Looking inside the artist’s mind

It’s said to be the source of all creation, the very avataar of Vishnu, according to the Bhagavata Purana. But if you expect to visualise this form of divinity in all its magnificence and grandeur, then the Hiranyagarbha is likely to disappoint. Hiranya, which means golden in Sanskrit, and garbha, womb in the sacred language, quite literally depicts a golden egg; if you happen to set your eyes on artist Manaku’s painting, the glistening oval form appears ready to leave behind its grey-and-white concentric pools restraining it to a two-dimensional medium.

If this one was in a contemporary gallery, it would be an abstract — representing an artist’s thought or even the multitude emotions that viewers might project on it. But contemporary, it is not, for Manaku was an 18th century painter, the elder of two sons of artist Pandit Seu, from the region of Guler, in present day Himachal Pradesh. So it’s a godsend that art historian and scholar Dr BN Goswamy weaves in the context that makes this ‘absolutely superb’ artwork accessible.

“All cultures speculate about how life started. Our Vedic texts too talk about how one day from the heaven, came a golden egg and rested on water. It laid there for a year, and one day, it cracked, and gave rise to the male and female energies, and that’s where life came from,” says the 83-year-old.

“The lines are not much (to talk about), but Manaku’s translation is. The egg is brilliantly golden. It’s golden because the sun was said to be hidden inside it. And observe how Manaku treats water — it’s not still or wavy, it’s in concentric circles. Now, think of how you tell the age of a tree. You cut it and count the rings, which are in concentric circles, and that suggests timelessness!”

Beyond abstract

Dr Goswamy, who was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2008, says Manaku was an extraordinary artist for his inventiveness and for being able to envision. “He did not have a model, he was merely producing these paintings from the top of his head. And his understanding of colour was absolutely amazing,” he says.

These hues are at play in Manaku’s work from another series, this one inspired by 12th century poet Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, a composition that has been described as the ‘love sports of Krishna and Radha’ conveying devotion and pining for God.   Stating how religion was very much a part of people’s life during Manaku’s time, Dr Goswamy says that the Gita Govinda is an unusual composition. “It weaves a narrative about two lovers, involving extraordinary emotions. And (in Manaku’s works) these are divine figures with their frailties. So it can be viewed as a religious text, a secular text, an erotic text, a poetic text, or the coming together of all these things.”

(Dr BN Goswamy will present an illustrated talk on the works of Manaku of Guler as part of Conversing With The Gods event on February 4, at NCPA, Mumbai)