Detailed Notes on Vernacular Art in the Himalayas

Art and Geography: Patterns in the Himalaya

Introduction

• The Himalaya is rich in vernacular art due to distinct cultural groups settled in the mountains with limited outside access.

• These cultures have ancient roots and remain distinct, offering a prime location to study the influence of cultural groupings and environmental conditions on vernacular art.

• The Paper thanks local officials and artists in the Himalaya from Kashmir to Assam for their help and assistance.

Art: International vs. Vernacular

• Art is an aesthetic expression of human experience, representing experiential and aspirational aspects, fusing environmental and metaphysical realms.

• International Art:

  • Belongs to the global elite, transcending regional and national bounds.

  • Its style is divorced from the artist's territorial milieu.

  • Innovations spread rapidly worldwide, driven by new materials or technological changes (e.g., acrylic paints, laminated woods).

  • Characterized by highly intellectualized imagery portraying ontological perception of experiences and aspirations.

  • Geographically unmindful; influence can sweep across continents (e.g., Henry Moore).

  • Abstract; doesn't directly spring from regional tradition or express culture in the anthropological sense.

  • May draw inspiration from sources like primitive African art and have geographical/sociological linkages explaining areal dispersion.

  • Essentially not culturally confined or geographically limited; springs from individual genius rather than inherited tradition.

• Vernacular Art:

  • Focuses on group development, product of culture in the anthropological sense.

  • Derives inspiration from indigenous tradition and setting.

  • Evolves slowly and has a geographical base.

  • Mirrors strong cultural historical forces and geographical settings.

  • Modern societies are attempting to preserve and revive ties to their contemporary environment and past, evident in academic curricula, folk-art museums, governmental programs, and commercial interest.

  • Bears directly upon geography as it represents both culture and place.

  • Significant to cultural geography students as it reveals physical and nonphysical environmental factors melded through human experience.

  • Provides insight into a society's aspirations and helps explain social behavior.

• The Himalayan realm is unique in maintaining distinct cultures side-by-side without fusion.

Himalayan Setting and Cultural Groups

• The Himalaya extends along the northern Indian subcontinent, between the Indus and Brahmaputra Rivers.

• Originating near Mount Kailas and Lake Manasarowar.

• The Himalaya consists mainly of:

  • The Great Himalaya: A single range with peaks over $23,000$ feet ($7,000$ meters), including Mount Everest at $29,002$ feet ($8,848$ meters), Kanchenjunga at $28,146$ feet ($8,578$ meters), Nanga Parbat at $26,620$ feet ($8,126$ meters), and Dhaulagiri at $26,795$ feet ($8,172$ meters).

  • Subordinate ranges on the Tibetan side: Zanskar, Ladakh, and Kailas Ranges, with elevations up to Mt. Kamet at $25,447$ feet ($7,756.01$ meters) and Mt. Kailas at $22,028$ feet ($6,714$ meters), where the Indus and Brahmaputra rise.

  • The Karakoram chain: At the western end, peak K2 at $28,287$ feet ($8,621$ meters).

  • The Middle Himalaya: Borders the Great Himalaya, uniform heights between $6,000$ ($1,829$ meters) and $10,000$ feet ($3,048$ meters).

  • The Outer Himalaya: Average elevation of $5,000$ feet ($1,524$ meters), lowest zone contiguous to Indian plains.

  • Piedmont plain: Extends from northern India, known as Terai (west) and Duars (east).

• Four cultural groups penetrated the Himalaya:

  • Hindu (Indian).

  • Lamaist Buddhism (Tibetan).

  • Islamic (Afghan-Iranian).

  • Animistic (Burman/Southeast Asian).

• These cultures imprinted their arts, preserved and nurtured in Himalayan valleys.

• Hindu culture: Indo-Aryan languages, art forms, settled agriculture from the Indian plains.

• Lamaist culture: Tibetan language, art, sculpture, pastoralism, agriculture from the Tibetan plateau. Buddhist monasteries as centers of religious life and art.

• Islamic culture: Non-Indic Aryan languages, art forms, irrigated agriculture, pastoralism from Iran/Afghanistan.

• Animist culture: Tibeto-Burman languages, art forms, indigenous religious systems, shifting agriculture from Southeast Asia.

• Hindu culture dominant in sub-Himalaya and middle valleys (Jammu to Nepal).

• Lamaist Buddhist culture in High Himalaya (Ladakh to northeastern India).

• Central Nepal: Intermingling of Indian and Tibetan cultures.

• Eastern Bhutan and Assam Himalaya: Similar to northern Burma and Yunan.

• Western Kashmir: Similar to Iran and Afghanistan.

• Art forms established through political expansion and cultural exchange. Inspiration from natural elements, reproduced by generations. Regionalism maintained.

• Taranatha identified four artistic schools: Eastern, Madhyadesh, Western, and Kashmir.

Regional Patterns of Painting

• Regional artistic characteristics influenced by Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic deities, and the physical setting.

• Isolation preserved distinct regional styles, objectifying people's cognition of environment and cultural values.

• Islamic Painting of Western Kashmir:

  • Islam forbids representation of animate nature.

  • Orthodox Muslims displayed artistic consciousness in calligraphy.

  • Persian artistic tradition introduced by Mogul rulers.

  • Mogul emperors encouraged image painting under Persian masters.

  • Local Hindu artists adopted Persian school characteristics.

  • Indigenous Hindu tradition: realism, vigor, natural representation of distance/atmosphere, Hindu characters, costume, architecture, foliage.

  • Mogul impact: illustration of Persian classics, chronicles, tales, portraiture, hunting scenes (Figs. 4 and 5).

  • Mogul painting aristocratic, disdainful of democratic folk appeal. Loved blossoms and plants.

• Lamaist Painting:

  • Unique imagery: apotheosized lamas/saints and terrifying deities.

  • Lamas idealized as divine figures, discouraging portrayal of physical likeness.

  • Terrifying deities painted on Thangkas (scroll paintings).

  • Illustrate fears of people residing in an inhospitable environment.

  • Mandala structure: complete expression of Tibetan's perception of cosmic reality.

  • Geometrically precise, strong, luminous colors.

  • Projects order and harmony into a world of chaos and tension.

  • Visualizes a world existing in the Tibetan mind.

• Hindu Paintings of the Southern Himalaya:

  • Designs derived from Hindu religion.

  • Worship/adoration of personal deity, longing of God and the human soul.

  • Krishna and Radha love story symbolizes God and soul in union/separation.

  • Imagery from everyday life: work, play, joys, sorrows, beliefs, customs, home life, religious faith.

  • Paintings of Himalayan hill states (Kulu, Guler, Chamba, Mandi, Bilaspur, Kangra) called 'Pahari'.

  • Recurring theme: woman longing for her lover. Incidental objects (clouds, rain, lightning, storm, trees, flowers, pictures, birds, animals) suggest a crisis.

  • Other themes: Ramayana, Bhagvata Purana, Gita Govinda.

  • Mithila (Terai of eastern Nepal): paintings on mud walls by village women.

    • Subjects: gods, decorative floral/ornamental patterns. Occasions: Hindu festivals.
      kowar: bridal chamber with intricate designs (Fig. 14).

• Madhubani art: distinct regional style.
  * Hallmark: oval face, pointed nose, smooth jawline, wide eyes.
  * Scenes from Ram and Sita lives, free-hand line drawings, stylized local flowers/bird motifs.

• Painting in the Southeast Asian Culture Area:

Tribal art less sophisticated, simpler expression.

• Common form: drawing on wood. Crude, simple drawings on wooden frames with dots and lines.

  • Associated with socio-religious rites, express desire to attain certain heights.

  • Akas: designs drawn at house entrance to appease deity for material goals.

Regional Patterns of Dance

• Dance as an art form meant to enkindle emotions expressive of religious sentiments.

• Buddhists, Hindus, animists used dancing to propitiate spirits of Nature.

• Ritual dances to please gods, rain dances, harvesting dances.

• Dance in the Indic Culture Area:

  • Represents major moments in life of cultural group and individuals.

  • Collective exuberance associated with the hunt, harvest festivals, birth, marriage, or death.

  • Earliest codified work: Natya Shastra by Bharata Muni.

  • Regional expressions: Kathak dance (Himachal Pradesh, Garhwal), cosmic-dance of Siva (Nepal), folk dancing (Hindu Himalaya).

  • Kathak dance: traditions and ideas, religious and spiritual roots.

  • Moslem invasions: new influences on Kathak dance. Shift from temples to Moslem courts: sensualism.

  • Cosmic-dance of Siva: unity of Being, radiates movement within cosmos.
    Krishna and Radha dance: oneness of soul and body, spiritual love.

• Folk dancing in Terai: hunt and harvest festivals. Invoked demons, spirits, gods. For fun, fertility, luck, protection, summoning forces of nature.

  • Hindu castes (Ahirs, Kahars, Chamars, Dhobis) have dances for weddings, births. Elemental directness, spontaneity, sincerity.

• Dance in the Southeast Asian Culture Area:

  • Tribes (Monpa, Dafla, Apa Tani, Akas, Mishmis): unity of life and nature. Dances dedicated to nature worship.

  • Festivals related to seasonal variations.

  • Simple gestural form, swift rhythmic footwork with abrupt leaps and bounds.

  • Body glides with ease in circles, arms move to weave patterns of gentle breezes.

  • Believe in sacred and fertilizing power of human blood. Sacrifice is the occasion for dancing.

  • War dances symbolize events to be successfully accomplished.

  • Rich variety of dances, mostly warlike/abstract hunt conceptions.

• Dance in the Tibetan Culture Area:

  • Mask dances of Tibetan cultural group: unsophisticated folk expression.

  • Cultural, artistic, social, recreational significance.

  • Dancing masks: divine/supernatural beings, demons, evil spirits, animals, men.
    Beat of drum starts slowly, tempo rises, rhythm becomes frenzied. Represents struggle against life's hazards.
    Tibetans in Darjeeling: duet dance portrays Himalayan yak.

• Dance in the Islamic Cultural Area:

  • Dancing in palaces as salacious entertainment.

  • Emphasis shifted from spiritual to physical.

  • Courtesans danced to gain favor of Mogul lords.

  • Tabooed art for respectable persons. Classical purity maintained in geographically secluded parts of western Himalaya.

  • Rural peasants perform traditional folk dances (ihoomar and khattak): express traits considered