Recently I was trying to understand European idea of
modernism in painting. And the process went on as it happens .While reading a
book having nice illustrations, I get attracted by the illustration beside the
text – gaze at it for several minutes – and by the time I come out of my
bewitched state, I realize I forgot what I read! That way I could not proceed
much with theories describing modernism. But today I discovered an article on
the role of visual art in creating subjective truth without illustration.
Obviously, I did not have any trouble reading it. And then, as I incidentally started chatting with
one of my old colleagues, I realised how deceptive visual art can be.
Visual art is about vision – the object reveals itself
only to the person who views or intends to view it. In other words, try to get
some meaning out of it. And there lies the scope of deception. The visual
improvised may hold something other than that we assume.
What we look though a camera, camera works as our eyes
– and probably eyes see what we want to see. The director of a movie makes
his\her actor act the way he\she wants to see them. When I watch the movie, my eyes
try to catch nuances those mean the most to me. It may be the same as the
director wanted to show. But how am I so sure that only one meaning is attached
to that sequence - that shot – that face or gesture?
My colleague told me he remembers how a cosy relationship
I had with another lady once. Even after ten years he remembers visuals of my
talking to her – sitting on one corner of the office. I know the assumptions -
which I never wanted to break – I had my own reasons. Even this time, I could
not tell the simple boy, now probably a project manager or something with an
MNC, that I actually had a strenuous relationship with the lady who they
thought I was in love with. We never had same character or taste; the lady was
probably given the responsibility of mentoring me after some other mgmt people
failed – and I listened to her attentively while gazing straight to her, always
trying to decipher what she meant by her words and tried to understand the
cultural aspect that had made her so different from me. A good example of
romantic visual creation I believe! And that worked!
Le roi from Le petit prince
I remember ‘Thinker’ (or
Poet?) - work of Rodin. The man thinks –
but what does he think? Forget about the title and then try to imagine. Is he a
poet trying to find out lines with his chin resting on his hand? Is he
mournful? Or just lost in some deep thought? Probably he is looking for an
answer to the question – how to drive ten kilometres next morning in fog? You
find your own meaning which may not match with anyone else’s. Remember le roi
in the petit prince – did Saint-Exupéry want to show the commanding attitude of
the roi or the helplessness? – a grotesque man or poor one waiting for a subject? Who knows? Same I experienced with an illustration by Devdutt Pattanaik – a king sits with his head bowed, while his
eyes are open. Gesture says he is not in a jolly mood. The article written by
the author explains the situation but without the article, the viewer is free
to decipher own meaning out of it!
I remember my
first experience of seeing Gammateshwara Bahubali - the famous Jain monk in Sravanbelgola. I
could not stop myself from expressing –“SOooo, this is the largest male figure
in India?” - While I was wondering how they have curved such a colossus so
perfectly and following which method one thousand years back. But the next moment I realised that I made my colleague
beside me scared – “Tum maroaoge yaar! This is a pilgrimage – this is God – not
a male figure….”Same colleague later accepted my appreciations for some other
men and women curved in other temples. But by that time she was habituated to
tolerate my blasphemous statements.
People’s face as well as gestures are intriguing at
times – not all, but some of them – be they are on the other side of camera’s lens,
or on a piece of paper or curved on walls. Not because we are able to read them
very well, probably because we are not able to read them well. Mystery is mesmerising. Mystery in a visual mesmerises us that in turn
leads us to form our subjective truth. . An explanation by a pundit, which wipes the
mystery off the persona \ image is therefore, less stimulating.
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