putting clothes on a goddess

[Guest guest]

Hi Sadhvi:

 

I very much like your observation, "They do not seem to be anything

very unusual or even particularly interesting, considering the level

of art that can be found in India virtually everywhere you look."

 

Judging by some of the mail I'm receiving, some people seem to see

me as some kind of "Husain defender." I don't think I am that,

though I consider the best of his vast body of work to be absolutely

outstanding, certainly in a league with some of the finest "modern

art" produced in the West during the second half of the 20th century.

 

I would also add that the titles you found distracting on the

Sanatan Sanstha webpage are not Husain's actual titles -- rather,

they are descriptives placed there by Sanatan Sanstha with the

specific purpose of drawing your attention to the "nakedness."

 

With that in mind, you are quite correct to say that Sanatan Sanstha

is (in your words) "manipulating the viewer's focus of attention ...

virtually demanding that the viewer 'notice' and react to

the "nakedness" of the deity." Quite right.

 

An offline conversation I had with a member today quite convinced my

that Husain may well have a "Hindu-baiting" agenda. Sanatan Sanstha

has an agenda too.

 

I think it's too bad, though, if all this hullabaloo detracts from

our ability to enjoy (or not enjoy, as it were) the artworks on

their own terms. As Ernest Hemingway told a woman who met him and

very much disliked him, as recounted in his memoir Death in the

Afternoon ... "Madame, it is always a mistake to know the artist."

 

DB

 

 

 

, "nityashakti" <sadhvi

wrote:

>

> Dear list,

> Well...I'll take the chance of posting here again. I am an

artist by

> profession and have been for the past 40 years (in the West but

have

> also studied in India). I looked at the paintings in question.

They do

> not seem to be anything very unusual or even particularly

interesting,

> considering the level of art that can be found in India virtually

> everywhere you look. However, it seems to me that it's the titles

> given to the paintings rather than the paintings themselves that

> are "inflammatory"...calling something, "Stark Naked Lakshmi"

> or "Naked Saraswati" is manipulating the viewer's focus of

> attention...virtually demanding that the viewer "notice" and react

to

> the "nakedness" of the deity. It's not "accidental" and is a ploy

used

> frequently by Western artists to call attention to otherwise

pretty

> conservative work...give it a title that forces the observer to

see it

> in a specific way. I doubt that these paintings would have caused

much

> of a fuss without the titles...but, of course, I am quite ignorant

of

> the ongoing debate.

> s

>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<*>

/

 

<*>

 

<*> Your