My Inspiration for April 2024

This April will stay in my memory as a month of beautiful walks and dreamy melodies. Konstantin Somov’s painting “Repose at Sunset”, shown bellow, perfectly illustrates the mood of April for me; the blooming lilacs, softness, dreaminess, yes that was April for me! I found the poetic and whimsical in places and things I thought were well-known and familiar to me. The freshly sprung new leaves, the blooming tulips, roses and wisteria have enchanted me like never before. Dandelions turning silver before my eyes, bamboo swaying in the wind, full of raindrops, old unused water wells overgrown with moss, sunsets above the river, reflections of trees and houses in the river… this April was full of such beautiful scenes.

“People aren’t homes, they never will be. People are rivers, always changing, forever flowing. They will disappear with everything you put inside them.”

(Nikita Gill)

“Self-display: no way to shine
Self-assertion: no way to suceed
Self-praise: no way to flourish

(Tao Te Ching)

“We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

(Carson McCullers)

By Konstantin Somov

Picture found here.

Mukteshvara Temple is a 10th-century Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva located in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. (via Instagram: Jagadeesh Taluri)

Picture found here.

peach blossom in 阐福寺 chanfu temple, beihai park by 張萌Moe23 | gaogewf.

Picture by Bruce Lewis.

Instagram: elise.buch

Dolo, Veneto, Italy by Eleonora Boiserie

Nihonbashi – Tokyo, Japan. Picture found here.

Pink Night, Watercolor on Black Cotton Paper.

Han Lei :: Yellow Mountain 02, 2002-2008. | src Lumas

 

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

The model is styled as figures from the famous Tang dynasty painting “The Eighty-seven Immortals”.

Fashion Inspiration: Colours of India

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Indian Miniature Painting – Lovers On Bed: The days are short and nights are dark and long, and this is the month for love

“The days are short and nights are dark and long,
and this is the month for love.
Do not quarrel and turn away from me,
and leave me not this month of Pausha.”

Lovers on Bed, opaque watercolour on paper, Kangra, c. 1780-1790

In Indian miniature paintings the lovers are always waiting, yearning, pining, dreaming, suffering. The beautiful heroines such as Utka Nayika are anxiously waiting for their lovers, or, like Abhisarika Nayika, all dressed up and walking through a dark forest to meet her lover. When I discovered the Kangra paintings last year I was completely enthralled by the beautiful representations of love. In these Indian miniature paintings I found what I was seeking all along; all the subtle beauties and nuances of love – fifty, and more, shades of love. No other art movement or school portrays love in such an intricate manner.

There are many Kangra paintings that I love and I discover my new favourites all the time, but at the moment the painting “Lovers on Bed” from the late eighteenth century is my favourite. When we think of a perfect setting or season for love, we might think of warmth, spring or summer, flowers, gardens, and parks, the kind that we see in paintings of Fragonard or Boucher. A land of love might equal the land of eternal summer. And yet Keshav Das speaks of the winter month of Pausha as “the month for love”. There is a delightful sense of coziness about winter that summer, despite all its beauty and magic, simply doesn’t have. And indeed, in these cold winter days there is nothing better to do than to cuddle up to your beloved under a blanket, gaze at the moon perhaps or, better yet, gaze into each other’s eyes. And this is exactly what the lovers in this miniature painting are doing. In this Kangra watercolour, “Lovers on Bed”, the lovers are united at last! No more yearning, uncertainty, anxious waiting or walking through a dark snake-filled forest to meet your beloved, why, he is right here, under the blanket with you. The painting shows a sweet, intimate moment between two lovers on a winter night. The woman is offering the man – her man – paan, while he is covering them both in a warm yellow blanket. Despite the simplicity of the scene, the simple background and also the simple gesture between lovers, still so much warmth and love and a sense of a quiet, secure joy is conveyed. Truly, no words, no adornments, no other visual elements in the painting are needed to express the beauty of the love they are feeling. Yesterday was the night of the full moon and even though a new month had therefore begun in the Hindi calender, these verses by the poet Keshav Das describing the month of Pausha, the winter month that had just passed, are very fitting for the scene in the painting:

“Anything cold in the month of Pausha,
food, water, house, or dress,
Is liked by none anywhere.
Cold are the earth and the sky,
and the rich and poor all alike
Want sunshine, massage, betel, fire,
company of women, and warm clothes.
The days are short and nights are dark and long,
and this is the month for love.
Do not quarrel and turn away from me,
and leave me not this month of Pausha.”

The full painting.

Abhisarika Nayika (The One Who Goes Out to Meet her Lover) – Indian Love Painting

Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

Abhisarika Nayika, A Painting from a Nayika Series. c 1820

Some time ago I wrote about some really beautiful Indian miniature paintings one of which was the Kangra style painting of Utka Nayika or the heroine anxiously expecting her lover. The nature in those watercolours and the overall mood is dreamy, sensuous, and idyllic, the landscape is especially verdant, lush and fragrant, as if inviting all the love naughtiness to take place, but the paintings that I will be showing in this post have a completely different mood. While Utka Nayika is the one waiting for her lover, usually in a beautiful natural setting, the Abhisarika Nayika is the courageous and daring heroine who goes out into the deepest, darkest depths of the forest to meet her beloved there. Dressed in a splendid blue attire, adorned with all the possible jewellery, she is ready to meet her lover, but before she does, the path is long and thorny. The forest is dark and those clouds don’t look at all promising. They are dark and heavy with rain. There is thunder and lightning. And oh – if only the thunder were the worst thing that awaits the poor, but relentness and brave heroine! No, there are snakes coiling themselves around her foot, there are spooky creatures, forest witches, and who knows what else, in her way. Her light in the darkness, her candle of hope, is the love that she is feeling in her heart and this love is guiding her through all the trials and tribulations.

Abhisarika Nayika

In these paintings we see just how big of a role nature plays in conveying the mood. The heroines are dressed almost the same way in nearly all of these watercolours, usually with elaborate adornment, jewellery, perfume and veils. It is nature here which is changing her robes; from lush and sensuous in the Utka Nayika paintings, to the dark and spooky in the Abhisarika Nayika watercolours. The trees are no longer offering a warm, kind shelter but are instead creating eerie shadows in the moonlight and their long twisted branches are like the long arms of some demon about to grab the nayika around her waist and pull her into the deepest darkest depths of the underworld. The sky is not smiling and calm, but instead the clouds, heavy with rains, are gathering, wanting to spoil the lovers’ night of passion with rain and thunder. The wind is not cooling the heat of the summer, but rather it is swaying the branches of the trees in an unsettling way, and it seems to whisper to the nayika: go home, go home… But of course this nayika will not listen to or take anyone’s advice. She didn’t spent all day picking out that magical midnight blue attire and all that jewellery for nothing! Oh, she will see her man tonight, even if the sky fell down and all the witches and serpents leave their home that night to torment her! She is untouchable. I love the effect of thunder and rain in these paintings, especially in the 1840 one bellow, those rain drops, just marvellous. I have no words at how spooky the portrayal of those witches are. And I truly adore the midnight darkness of the last painting in this post; the dark colour palette with the touches of white in those flowers, and the nayika’s blue attire, truly stunning visually and captures the nocturnal atmosphere.

Abhisarika Nayika – The Heroine Going to Meet her Lover, India, Guler, circa 1810-1820

When the nayika does indeed meet her beloved, her hero or nayaka, this conversation occurs:

Nayaka: “You have enslaved me,dear, by coming here even though not called.”
Nayika: “But, Ghanasyama, clouds came and brought me here.”
Nayaka: “I can’t even see your body in this darkness. I wonder how you found the way.”
Nayika:“Lightning showed me the path.”
Nayaka: “But your feet must have been hurt on the uneven path covered with mud and thorns.”
Nayika: “The elephant of courage which I was riding was very comfortable indeed.”
Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

(taken from “Kangra Paintings on Love”, M.S.Randhawa)

Lady keeping tryst on stormy night, Abhisarika Nayika, Bilaspur, c. 1840

Abhisarika Nayika braves the forest at night to meet her lover, Early 19th century. Kangra

The Heroine Who Waits Anxiously for Her Absent Lover (Utka Nayika) – Indian Miniature Painting

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

(Percy Shelley, Love’s Philosophy)

The Heroine Who Waits Anxiously for Her Absent Lover, Utka Nayika, 1760-65, Northern India, Himachal Pradesh, Pahari Kingdom of Chamba, Gum tempera and gold on paper, 25.2 x 16.6 cm

A beautiful young woman is seated all alone on a bed of leaves in a verdant landscape of hills and trees. Everything around her is thriving and alive; the flowers are blooming, the new leaves are sprouting on the trees, everything is bursting with vibrancy and richness. One cannot count all the flowers and leaves, for they are innumerable. Nature is awoken and so is the woman’s heart from which love is flowing freely like a wild, vast river. Still, despite all the liveliness about her, the woman is heavy hearted, for she is waiting and yearning for her lover. She does not know when he will arrive, nor will he arrive at all, nor what might have prevented him, a change of heart perhaps? Or has he seen another pair of pretty eyes on the way through the forest and forgotten all about her? The woman is lifting her rosy veil to see better whether her darling is coming. Oh, but she needn’t lift the veil, for the steps of her man she would recognise from afar, the beatings of his heart for her she would be hearing from a long distance, his loving thoughts of her would be travelling by the nocturnal breeze all the way to her ears.

What is softer? The bed of leaves underneath her, or the kisses with which she would welcome her man, if only he would come. In vain is the soft bed of leaves, in vain the cheerful colours of her clothes, in vain the earrings and the bangles, in vain the fragrant neck and silky soft hair, for her lover will not come and enjoy it. Instead of his breath on her neck, the woman will feel only the cold breath of the night, instead of his body being her cloak, the dark starlit sky will cover her with its veil, instead of his fine dark eyes all aglow with love and desire, only the stars will gaze and glow at her. Poor naayika! It is almost as if everything in nature is mocking her sorrowful state of solitude. Everything is painted in pairs; the love-birds are chirping in pairs on the tree branches, the deer is followed by his faithful mate, and even the trees are painted as couples, their branches embracing, their leaves kissing. Everything around her is murmuring and whispering and sighing with pleasure. Everything is sensual and awoken. Every little blossoms is whispering of the secret pleasures that are being denied this night to the woman. The breeze is bringing the dazzling scent of the flowers to the woman’s nose, but instead of the floral scent she would have prefered the scent of her man.

It brings to mind the verses of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Love’s Philosophy”:

“The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?“

–

Oh miserable night! Very soon the “Moon will fall at the feet of morning, loosened from the night fading’s embrace”, to quote Tagore’s poem “Unyielding”. I cannot help but wonder, at which moment will the tears, arosen in the heart, gather in her eyes and spill down her beautiful, soft cheeks, yearning for the touch of her beloved’s lips as the thirsty soil is yearning for drops of rain. If her lover were to come at last, he would have to ask himself: are those the eyes of my beloved or two beautiful clouds full of rain?

The title of the painting “Utka Nayika” refers to one of the eight different kinds of heroines or “nayikas” found in traditional Indian visual and performing arts. The heroine can be seen in many different states of love in relation to her hero or nayaka. In some paintings she will be waiting for him, in others she can be angry at him, she can be distressed by separation, or even deceived by her lover. “Utka Nayika” is an expectant heroine, the lady anxiously awaiting for her lover. The setting of this type of scene is usually a beautiful nature setting, a forest glade, with lush trees and flowers, but sometimes it can be a balcony or even a bed. The mood of these types of scenes is a that of distress, anxiety, yearning, of love-sickness. There is also a sense of mystery because we can only assume what had prevented the hero from coming to the meeting. The Utka Nayika doesn’t know, and neither do we.

Fashion Inspiration for Spring 2022

Lunetta Earrings by Jennifer Behr.

Instagram: devyncrimson.

Instagram: devyn crimson

Earrings, found here.

Instagram: devyn crimson.

Tilfi – Charbagh Collection, found here.

Tagore: Only lips know the language of lips, know how to sip each other’s hearts

Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss, 1907

The Kiss

Only lips know the language of lips,
Know how to sip each other’s hearts
The two lovers leave home for goals unknown,
Setting out eagerly on Holy Communion.
Like two waves that crest at love’s pull
Lips at last melt and meld in lovers’ lips,
Viewing each other with deep desire,
Both meet at the body’s frontier.
Love weaves music from such refrains
Love’s tale is told in quivering lips!
From fowers plucked from lips that roam
Garlands surely will be woven at home!
The sweet union of two desiring lips
Climaxes in a red bridal bed of smiles!

(“Chumban,” from Kori O Komal)
Translated by Fakrul Alam)

Tagore: When I called you in your garden mango blooms were rich in fragrance

A poem I recently discovered, called “Unyielding” by the Bengali poet Tagore. The mood of the poem reminded me of many lovely illustrations by the French artist Edmund Dulac such as the one bellow from his series “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” from 1909.

Edmund Dulac, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, “Hour of Grace”, 1909

Unyielding

When I called you in your garden

Mango blooms were rich in fragrance –

Why did you remain so distant,

Keep your door so tightly fastened?

Blossoms grew to ripe fruit-clusters –

You rejected my cupped handfuls,

Closed your eyes to perfectness.

In the fierce harsh storms of Baiśākh

Golden ripened fruit fell tumbling –

‘Dust,’ I said, ‘defiles such offerings:

Let your hands be heaven to them.’

Still you showed no friendliness.

Lampless were your doors at evening,

Pitch-black as I played my vīnā.

How the starlight twanged my heartstrings!

How I set my vīnā dancing!

You showed no responsiveness.

Sad birds twittered sleeplessly,

Calling, calling lost companions.

Gone the right time for our union –

Low the moon while still you brooded,

Sunk in lonely pensiveness.

Who can understand another!

Heart cannot restrain its passion.

I had hoped that some remaining

Tear-soaked memories would sway you,

Stir your feet to lightsomeness.

Moon fell at the feet of morning,

Loosened from night’s fading necklace.

While you slept, O did my vīnā

Lull you with its heartache?

Did you Dream at least of happiness?

Paul Gauguin and Baudelaire: Exotic Perfume

”…A langorous island, where Nature abounds
With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
And with women whose frankness delights and astounds…” (Charles Baudelaire, Exotic Perfume)*

Paul Gauguin, Day of the Gods (Mahana no atua), 1894

Throughout history some artists felt a need to physically step away from their surroundings; Eugene Delacroix travelled to North Africa, Vincent van Gogh to Arles, while his ‘friend’ Paul Gauguin sought inspiration on the other side of the world – on Tahiti. Gauguin desperately tried to escape the rotten European civilization, he said: Civilization is what makes you sick, and he first set sail for Tahiti on 1 April 1891. Vibrant-coloured landscape, voluptuous women, warm sea, sunny weather, exotic trees and luscious fruit all undoubtedly had a lasting impact on Gauguin’s art.

Painting Day of the Gods (Mahana no atua) is a great example of Gauguin’s vibrant landscapes. It shows that he soaked up the atmosphere of Tahiti. Gauguin painted it in 1894, either in Paris or in the small Breton village of Pont Aven. It wasn’t the most productive year of his life; he was in poor health and in debts. However, the painting illustrates Gauguin’s thought ‘I shut my eyes in order to see‘; the landscape he painted came from the memory, and no matter how exotic and vibrant Tahiti was in reality, Gauguin’s painting is deliberately more colourful.

Subject of this painting is Polynesian religion. Central place in the background is occupied by a goddess Hina. I’m not particularly a connoisseur of Polynesian mythology and religion, so I’m going to quote Richard Brettell: ‘…idol Hina, which Gauguin derived less from Tahitian or Polynesian traditions than from Indian and Southeast Asian prototypes. For this reason, the painting can be interpreted as representing a universal, non-Christian religion.’ (source) A few more figures grace the background; two women carrying food, probably fruit, on a plate, possibly in order to offer them to the goddess, then a flute-playing woman that sits below the statue of Hina, and two dancers in red-orange tunics.Behind the scene we see a long beach with yellow sand, mountains and blue sky with clouds. Three interesting figures in the foreground symbolise the three Ages of Man — birth, life, and death, which is reminiscent of the story of Oedipus and Sphinx’s riddle. Sphinx’s question was: ‘What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?‘ And Oedipus’ reply was: ‘Man.‘ The pool is perhaps the most interesting thing in the painting. Its surface is utterly unrelated to anything that goes on in the scene; it shows nor the reflections of the sky nor the figures on the beach, but the irregular spots of orange, indigo, light blue, red, green and yellow colour. This leads us to Gauguin’s perception of art, which is based upon symbolism, on dreams and metaphors.

***

Do not copy nature too much. Art is an abstraction.* (Gauguin)

***

Gauguin’s ‘getaway’ from Europe and his disgust with Western civilisation represent the sentiment shared across Europe within intellectual and artistic circles, in times of ‘fin de siecle’. Gauguin wanted to escape from ‘everything that is artificial and conventional’, and hoped to live a more pure, primitive life on Tahiti. Baudelaire embarked on a somewhat similar journey, thought not willingly. He was sent to India by his stepfather in order to break his bad habits of visiting brothels, drinking, not focusing on his studies etc. Although short, the trip infused in him a sentiment for exoticism, sea and sailing, and that resulted in poems such as ‘Exotic Perfume’. I often had similar thoughts myself; about purity of life somewhere on the island, untainted by civilisation, somewhere where one could walk barefoot all day, pick fruit off the branches and eat it, really feel the rain… But, just like Baudelaire, for me the reveries about exotic lands would be better than reality of actually living there. I’m a product of European culture, and that’s something I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to deprive myself from.