Right now at the Museum of Fine Arts, no guard will stop you from stepping too close to the artwork. In fact, it's better to bring a magnifying glass, to stand so close you are cross-eyed, dizzied from the intricate detail of "Domains of Wonder: Masterworks of Indian Painting."
From Edwin Binney III, who owned one of the most extensive Indian painting collections in the world, this exhibit offers a broad view of art from India and South Asia, spanning the 14th through 19th centuries. On view until Nov. 26 in the Torf Gallery, the paintings demonstrate the far-reaching influence of Persian artistic traditions and the extent to which religion and fables fit into artistic endeavors and governmental interest in art. Looking at these pieces now, we can't help but use the perspective of modern art, finding parallels between Eastern and Western traditions.
The curators of this exhibit realized that not every Boston museum-goer has an in-depth understanding of the rich Indian culture, of the mythology and religious narratives that most of the pieces reflect. At the very front of the show, there is a long explanation of how these works were most often a part of books, made to provoke a spiritual understanding or to illustrate some religious text.
These viewings were done on an intimate level, and to have them hanging on a public wall among others of different subjects, time periods and origins may seem antithetical to their initial purpose. Yet there is still something intimate about looking at these exquisite paintings, as their small size and overwhelming detail makes their closeness a part of their existence no matter what the setting. It is easy to ignore the people shuffling around you.
Each caption gives a description, though it barely scratches the surface of the intricate religion, the different art movements and concepts, or the region's history. However, they offer enough of a background so that we understand some of the trends in values and subject matter by the end of the exhibit. By dividing the show up into region and time period, the sections are given titles like "Terse Assertions," "Rooted in the Earth," "Devotion, Passion, Heroism," and "Engaging with the Visual World," which
delineate different themes in the works.
Something particularly striking, as it is a peculiarity in a museum setting, is that only a handful of works in a show of 123 paintings have been attributed to an artist. In these tiny masterpieces, the artist is profoundly important, demonstrating a mastery and genius that is not only admirable, but awe-inspiring.
The imagination that went into these compositions transcends that of their Western contemporaries, following no specific rules of space, and heralds to the decorative, surreal, abstract and expressionist movements in modern art.
Of course, there is a defined style to each of the regions and time periods in Indian miniature painting, but the conventions themselves are creative and based on freedom in arrangement. In most, the tops of trees or figures' limbs (which are generally anatomically sound) extend beyond the ornate borders, redefining the symbolism of the space, incorporating words from religious texts in inventive designs.
In terms of abstraction, most of these are narrative pieces, having some specific story behind them with figures depicting it, but there is a distinct quality of the portrayal of thought and emotion in form that is especially moving.
In the Ragamala style, images known as "musical modes" represent poetry and music and are meant to induce certain emotions and moods. In "The Musical Mode Shuddha Malhara," painted in 1660, the skies billow with undulating clouds, swirling and curling expressionistically, reflecting the movement of the women dancing in the rain below. The colors are rich and vibrant, making up scenes of action-filled hunts, unadulterated love, sensual delights, fabled beasts and fights between spouses.
Golden paint, ornamental beetle shells, and thin, particular lines come together to form extensive landscapes, consisting of every leaf and every branch, every minute bird's foot and piece of hair. Their perspective is almost perfectly precise, and it reveals the observational skills honed by these artists. There is an accuracy of space and proportions that stemmed from their sensitivity to detail and may have had something to do with the attraction to the Realism movement in Europe, an influence that shows in some of the last works in the exhibit.
The sense of movement, flat colors, and incredible detail in these paintings offers an unusual alternative to Western art. "Domains of Wonder" is a fitting title, and in an exhibit so extensive, there doesn't seem to be enough time in just one museum visit to do each piece justice.
