Article:
Look at art intently, and with patience
By Shoba Narayan
The Mint, 2011

Prof. Brijendra Nath Goswamy is in Bangalore to deliver Tasveer Foundation’s inaugural lecture. I have been allowed to take him out for an hour. Where does one take a man who is arguably India’s foremost art historian? I consider a ride in our new Metro to Angadi Silks or Vimor to buy a sari for his wife. This is a man, after all, who invited three of the country’s top dancers—Bharatanatyam’s Malavika Sarukkai, Odissi’s Madhavi Mudgal, and Kathak’s Aditi Mangaldas—to perform at his wife’s 65th birthday. They agreed. I want a similar grand gesture when I turn 65, I tell my husband. He gives me a sceptical “are you worth it” look. Finally, I take Prof. Goswamy to The Taj West End, mainly because it is close to art collector Abhishek Poddar’s house, where he is staying; and because it has an “Art Corridor”.

Over cups of cappuccino, we talk about his lecture on rasas or aesthetic emotion that the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi has helpfully uploaded on YouTube. How can my readers learn to be connoisseurs like you, I ask. Prof. Goswamy spells out a few Sanskrit words in explanation. To appreciate art, you have to be an adhikari, he says; an adequate viewer. You have to be sahruday, or of the same heart as the maker. “It is not just empathy but much more than that,” he says. If you are able to cultivate this sensibility of “looking intently and with patience” at a work of art, it will speak to you. Look at all parts of a painting, he says. You never know where the artist has slyly left his stamp. Be aware of your reactions when you observe a work of art: What emotions does it evoke? Perhaps it brings to mind a piece of music, or poetry.

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Image:
By Nainsukh of Guler