity', praying for the right vision. This is an evidence of how sacred the cultivation of art was to ancient Indians.

The Upanishads, the Epics and the Puranas contain references to the art of painting and to its patronage by kings and nobles. Every royal palace had its citraśālā or 'art gallery', and the training of a prince in the science of administration would invariably include the knowledge and practice of the arts, particularly the art of painting. The spiritual influence of painting was also recognised. One of the silpaśāstras known as Viṣṇudharmottaram (the earliest exhaustive account of the Indian theory of painting) says that works of art, as painting, 'cleanse and curb anxiety, augment good, give high and pure delight, cancel evil of false dreams, please God, and are conducive to dharma (ideal rule of living) and moksha (salvation).'

The only surviving as also the most beautiful examples of the pictorial art of ancient India are the mural paintings of Ajanta. These frescoes are in every respect true to, and typical of, the artistic genius of the race. Their peculiar appeal lies in a remarkably spiritual and psychic aroma and atmosphere, added to the artistic conception and method of the contemplative Indian mind. The beauty and power of the idea, the subtlety and

¹ Sri Aurobindo : 'The Revival of Indian Art' in the Karmayogin Weekly dated 16.10. 1909.

flexibility of the line, the vibrant depth and richness of the tone, and the dreamy inflexions of the music of the painting are too obvious and enchanting for the soul to miss : the psychical appeal usually carries something in it which, naturally enough, quickens a ready response in every cultivated and sensitive human being. The whole creative force springs here from an inner vision of the artist, a deeper intuition of his soul. To him the outer is but a garment of the inner. And if he makes the garment glow and glitter, it is only to convey a bare hint of the infinite effulgence within. An impeccable sense of symmetry and unity guides his brush, and even in unstinted profusion, he invariably ends by creating not a grotesque exuberance but a veritable dance of the stars. A high discerning austerity in technique, tapas, saves him from introducing into his conception and execution anything that is likely to detract from the unity and harmony of his creation. He goes deep within, looks into the soul of the thing he is inspired to express or interpret in his own soul, catches the native form and rhythm and colour of that soul and lets them reveal themselves through his trained but sensitive and plastic medium. The expression, therefore, is not a replica or a faithful reproduction of the line, colour and design of the physical nature, but a psychical transmutation of the natural figure. The shapes he paints are the forms he has seen in the psychical and other planes of experience. 'They are the soul figure', says Sri Aurobindo, 'of which physical things are a gross representation and their purity and subtlety reveal at once what the physical masks by the thickness of its casings. The lines and colours sought here are the psychic lines and the psychic hues proper to the vision which the artist has gone into himself to discover.' This is the psychology behind the creation of one of the marvels of Indian art, behind the creation, indeed, of all great works of Indian art.

To the spiritual mind of India nothing is exclusively spiritual, nothing exclusively secular. Everything is a self-expression of the Spirit. The so-called secular paintings of Ajanta owe their universal appeal not so much to their force and vividness as to their suggestiveness of the Spirit's adventure in Life. The artist pours out his whole soul in colour, he articulates in line a beauty that is not of this earth, a grace that is supernatural, and all these to such a high degree that even pictures of ordinary human activity become a mystic revelation of the Infinite in finite forms.

Besides, the importance and greatness of Ajanta have not remained cooped up in itself; it has inspired and influenced the art-creations in other parts of India and Asia. The frescoes in the Bagh caves in Gwalior, in the Sittannavasal temple in Madras State, at Sigiriya in Ceylon, distinctly reflect the Ajanta technique and tradition. Centuries later that tradition was seen to have stimulated the growth of newer styles, however primitive, in the miniature paintings of the Rajput and Pahari schools which flourished, the former in Rajputana, the latter in the Panjab and the foot-hills

of the Himalayas. And its original vigour had not a little to do with the growth of the neo-Bengal School of Painting in modern India, which initiated a new movement for the resuscitation of the ancient Indian spirit in art in modern times. In the art-relics of central Asia, China, Japan, Java and Cambodia—those geographically distant outposts of Indian culture—unmistakable proofs are there of the far-reaching influence of the art of Ajanta.

This celebrated epic of Indian art, Ajanta, has attracted art-connoisseurs from all over the world and they have recorded their rapturous appreciation of 'the unparalleled excellence' of its art-forms, especially of painting. 'Magnificent temples still vibrant with the fervour of devotion with which the monk-artists worshipped the Lord of their heart', 'the paintings in them nothing less than miraculous', constitute 'India's claim to the respect and gratitude of humanity.'

Why this influence ? this appeal ? this appreciation ? The simple answer is, because the suggestion of the Infinite vibrates in the chord of the human heart everywhere. No wonder that in modem times the awakening soul of India should recapture the immortal spirit of Indian art, with all its truth and light, enshrined in Ajanta.

It is again the house of the Tagores, famous for its pioneering work in almost every sphere of national reconstruction, which initiated the movement that was to grow and become an all-India one bringing about a revival of the Indian spirit in art which after centuries began developing on the line just indicated. The cultural atmosphere of the house pervaded also by a 'national feeling' was certainly a most important factor in the flowering of the innate artistic genius in one of its scions, even as its other one was born with a poetical genius and won worldwide appreciation of his achievement. It will be seen how he was chosen by the Sakti of India to embody her Will that in art as in other fields, India must rise again and become herself.

Abanindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta on 7 August 1871,—the Janmastami Day, the birthday of Sri Krishna—at the Jorasanko residence of the Tagore family. He is the youngest son of Gunendranath Tagore and grandson of Girindranath Tagore who is the second son of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath. Abanindra's eldest brother Gaganendra was an eminent artist of high original power. His grandfather, a friend of the well-known poet Iswar Gupta, was himself a painter of considerable merit who did portraits and landscapes in European style. Abanindra's father studied art in the first Art school started in Calcutta by Indian and European art-lovers. One of his hobbies was to make architectural plans and sketches in colour.

At five Abanindra was admitted to the Normal School from which he was withdrawn three years later because of cruel treatment by a teacher whose faulty English spelling Abanindra in his innocent simplicity had

corrected in class. 'After leaving the Normal School, Abanindra made use of his father's paint-box to paint rural scenes with cottages and palm trees. He gradually acquired considerable skill in drawing similar interesting pictures with his father's red and blue and other coloured pencils. He was then about nine years of age.'

The budding artist now freely contacted the world of nature with all its sights and sounds, its varied expressions of life when, about this time, the family moved to a garden house on the river Hooghly. The house was an old rambling one, haunted, and standing on extensive grounds which included a large park; here in the midst of trees and flowers of many kinds, peacocks, cranes and other birds along with deer and various animals freely roamed about. The house itself was like a museum stored with artistic vases, carpets, screens and other articles of antique furniture of diverse colours and designs. All this left a deep impression on his young mind stimulating his imaginative and artistic faculty. Here he kept himself occupied most of his time with his father's pencils and brushes, with the animals, vases and furniture as models for various designs and colour combinations. He also produced sketches of typical sights of Bengal villages. At times he would, with his bare fingers, make figures of Puranic gods and goddesses out of thick flour-paste. Embroidering a tapestry piece was his another occasional hobby.

The river Hooghly had its special charm for young Abanindra. Here as well as at Konnagar where they had their own garden house on the same river he would often, as he himself said, 'look out upon her waters and muse as if the stream of life of a new world was making its way through the old to unveil some mystery. He would see too that out of the dense mist far away there would suddenly come to view, as in a dream, a boat or two from time to time.' Clear enough symbol of some revelation of the mystery or of the first signs of the new age. It might also be an indication of how his genius would develop from the ancient to the modern and link them up.

The tenor of Abanindra's life was broken by the death of his father when he was only ten, and the family returned to their Jorasanko house in Calcutta. He was now admitted to the Sanskrit College where classical studies generated in him a refined literary taste of a high order. He began writing Bengali verses and illustrated them with pictures. His proficiency in studies brought him many prizes of Sanskrit books. So long his interest was more in Sanskrit and Bengali than in any other subject. After nine years of study in the Sanskrit College Abanindra left it and for a year and a half studied English as a special student in the St. Xaviers College. At eighteen he was married.

Abanindra was never without his brush and pencil and turned out a good number of pictures. Some of these Rabindranath published in his Bengali monthly Sadhana and in a few of his books. Abanindra had already

developed a literary style of his own in Bengali in which he wrote a number of beautiful stories, all illustrated with his own pictures. He was a lover of music and could play on the esraj to the accompaniment of which Rabindranath used to sing his own songs.

The story of Abanindranath is the story of how Indian art came to its own from a state of servile imitation of third rate European works. Indeed it was a period in Indian life when nothing truly Indian could possibly exist, so dominant was the belief among the so-called educated Indians that they had no past worthy of emulation, least of all any in the realm of Art. As it was in so many other spheres of national reconstruction, so also in art the family of the Tagores was the first to discover the Indian spirit in art and strike out its own line of development. When young Abanindranath was trying his hand at pictures he was doing so without any specific training. And what passed for Indian art at the time were the paintings of Ravi Varma done in European style. This artist from the South was 'satisfying the art-hunger of India through a technique alien in origin and captivating to the vulgar eye'. Cheap lithographic reproductions of his works were then adorning Indian homes. And the European style—mostly mere imitations—was all that was taught in the Art Schools of India.

But even the born artist must have some training in its techniques. And the best that he could do in this matter—for nothing else was possible— was to take the help of competent European artists then available in Calcutta. Accordingly Abanindranath had private lessons from an Italian artist, then Vice-Principal of the Calcutta Government School of Art, on cast drawing, foliage drawing, pastel and life-study. Later he underwent a severe training under an English artist for about three years and attained such a proficiency in portrait painting in oils that he could finish a picture within two hours. During this period he painted many subjects in oils. This was also the time when he learnt the technique of water colour painting from a distinguished Norwegian.

In 1900 Abanindranath went to Monghyr in Bihar mainly in search of landscape subjects. But what he saw and felt there brought about a complete change in his artistic activities. The old historic buildings on the river Ganga, the simple life of the people and the beauties of nature, all characteristic of India, induced in him this change, and he turned his mind towards the true India which revealed to him the rich realm of indigenous art. He gave up painting in oil in European style, and took up painting in water colour. He returned to Calcutta and took a further course of training in water colour under the same English art-teacher, and went again to Monghyr and devoted himself wholeheartedly to water colour painting from life and nature. But he was not satisfied with his work. He wrote : T grew restless. There was yearning in my heart. I felt it but could not define it. What next, I would often wonder.'

The turning-point in his artistic career came-when one day in the ancestral library of his Jorasanko house he came across an old illuminated Indo-Persian manuscript. 'The marvellous drawings and calligraphy in the book fired his imagination and inspired him to reveal his own self in his art.' The result was his famous series of pictures on 'Krishna Lila' describing the familiar scenes in the life of 'the divine cowherd.' This is Abanindranath's first outstanding creation showing his inherent Indian outlook on art. 'When I was doing the Krishna Lila series', he said, T experienced the bliss that comes of fulfilment for the first time. A perfect identity was established between myself and my theme. I would see Krishna passing before my mind's eye in all his lila from boyhood on and my brush would move of itself and the pictures in all the details of line and colour produced themselves on the paper.' This was in the early years of the present century when Abanindranath, then a Youngman of thirty, found his own way of expressing his art. Once for all he abandoned the European style; and this meant a world of change in the life of an artist. He who aspired 'to become the Titian of Bengal', became conscious of his own line of development which proved, in the divine scheme of things, to be no other than the life-line of his country's cultural evolution !

And this took place at a time difficult to specify. In fact, in the inner world of the artist it had already had its conception waiting only for its hour of blossoming under conditions propitious enough for him to respond to the guiding intention of the Sakti of India working for her resurgence. This was the most fruitful period of Abanindranath's life. 'How can I express what I felt during all that period ?' He said, T was 'filled' with pictures—that's what it was like. They dominated my entire being. I had only to close my eyes to get pictures floating before my mind— form, line, colour, shade, all complete. I would take up the brush and the pictures painted themselves, as it were.'

Notable among those who recognised Abanindranath's genius and singular excellence of his paintings of this period were a number of influential Europeans the first of whom was E.B. Havell, the first also to declare to the world the uniqueness of ancient Indian art as 'one of the greatest creations of man'. Havell was then Principal of the Government School of Art in Calcutta, which had hitherto been teaching like other such schools in India, nothing but European styles on the assumption that there had been nothing in Indian art worthy of study. But Havell came with his mind intuitively fixed on the higher values of Indian culture, on her beautiful art with a splendid history of its own. Not that he knew this history in detail, for it was not then fully available, but his intuition and love of India led him to feel that there was this history and it could be reconstructed. And within about fifteen years of his stay in India he proved the truth of his feeling by himself producing a number of sumptuously illustrated volumes on Indian art and cultural history which are even today regarded

as standard works on the subject. His devotion to India and his masterly exposition of her cultural and spiritual values are worthy of emulation even by Indians. Havell was indeed a revealer of the truth and light and glory of 'Eternal India' as reflected in the marvels of her art-creations. India will for ever cherish with gratitude his pioneer service to the cause of her renaissance and his name will shine for ever in the cultural history of modern India.

This noble and far-seeing Englishman discovered the genius of Abanindranath and offered him the Vice-Principalship of his School. The very first day of his joining, Havell took him round for an inspection of the Art Gallery. Havell had already had 'the Gallery cleaned of all the rubbish it had accumulated in past years—thirdrate copies of old Masters from the refuse dump of Europe—replacing them by a few original specimens from the Mughal school.' One such picture arrested Abanindranath's attention. He was struck by its technique and its exquisite precision work, by the vigour and dignity of its lines and colours. But it lacked in motif,—the bhāva, 'idea or feeling, the emotional element'. 'Infuse bhāva in the picture', Abanindranath uttered within himself. He realised that it was his life's mission to paint pictures with this bhāva as their vivifying centre. This is how he recovered the ancient Indian spirit in art. It may be noted that for a Bengali this bhāva means much more than what it ordinarily does. It might also have meant the awareness of a divine presence. He began from then to pour forth into his works the wealth of aesthetic intuitions of his soul. Thus did the soul of an inborn artist find expression in his art: India's art now came to itself in its distinctive Indianness'. And this Indianness' was developed not through any deliberate effort on his part. Once he gave a negative reply to the question whether he had read the ancient Indian texts on art before he started painting in Indian style. Here also, as in other aspects of the renaissance, advanced souls were chosen by the Sakti of India to embody her Will to rekindle in the consciousness of the race the ancient vision out of which they would create forms of 'sweetness and light' vibrant with the promise of ever-growing perfection. Seen in the retrospect, Abanindranath's reverie on the bank of the Ganga was a definite premonition.

His first picture of this period, painted after the Mughal school, was 'Shah Jehan looking at the Taj'. It was hailed as a masterpiece. 'Critics enthused over it and even the uninitiated was caught by its sublime pathos'. 'No wonder. I put my soul's cry into the picture' were the words of the artist whose heart was then bleeding over the loss of his dear child. The fire of his emotion had passed into the picture.

The neo-Bengal School of Painting had fairly started on its course and learners began to gather round Acharya Abanindranath. First came Surendranath Gangoly, a young artist of rare promise. Then came Nandalal Basu, 'soon to occupy the chief place in the Master's affection,

and to be marked out for the singular honour of carrying on the torch to the next generation.' Then Asitkumar Haldar, Sailendranath De, Kshitindranath Majumdar, Samarendranath Gupta, Surendranath Kar, Venkatappa of Mysore, Hakim Muhammad and Sami Ujjama of Luck-now, and Nagabowatta of Ceylon. Among those who joined later were Mukulchandra Dey and Deviprosad Roy Chowdhury.

The Sanskritic basis of Abanindranath's early training, the national and cultural atmosphere of the family and his participation with his uncle Rabindranath in the Swadeshi movement, strengthened what he called the 'Swadeshi spirit' in him to such an extent that he directed all his endeavours both as an artist and as a teacher to the affirmation of this spirit as a sound basis for the artistic revival in modern India. Abanindranath was thus 'the first person to show that in art, as in literature, it is best to express the nation's mind in the typical and characteristic national way.' This conviction prompted him to appoint a Sanskrit scholar to acquaint his pupils with the ancient lores of their country, particularly the stories of the Epics. He encouraged his pupils to study ancient paintings, sculptural creations and architectural monuments scattered over the country. On his own part, he began, as seen before, with the series of 'Krishna Lila'. If he worked from Moslem subjects he did so in a style which was his own, that is to say, Indian, and part of his country's cultural history. His inspiration from the Ajanta style was more profound than from any other. His exposition of Sadanga, or 'Six Limbs of Painting', the Code of Art in Hindu Silpasastra, shows how the ancient Indian ideas on art were in the artistic make-up of his mind.

That this creative consciousness of his race was inherent in him is proved by a flash of his own ante-natal memory of about fifteen centuries ago. As he was once walking among the ancient Buddhistic ruins of Sarnath at Varanasi and looking round, while all other things floated past his eyes, his mind got stuck before a room and he said, T have seen so much. Nowhere has it seemed so. I feel as if ages ago this was my own room. Here I sat and worked on sculpture. A few of them are still there (pointing to some of the relics). I feel here just as I feel when I enter my Jorasanko house'.

The next step that Abanindranath took in training his disciples was to collect from all over the country the old patas (folk paintings) illustrating the legends of the Puranas as current in medieval Bengal. These patas, Havell once told Abanindranath, were much better models of Indian art than the lithographic prints of Ravi Varma's pictures done in European style. Following the line of these folk paintings Abanindranath's students produced a number of pictures which 'roused public enthusiasm undreamt of before'. This was how the students of Abanindranath as well as their countrymen were awakening to their own artistic heritage.

What helped this awakening most were the exhibitions, suggested by

Surendranath Tagore, a cousin of Abanindranath, of the paintings of the Master and his pupils. By the way, Surendranath's substantial and invaluable work in the cause of modern India's cultural, political and economic advancement should never be forgotten. He was an active supporter of the first revolutionary activities initiated by Sri Aurobindo in Bengal in 1902. And there was no progressive movement which did not have his help and cooperation. A great soul, he knew nothing but the uplift of his country.

After a few such exhibitions of the paintings of the New School it was felt necessary to have an institution to organise these exhibitions. Thus came into being the Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907 whose leading spirit was Sir John Woodroffe, an acknowledged exponent of the Tantrik lores of India and a sturdy defender of her civilisation. Abanindranath's elder brother Gaganendranath also had a hand in starting this institution. The object of the Society was 'to promote the study of, research in all branches of ancient and modern Oriental art by means of the collection and production by its members of objects of such art, the exhibition of such collections and productions.' Among those who supported the Society and furthered its cause were a number of Englishmen including E.B. Havell, N. Blount, Marquess of Zetland. There were then Sister Nivedita, O.C. Gangoly, Ananda Coomaraswamy, James H. Cousins and Okakura Kakuzo. Havell was indeed the prime mover in every enterprise that was likely to restore Indian art to its proper place in the cultural life of the country. And Sister Nivedita ! References have been made before to her love for India and everything Indian. Swami Brahmananda, the first President of the Ramakrishna Mission, once told the writer that it was impossible to express in language the depth and intensity of her love for India. Every part of India was for Nivedita a holy place, every particle of her dust sacred. She it was who was the first to bring to the notice of the public the paintings of the New School mainly through the pages of The Modern Review, the first periodical in India to publish these studies by Nivedita along with good prints of the pictures. Ramananda Chatterjee, the eminent publicist, and Editor of The Modern Review, said that 'it was Sister Nivedita who opened my eyes to the merits of Indian art'.

In her writings Nivedita pointed out the national significance of these paintings which she regarded as a clear evidence of India's awakening in modern times. She wrote : 'The rebirth of art in India today can only take place, if it be consciously made the servant and poet of the mighty dream of an Indian Nationality'. Coomarswamy echoed these words when he said : 'The work of the modern school of Indian painters in Calcutta is a phase of the national awakening. The subjects chosen by the Calcutta painters were taken from Indian history, romance, epic, and from the mythology and religious literature and legends, as well as from the life

of the people around them. Their significance lies in their distinctive Indianness.' In the same vein spoke O.C. Gangoly and James H. Cousins, two authentic exponents of Indian culture, particularly her art. Gangoly's journal Rupam regularly published revealing and learned articles on the cultural and historical values of Oriental art with significant references to its growth in India. Studies by competent art-critics of the works of the New School, and exposition of their aims, methods and aspirations were among the features of the journal. Sri Aurobindo hailed the appearance of this 'superb quarterly', 'admirable in the accomplished excellence of its matter', as 'a significant indication of the progress that is being made in the revival of the aesthetic mind of India.' He recommended it to 'every lover of Indian art and culture' as 'one of the luxuries that are necessities'.

Gangoly's books on Indian art are illuminating original contributions as were also those of Coomaraswamy and Cousins. During his stay in the United States for many years as keeper of the Indian and Muhammedan sections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Coomarswamy did splendid work in interpreting Indian art and culture to lovers of India in America and Europe. Cousins undertook a number of lecture-tours in Europe and America mainly to popularise the works of the New School as a concrete evidence of India's resurgence in modern times—a point emphasised in their publications by all these historians and interpreters of India's art and culture. Not only this, many of them, as well as the English admirers of the neo-Bengal School saw in its works the promise of a greater future. The popularity of the School increased as there were more and more exhibitions of its works in various cities of India and abroad. These exhibitions started in India in 1908, in Paris, London, and Java in 1914, in Chicago and Tokyo in 1915. Everywhere the pictures received high praise from distinguished art-critics and many felt convinced that there was a renaissance in India with Abanindranath as its acknowledged leader. 'As an artist', says O.C. Gangoly, 'Abanindranath's reputation was built in a day when in 1914 the foremost critics and connoisseurs of Europe gathered in Paris to heap on his works a unanimous verdict of warm and reverent tributes.' The Studio of London, and Arts et Decorations and Gazette des Beaux Arts of Paris are among the famous journals of Art which carried leading articles drawing attention to the 'distinctive Indianness' of Abanindranath's work as clear indication that the creative soul of India was having 'a new birth into the glory and freshness of new forms of her art'. The evocation of such spontaneous appreciation bears testimony to the universal character of Indian art.

Thus did the New School begin and flourish, the Master fostering it with all the wealth of his heart and genius. It is not always that a school of art develops so quickly. That it was possible was due to the guidance

and direction of an inspired Master like Abanindranath. The rapid rise to fame of the works of this school was no less due to the talented pupils that the Master had in the beginning, some of whom were themselves geniuses. The Master knew how to help them develop their capacities. His method of teaching was as characteristically original as was his artistic expressions. Here are his own words on it: T do not believe in too much interference by the teacher. He should only guide and never try to improve his pupils' efforts. That would be fatal. Nor should he impose his own ideas or even his technique on them. They must be encouraged to develop their power in their own way....No imposition, no stereotyped lessons—only to remove obstacles from their path so that their genius may have full play.' His great disciple Nandalal Basu followed his Master's example in training his students at Visva-Bharati Kala Bhavan.

When his School was developing on propre lines, Abanindranath turned his attention to carrying the Indian tradition into every sphere of life, then disrupted by the Western impact. He made designs of household furniture with an eye to traditional habits and climatic conditions, and himself saw them made accordingly. These new types of furniture replaced the cosdy ones in the princely house of the Tagores. Architectural designs, house and stage decorations, dress designs, picture framing— all these received his personal attention and took new forms with an Indian 'feel'. 'The main idea was to have our newly awakened aesthetic consciousness directed to the right path of self-realisation. The lead given by him in this direction is being loyally maintained by his pupils from their position of vantage, as teachers all over India.' Be it noted that almost all the art schools in India had Abanindranath's pupils as their Principals.

Abanindranath's own paintings began more and more to take their character as original creations of a new age in Indian art which reflected the ancient spirit, perhaps some suggestion, too, of the ancient form; but they were all entirely his own, Indian in spirit but Abanindranath in style. Competent art-critics hold that his style could be nothing but Indian. Most of Abanindranath's works are characterised by a wonderful blending of vividness and delicacy or 'softness'. Says O.C. Gangoly : 'The leading traits of his miniatures are their intensely romantic and lyrical quality, and a dreamy and mystic treatment of his subjects which left them on a far higher level than the plane of a merely literal naturalism. Yet he never dabbled in mystical or symbolical things.' But he knew the magic of giving marvellous forms to his aesthetic intuitions through 'the subtle grace of his lines and the mystic evanescent flavour of his colour-schemes,' 'a wizard of form and a magician of colour that he was'.

To characterise his pictures by any particular style would not be doing justice to their supreme artistic value, their uniqueness. There is truth in the view that Abanindranath 'effected a fusion of Western and Oriental

techniques and evolved a new style of painting.' But it is also true that his art is in every way Indian since it fulfils the aims which the ancients of his country ascribed to its art-creations.

The vastness and variety of the work that came out of his brush during nearly half a century make even a bird's-eye view within this present limited scope difficult, if not impossible. In his famous picture 'Sivasimantini', says Havell, Abanindranath treats Hindu mythology with the imagination and fervour of the great Chola artists. Here though he is not strictly bound by the canons of Hindu rituals yet he is truly inspired by the highest art traditions of Buddhist and Hindu India. His 'The End of the Journey' which attracted great attention when shown at the exhibition of 'Les Orientalistes' in Paris, is an allegory, like the Buddhist Jatakas, in which animals become partners with humanity in the tragedy and mystery of life. Abanindranath's exquisite feeling, says Havell, interprets the pathos of the scene very finely, filling the spectator with sympathy and a haunting sense of mystery. His pictorial representation of Shah Jehan and the Taj are as much his masterpieces as his 'Uma'. His delightful landscape studies of Bengal are, according to competent critics, master-creations of a supreme artist.

Abanindranath's delight in nature drew him to the Himalayas. On his return he turned out pictures of a number of birds which he had never seen there but in whose voices he had heard celestial notes of invocation to sun and moon, morning and evening, notes tossed up and caught, as it were, from hill to hill, from mountain to mountain, till the rocky vast became vibrant with their music—a music, he affirmed, that excelled the best-trained voice of any master-musician. It is to some, not all, of these unseen singers of the air that he gave form and colour, and stated that material colour failed fully to express ethereal strains. Had he not casually given in his own simple, homely yet inimitably poetic way this realistic background to these paintings, it would have been next to impossible to perceive the formless in form.

Havel saw in Abanindranath's work 'a charm of poetry distinctly its own'. Nivedita also had the same perception in the work not only of the Master but of his disciples. That their work should have the poetical quality was but natural because it was the work of men of a temperamentally poetic race.

The inwardness of his aesthetic perceptions is revealed by Abanindranath himself when he said that he had drawn his picture 'The Passing of Shah Jehan' without having been to Agra and seen the Taj Mahal. 'I have not wanted to see the Taj Mahal', said he, 'lest the picture I have cherished in my mind should be spoiled by a look at the original.' In his travels abroad, Rabindranath would often remain indoors while his companions would spend hours and days over outings and sightseeings. His imagination helped him to those sights and spared him the time and

trouble of moving about. Abanindranath's famous picture 'The Passing of Shah Jehan' is a living proof of his poetic imagination.

Abanindranath's aesthetic insight opened him to the wonder and beauty in ordinary things. And he had some hobbies too. Sometimes he would pick up a broken piece of stone and gaze at it intently to discover its 'secret meaning'. Sometimes he would use such stones as models. Sometimes he would wander about in the garden collecting broken pieces of flowerpots, picking up roots of trees, and looking at them minutely in the sunlight or away from it. The beauty and light he sensed in commonplace things, he embodied, in later years, in works of art with a meaning far above the superficial. Sometimes he would call them playthings, saying, 'The time has come when I must be getting ready to go back to the Mother's lap—and so I am learning to play the child once more.' In fact, all his life he was a child, simple, innocent and with a poet's abandon. Rabindranath fondly called him, 'My crazy Aban.'

Another remarkable aspect of Abanindranath's genius was his exceptionally original literary ability. He wielded the pen with the same mastery with which he used the brush. He wrote books on art and a number of story books for children; they found his charming and magnetic personality most endearing and he loved his young friends so much that he used to devote his limitless energy to the compilation of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata for their benefit. 'He commanded a prose style', says O.C. Gangoly, 'which in simplicity and bravura of technique, as in profundity of thought, and in sparkling and surprising humour, is an invaluable and most original contribution to Bengali literature. His essays on Art and his magnificent series of lectures delivered as Bageshwari Professor of Fine Arts at the Calcutta University will stand as his solid contribution to art and literature.' A distinguished Bengali poet and critic says that 'the creator of such loveliness in prose as the author of Raj-kahini and others, has a surer place in the Temple than many a poet in our tongue.' Rabindranath once said that as in art, so in Bengali literature, Abanindranath had no equal.

Knowing that Abanindranath was not temperamentally inclined to take up any office, Sir Ashutosh Mookherji, then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, himself called on him and succeeded in persuading him to accept the Bageshwari Chair of Fine Arts. And as a tribute to his genius as a master-exponent of aesthetics, he attended his lectures along with O.C. Gangoly and several eminent professors side by side with post-graduate students.

Be it recorded to the lasting memory of Sir Ashutosh that his towering personality and high constructive genius saved Calcutta University from a threatened blight of alien control, rebuilt it on a footing of academic freedom into a living centre for the cultivation of arts and sciences, for

the study and research of ancient Indian history and culture and for die development of some of the Indian languages. In such pioneering work his contribution to the Indian renaissance is invaluable.

In Abanindranath's Bengali writings in his early twenties Rabindranath saw the promise of his literary genius. He advised him to write children's stories for which he showed special aptitude. The assurance from the Poet was: 'Write as you tell them, and I shall lend a hand in shaping them if need be.' Abanindranath said that the Poet also encouraged him in his effort to express himself in art. The artist's cryptic words were : 'Bengal's poet suggested the lines of art, Bengal's artist (Abanindranath himself) continued to work alone along those lines for many a day.' What resulted from this continuous endeavour was described by the Poet himself: 'When I consider who is the person most deserving of honour in Bengal, the first name which suggests itself to me is that of Abanindranath. He has saved the country from the sin of self-depreciation. He has raised her from the depths of humiliation and has regained for her the honoured position which was hers by right. He has earned for India the recognition of her contributory share in all that humanity has realised for itself. A new era has dawned upon India through a reawakening of her art consciousness. And it is from him that the whole of India has learnt her lesson anew. A proud place has thus been assured for Bengal through his achievements.'

When in 1941 Abanindranath's seventieth birthday was celebrated he received a chorus of felicitations from his admirers the world over. After mentioning that his ability 'as a painter is widely recognised, not in Bengal, nor indeed in India only, but in the chief centres of culture in Europe and America also,' the marquess of Zetland said : 'My personal contact with Abanindranath Tagore was largely in connection with the reorganisation of the Indian Society of Oriental Art more than twenty years ago— The Society served as a focus for the aspirations which were stirring in the rising generation of Bengali artists—aspirations which were fostered, and in no small measure inspired, by Abanindranath and other members of that gifted family. The exhibitions of their work for which the Society made itself responsible, served as a mirror in which could be clearly seen the spiritual and aesthetic revolution that was in progress. Here was to be seen no slavish imitation of alien models, but work which bore the distinctive impress of indigenous genius. This is not to say that Abanindranath and those who had gathered round him were producing mere replicas of ancient Indian works; far from it. The movement in which he played so great a part owed its origin to a reawakening of the slumbering spirit of India. That which was to be seen emerging from a period of stagnation was a thing of organic growth drawing sustenance from the soil of India, a living art in which were enshrined the ideals and conventions of the past, a fresh flowering of the ancient tree, but a flowering which was necessarily influenced by the environment in which it took place. In other words, the

work of the school of which Abanindranath was a leading exponent enjoyed a measure of originality which was to be expected from those who were themselves the product of a dramatic phase of Indian history.' Wrote Sir William Rothenstein: '....I was interested to see that however Abanindranath was determined to carry on the best traditions of Indian painting, he was too much a man of his own age not to be sensitive to the contemporary spirit. Hence he became the natural leader of the young India School in Bengal : indeed, his influence extended far beyond his own province. His name became a standard; no other name has stood so high as his in association with the painter's art in India....It is a pleasure to me to join in congratulating him on his great achievement, as a fine scholar as well as artist, who has done more than any other painter to spread a wider knowledge of the character of the Indian genius, and to bring recognition to its contemporary expression.' From Nicholas Roerich : '....As a powerful beacon stands Dr. Abanindranath Tagore, as a guru of an entire School of Art. He blessed the best living artists of India. By his own untiring example he opened the gates for resplendent future.'¹ 'An artist like Abanindranath is born but once in the course of five hundred years', said Kakuzo Okakura, the eminent Japanese art-historian and a devoted lover of India and her culture.

Concluding a most illuminating study of Abanindranath's genius, O. C. Gangoly said, 'India has yet to pay her tribute and render her homage to her greatest genius in art, who is also one of the greatest personalities in contemporary life and destined to leave indelible marks on the pages of the history of human culture, for Art is one of the most shining pages of that book, which he has taught us to read and understand.'²

In his last years, Abanindranath was not keeping good health. He left his body on 5 December 1951. A year before on the same day Sri Aurobindo left his body. And both came to birth in the month of August.

Now a word about Abanindranath's beloved pupil, Nandalal Basu (b. 1883). This born artistic genius is indeed a man of God, and has a spiritual life of his own, inspired by the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna. He is also devoted to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and believes that art is a kind of Yoga. The writer who had the joy of having his company at Santiniketan for eight long years will never forget the words Nandalal spoke to him from his soul, more particularly, those on the day the writer left Santiniketan. The master-artist was in a reminiscent mood recalling his visions and experiences that have always proved an unfailing source of inspiration to him both in his spiritual and artistic endeavours. Nandalal wanted the writer to convey these to the Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. To some of these visions he gave expression in his paintings, a few of which, he said, he could not claim

¹ Visvabharati Quarterly, Abanindra Number, 1942.

² Ibid.

as his own, because, while his hand was drawing them, it was being moved and driven by a higher force connected with the visions. The ancient intuitive vision of his race illumined his creative consciousness from which he produced the treasures of the world's great art. Indian in every fibre of his being, his principal themes were the immortals of heaven, who, as various aspects of the Supreme, manifest themselves in the vision of their devotees in response to their aspirations. Nandalal drank deep of the myths and legends of his country and adopted their heroes and their divine personalities for suggestive interpretation in terms of his art. Some such creations of his are not faithful to their mythological descriptions. The artist reproduced from his vision these gods and goddesses who, being aspects of the Infinite, are not bound by any fixed forms. This is confirmed by mystic experience which, for example, sees Mahakali as a golden figure, and Ganesa in a different way. Nandalal's wonderful representations of his vision of Siva and Durga, not exactly in their mythological forms, are among his greatest creations. So also is his 'Uma's Tapasya' (austerities), an earlier work, produced under the influence of a higher Direction. 'Natir Puja' or 'the Worship of a Dancing Girl', a later work, done to decorate Rabindranath's famous play with the same tide, also the work of a higher Direction, is another masterpiece of modern Indian painting, in which worshipful devotion is heightened by the intensity of utter consecration to the Tathagata. Another picture of Nandalal with its world-wide appeal is 'The Buddha Carrying a Lame Goat', exhibited in the twenties in the Geneva Exhibition, which evoked the remarks of a Swiss ciritic : T see behind these pictures a great civilisation.' 'Krishna and Arjuna' is yet another picture of his, exhibited, for the first time, in 1918, whose splendid virility in idea, colour and line—a dominant feature of Nandalal's art—struck the eminent art-critic, James H. Cousins, 'as being one of the most powerful Indian pictures ever painted'.

But Nandalal, with his roots in the past, lives in the present, in the core, as it were, of its inner movements and becomes its artistic mirror. In fact, his ever-expanding vision seizes the varied 'currents of life set in motion by the cosmic rhythm of the Spirit', just as was done by the artists of ancient India, of Ajanta and generally of the whole of Asia.

What is it in Nandalal's art that gives character to it ? Dynamic vitality of his lines, charm and freshness of his conceptions inspired by his inner visions and experiences and his striking originality—qualities radiating the essential Indianness of Nandalal's masterpieces. His art reflects, among others, his intuitive sensitivity for linear rhythms. In fact, basic linearity is an outstanding feature of Oriental, and for the matter of that, of Indian painting. Not only the force and rhythm of life and spirit, but also their sweetness and light, become vivid in the artistic manipulation of lines harmonised with a simple colour scheme, suggesting deeper meanings that make them significant works of art characteristic of the creative mind

of India. The frescoes of Ajanta are typical examples of this Indian character. And, as is well-known, the influence of Ajanta on Nandalal is as immense as it is natural, for the intuitive Indian vision of the artist easily opened to the intrinsic sublimities of these wonderful works of the ancient masters who 'conceived, evolved and designed them from the spacious depths of their spiritual consciousness'. Nandalal along with an English lady and some fellow-disciples of Abanindranath copied on the spot and in their full size, a number of Ajanta paintings. Mention may be made here that it was Sister Nivedita who persuaded these Indian artists towards this undertaking. The result was that they had direct acquaintance with these wonders of Indian art and with the spirit animating them.

The most worthy representative of the new School of Painting, Nandalal is a luminous page in the cultural history of modern India, in which his place of honour is assured not only by the marvels that came out of his brush but also for the fact that many of his students at Santiniketan hailing from all parts of India, have become artists of renown, teaching in various educational and art-schools in India.

Nandalal's sketching is no less masterly than his painting. One day while he was having tea in the Cha-Chakra, the tea club of teachers at Santiniketan, a small boy (of about eight) of the children's section of the school came to him for a sketch for his younger brother at home whom he was going to meet during the ensuing summer recess. The master-artist, always accessible to children, took the card and pencil from the boy and in about five minutes gave it back to him. 'A gaping tiger ! too terrible for my brother !' faltered the boy in a tone of fright. The Acharya took it back, gave the sketch a few more strokes and returned it. This time the boy was all smiles. The second touch of the artist had now turned the terror into a fun—a yawning cat ! The writer was present on the occasion. Once while doing a sketch the Acharya pointed out to the writer how those simple lines could express the inner being of man. Nandalal was very much interested in the folk forms of art all over the world, the history of which, when properly written, would reveal, he said, the underlying unity of prehistoric cultures.

Nandalal had the honour of being appointed in 1935 the first official architect and designer of the Indian National Congress.

Says O. C. Gangoly : 'A high compliment is due to Nandalal's unique personality—his unruffled temper, his quiet reticence, his humility, his indifference to praise or blame, his distaste for publicity, his life-long devotion to art—as that of a veritable Yogi absorbed in meditation. It is difficult to choose between the two phases of his personality—Nandalal the Man, Nandalal the Artist. As a teacher he has now no equal, living in the hearts of his many disciples and pupils. He has never attempted to impose his own style on his pupils, only helped them to develop their own style and personality....

'Nandalal Bose stands today on the highest pinnacle of art in modern India, yet unapproached and perhaps never to be approached by any lesser talent in times to come. As the disciple and intimate collaborator of Acharya Abanindranath Tagore in building up the new renaissance in Indian Painting, Bose incarnates in his works a brilliant monument to the new art of the age, which assimilates and interprets all that is noble, all that is inspiring, all that is permanent and dynamic in the finest traditions of Indian painting which live and relive in his works with a throbbing life, rich with newer possibilities. To demonstrate that the old art is not dead, but lives with its immortal strength and inherent possibilities for newer expressions to suit the demands of the modern age, has been the greatest contribution of Nandalal Bose to Indian culture.'¹

That Nandalal's art has had world-wide appreciation the writer can affirm from direct knowledge. While at Santiniketan the writer had contacts with artists, art-critics and art-lovers from different parts of the world almost all of whom paid high tribute to Nandalal's works. Some offered fancy prices moved simply by the attractive qualities of his work, knowing nothing of the artist himself. Once for a small picture of 'Ardhanariswar' an American poet-artist offered Rs. 250. When Nandalal came to know of it he seemed nettled and said, 'How could I accept such sum for a picture which took me not even two hours ?' Greed is no part of Nandalal's nature.

Almost all those who had the privilege of having their training under Acharya Abanindranath were able to develop their talents and attain a high degree of proficiency, the best proof of this being the stamp of Indianness added to the outstanding features of the New School of Painting. Take, for instance, the vivid lyricism of the work of Asitkumar Haldar, the mellowed light in that of Samarendranath Gupta, the dreamy feel in Kshitindranath Majumdar, his saintliness in the work of Venkatappa : all having a subtle touch of poetry as a characteristic feature.

Another artist in whose work the Indian motive finds pronounced expression is Promodekumar Chattopadhyaya (b. 1885). A bom artist, he had his training in the Government School of Art, Calcutta, and began his artistic career as a painter in European style. After his travels in the Himalayas, particularly in Tibet where he saw the beautiful banners and other art-forms inspired by Indian art, he joined the Indian Society of Oriental Art and changed to Indian style. He, however, evolved a method of painting in his own way keeping to the principal aim and motive of ancient Indian art and following the lines of the New School of Indian painting in Bengal. He is also an earnest spiritual seeker, who has given form, in his own manner, to his vision of Hindu gods and goddesses. He has a distinctive style, and a feeling for rhythmic line. The great value of his pictures lies in the painting of subjects of spiritual significance. It is

¹ Catalogue of Works of Nandalal Bose,

here that the artist is most at home. He shows an innate sense of beauty with reality and depicts with a sure touch inner moods and profundities. Some of his pictures on spiritual themes deserve not only to be seen but contemplated upon. A collection of more than seventy of his paintings now forms part of the Art Gallery of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. It includes a number of his masterpieces one of which is 'Vision of Shiva above Human Passions'. He is second to none in giving depth of feeling and spiritual expression to the eyes of his figures. Art-critics have bestowed high praise on him for 'the immortal works he has evolved out of spiritual depths'. James H. Cousins characterised his paintings as 'splendid' and 'singularly striking'.

Promodekumar taught for some years at Andhra Jatiya Kalasala and Baroda Kala Bhavan. He has written a number of books on his experiences with Yogis, particularly of the Tantrik school, in search of whom he travelled widely throughout the country. He has for years been a devotee of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and is now doing sadhana in their Ashram at Pondicherry. He also gives help and guidance to senior students and teachers of art at the Education Centre. Of the two of his latest works, one is a symbolic representation of a vision, called, 'Heralds of the Supra-mental World', the other an excellent portrait of' Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta in 1907' which has been Sri Aurobindo Ashram's gift to the Government of India for the picture gallery in Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.

Synchronising, as it did, with the national awakening in the early years of the present century, the work of the New School of Painting was verily a reflection of the awakening. At this great hour its founder and his pupils produced some of the greatest paintings of the world in consonance with the life-line of India's cultural evolution and inspired by the eternal motive of Indian art. The movement was certainly not a stray attempt to revive 'the glorious traditions of Indian art in new and fresh forms.' It is an expression of the larger awakening of national consciousness. That the former helped the latter is true. That the latter created conditions favourable for the former is also beyond doubt.

'The national movement', said Chittaranjan Das in 1917, 'has no justification if it does not carry with it some hope of a new manifestation of the Indian genius in relation to the real things in life.' Coomaraswamy wrote in 1909 : 'The unrest which is permeating educated India is a struggle for spiritual and mental freedom from the domination of an alien ideal....It is not so much the material as the moral and spiritual subjection of Indian civilisation that in the end impoverishes humanity.' This is the spiritual and cultural significance of the Swadeshi movement or revolution, as called by a distinguished Indian historian. Indeed the fact must be admitted that under its reviving influence the people of India 'steeped themselves once again in that stream of culture and civilisation which had been flowing from time immemorial through the

heart of their country. They had been enabled once more to catch glimpses of the true continuity of their national history.' The main problem now was how to develop fully and adequately the newly awakened national life. To counteract the disruptive forces was certainly the first necessity. The next all-important need was an upsurge of the creative soul of the people stimulated by its discovery of the spirit of their ancient heritage. This upsurge alone could facilitate a total reconstruction of the national life—social, cultural, economic, political.

While 'political' freedom was regarded as the essential condition for all these to develop fully and effectively, for the national being to be truly itself in every way, there had been a psychological movement long before the liberation movement took its definitive form.

It has been seen how the God-man of Dakshineswar turned the mind, heart and soul of the people towards the spiritual moorings of their life and culture, how his heroic mouthpiece voiced the truth of India's soul to her children and to the whole world, affirming with the accents of a god that the resurgence of India was a divinely-ordained phenomenon through which she would become herself again in every walk of life, and fulfil her mission in the world. India's response to this divine call meant her return to the spiritual centre of her being, an intuitive perception of the strength that she still is in her soul, the strength by which alone she could fulfil what God wanted of her. This discovery by the country of its soul led to an outburst of nationalistic activities. 'The emergence of Bengal', says Sri Aurobindo, 'as a sub-nation was throughout a strongly subjective movement and in its later development it became very consciously that. The movement of 1905 in Bengal pursued a quite new conception of the nation not merely as a country, but a soul, a psychological, almost spiritual being and, even when acting from economical and political motives, it sought to dynamise them by this subjective conception and to make them instruments of self-expression rather than objects in themselves.'¹

The creative soul of the nation had already started expressing itself along the line of India's evolution in history. Wrote Sri Aurobindo in 1918 : 'In poetry, literature, art, science there have...been definite beginnings. Bengal in these, as in many other directions, has been recently the chief testing crucible or the first workshop of the Shakti of India; it is there she has chosen to cast in the greatest vivacity of new influences and develop her initial forms and inspirations. In the rest of India there is often much activity of production and one hears here and there of a solitary poet or prose-writer of genius or notable talent, but Bengal has already a considerable literature of importance, with a distinct spirit and form, well-based and always developing; she has now a great body of art original, inspired, full of delicate beauty and vision ;

¹ Sri Aurobindo : The Human Cycle (American Edn.) p. 41.

she has not only two renowned scientists, one of the two world-famous for a central and far-reaching discovery, but a young school of research which promises to count for something in the world's science. It is here therefore that we can observe the trend of the Indian mind and the direction in which it is turning. Especially the art of the Bengal painters is very significant.... Bengal art has found its way at once at the first step, by a sort of immediate intuition...

'The whole power of the Bengal artists springs from their deliberate choice of the spirit and hidden meaning in things rather than their form and surface meaning as the object to be expressed. It is intuitive and its forms are the very rhythm of its intuition, they have little to do with the metric formalities devised by the observing intellect; it leans over the finite to discover its suggestions of the infinite and inexpressible; it turns to outward life and nature to found upon it lines and colours, rhythms and embodiments which will be significant of the other life and other nature than the physical which all that is merely outward conceals. This is the eternal motive of Indian art, but applied in a new way less largely ideaed, mythological and symbolical, but with a more delicately suggestive attempt at a near, subtle, direct embodiment. This art is a true new creation, and we may expect that the artistic mind of the rest of India will follow through the gate thus opened, but we may expect it too to take on there other characteristics and find other ways of expression; for the peculiar turn and tone given by the Calcutta painters is intimate to the temperament of Bengal. But India is great by the unity of her national coupled with the rich diversity of her regional mind. That we may expect to see reflected in the resurgence of her artistic creativeness.'¹Here is what Havell said : 'The deeper significance of the movement lies, however, not so much in its actual accomplishment, as in the clear evidence it gives of a spiritual ressurection, of the reawakening of the artistic soul of India.' Yet another contemporary opinion : 'The artists of the new school are recovering our ancestral heritage with a new development of spiritual depth, power and originality, which is prophetic of the future.'

Sri Aurobindo's pronouncement again: 'That significant event —the brilliant and sudden dawn of the Bengal school of art—has already effected an aesthetic revolution in the country, not by any means complete, but irresistible and sure of the future.'

How could this awakening help forward the cause of national progress ? How could the cultivation and appreciation of art be made a dynamic factor in the evolution of the nation towards its highest greatness and glory ? These are among the problems that Sri Aurobindo discussed in a series of articles in 1909 under the title, 'The National Value of Art', since published in book form. In this he pointed out the vital role of art

¹ Sri Aurobindo : The Renaissance in India, pp. 60-63.

in the progressive movement of the national being, and the aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual aspects of art in relation to national life and development. 'The first and lowest use of art', says Sri Aurobindo, 'is the purely aesthetic, the second is the intellectual or educative, the third and highest the spiritual. By speaking of the aesthetic use as the lowest, we do not wish to imply that it is not of immense value to humanity, but simply to assign to it its comparative value in relation to the higher uses. The aesthetic is of immense importance and until it has done its work, mankind is not really fitted to make full use of Art on the higher planes of human development.'

Speaking of the place of art in the evolution of the race and its value in the education and actual life of a nation, Sri Aurobindo says, 'It is obvious, from what we have already written, that the manners, the social culture and the restraint in action and expression which are so large a part of national prestige and dignity and make a nation admired like the French, loved like the Irish or respected like the higher-class English, is based essentially on the sense of form and beauty, of what is correct, symmetrical, well-adjusted, fair to the eye and pleasing to the imagination— Now the sense of form and beauty, the correct, symmetrical, well-adjusted, fair and pleasing is an artistic sense and can best be fostered in a nation by artistic culture of the perceptions and sensibilities....The mind is profoundly influenced by what it sees and, if the eye is trained from the days of childhood to the contemplation and understanding of beauty, harmony and just arrangement in line and colour, the tastes, habit and character will be insensibly trained to follow a similar law of beauty, harmony and just arrangement in the fife of the adult man.' As regards intellectual training, while the critical, analytic and penetrative intellectual centres in man are trained by science, criticism and observations, the imagination, creative and sympathetic or comprehensive intellectual centres are trained by art, poetry, music, literature and the sympathetic study of man and his creations. 'This supreme intellectual value of Art has never been sufficiency recognised. Men have made language, poetry, history, philosophy agents for the training of this side of intellectuality, necessary parts of a liberal education, but the immense educative force of music, painting and sculpture has not been duly recognised. They have been thought to be by-paths of the human mind, beautiful and interesting, but not necessary, therefore intended for the few. Yet the universal impulse to enjoy the beauty and attractiveness of sound, to look and live among pictures, colours, forms ought to have warned mankind of the superficiality and ignorance of such a view of these eternal and important occupations of the human mind....

'But beyond and above this intellectual utility of Art there is a higher use, the noblest of all, its service to the growth of spirituality in the race.... Spirituality is a wider thing than formal religion and it is in the service

of spirituality that Art reaches its highest self-expression. Spirituality is a single word expressive of three lines of human aspiration towards divine knowledge, divine love and joy, divine strength, and that will be the highest and most perfect art which, while satisfying the physical requirements of the aesthetic sense, the laws of formal beauty, the emotional demand ,of humanity, the portrayal of life and outward reality, as the best European Art satisfies these requirements, reaches beyond them and expresses inner spiritual truth, the joy of God in the world and its beauty and desirableness and the manifestation of divine force and energy in phenomenal creation. This is what Indian Art alone attempted thoroughly and in the effort it often dispensed, deliberately or from impatience, with the lower, yet not negligible perfections which the more material European demanded. Therefore Art has flowed in two separate streams in Europe and Asia, so diverse that it is only now that the European aesthetic sense has so far trained itself as to begin to appreciate the artistic conventions, aims and traditions of Asia. Asia's future development will unite these two streams in one deep and grandiose flood of artistic self-expression perfecting the aesthetic evolution of humanity.

'But if Art is to reach towards the highest, the Indian tendency must dominate. The spirit is that in which all the rest of the human being reposes, towards which it returns and the final self-revelation of which is the goal of humanity. Man becomes God, and all human activity reaches its highest and noblest when it succeeds in bringing body, heart and mind into touch with the spirit. Art can express eternal truth; it is not limited to the expression of form and appearance. So wonderfully has God made the world that a man using a simple combination of lines, an unpretentious harmony of colours, can raise this apparently insignificant medium to suggest absolute and profound truths with a perfection which language labours with difficulty to reach. What Nature is, what God is, what man is can be triumphantly revealed in stone or on canvas....

'In India the revival of a truly national Art is already an accomplished fact and the masterpieces of the school can already challenge comparison with the best work of other countries. Under such circumstances it is unpardonable that the crude formal teaching of English schools and the vulgar commercial aims and methods of the West should subsist in our midst. The country has yet to evolve a system of education which* shall be really national. The taint of Occidental ideals and alien and unsuitable methods has to be purged out of our minds, and nowhere more than in the teaching which should be the foundation of intellectual and aesthetic renovation. The spirit of old Indian Art must be revived, the inspiration and directness of vision which even now subsists among the possessors of the ancient traditions, the inborn skill and taste of the race, the dexterity of the Indian hand and the intuitive gaze of the Indian eye must be recovered and the whole nation lifted again to the high level of the

ancient culture—and higher.'

That this wish of Sri Aurobindo, expressed in 1909, began fulfilling itself is indicated in what he said in 1918, quoted before. By this time the Bengal painters had produced worthily enough to justify Sri Aurobindo's reading into their work the promise of an artistic revival in the whole of India. But that was only a beginning—a great one though—which, if the renaissance is to achieve its highest end, must develop on proper lines and realise in the life of the nation the possibilities opened up by the pioneers.