The Interrelation Between Art Worlds - ebook

FOREWORD

The Bhagavad Gita or the Song Celestial is not only a sacred piece of scripture, but a beautiful work of literature transcending the boundaries of religion, race, and time. The Bhagavad Gita incorporates in its 18 chapters a philosophy of a life, of meaning, purpose, and fulfilment.

2. The present work by Dr. Tatjana Burzanovic presents a unique, visual, literary and philosophical depiction of the message of the Bhagavad Gita. Dr. Burzanovic’s pictorial illustrations of the themes of the Bhagavad Gita are informed by a lifelong scholarly interest, and her very distinctive artistic sensibility. Dr. Burzanovic was awarded a Doctorate for her work on her interpretations, in art and literature, of the Bhagavad Gita.

3. I am sure this beautifully brought out coffee-table presentation would be a source of joy to the many friends of India’s culture, art, and history in Montenegro, and in the wider region. It will also inspire artists and scholars in the two countries to undertake fresh explorations of our rich cultures, to further strengthen the warm and friendly relations between India and Montenegro.

Rajiva Misra
Ambassador of India to Austria & Montenegro
06.04.2016THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN
ART WORLDS

_”…it is art alone which can succeed in objectifying with universal validity what the philosopher is able to present in a merely subjective fashion”… ”The philosophy achieves, however, the most, but it carries to that point, in a sense, only one part of man”… ”Art carries the whole man, as he is, to the knowledge of the Highest, and in this lies the eternal difference and miracle of art…”_

_ _

_Schelling_

Art is not only an elevated form of human expression, it is actually a self-featured disclosure of the essence of beauty, certainly establishing life in the truth and freedom of mind. This is exactly why the relationship of philosophy and art is especially close: art frees philosophy when it comes to the world of metaphysical, and vice versa, philosophy releases art of its closure in the world of sensitivity. Artists, each in their own way, express their own view of the world which is always more or less, conscious or unconscious, direct or mediated, grounded in a philosophy. It is hard to form a judgment about many individuals in terms of whether they are philosophers who are involved in art, or artists who deal with philosophy.

Philosophy, Religion and Ethics are stated in the Bhagavad Gita in poetic form in such an organic way, in such an organic unity, that one cannot be separated from the other. The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical poem called by Wilhelm von Humboldt ”the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue, perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show”. The Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God), inspiration, became a source of inspiration for forty paintings on this topic.

In the old world literature the most important place is occupied by two famous Indian epics: _Ramayana and Mahabharata_. Initially these two epics were heroic poems and historical stories, and later in the course of historical development many religious and philosophical literary works and morals were added to the original epic. They are so large in terms of the content that an undedicated reader has to be filled with awe. Most scientists agree that the Mahabharata and Ramayana as a whole originate from the period of 600-300 BC. It is not excluded that both of these epics were created much earlier. The Bhagavad-Gita (The Song of God) is considered the most beautiful part of _Mahabharata_. This great philosophical poem is highly esteemed not only by Hindus but the whole world. For Hindus it is a source of inspiration and spiritual action, and for the Western world it is the most outstanding monument of ancient Indian culture. Besides its purely literary value, the _Bhagavad Gita_ is one of the most important literary works for understanding the Indian thought. It includes all the basic thoughts of Indian philosophers expressed in the systems of Mimamsa-Vedanta, Sankhya-Yoga and Nyaya-Vaisheshika. The _Mahabharata_, especially the _Bhagavad-Gita_, is an intellectual reflection of struggle in the time when the values of life were disrupted.

After philosophical Upanishads, the _Gita_ is the most important contribution to the study of Indian philosophy. The Gita is among the most widespread books in the world. A German philosopher, A. Schopenhauer was among the first in the West to appraise the size and beauty of Indian philosophy and literature. He read the Persian-Latin translation of passages of the Upanishads by _D. Anquetil, and inter alia said_: ”This is the most instructive and most exalted reading in the world; it was a comfort to my life and will be consolation to my death.”

In the Gita, the ideal is united with practical life. This is where its overall value comes from.

All above mentioned and interest in philosophy became an exalted reason for the illustration of ”The Song of God”.

The Bhagavad Gita has eighteen chapters. Each chapter is illustrated in two ways.

All literary grandeur of this philosophical poem, a special energy it is interwoven with, reminds of the responsibility when illustrating this literary work. This is about interpenetration between poetry and painting. Ever since ancient times such an organic integration has existed between the two arts that a modern term picto –poetry can be used to describe it. Painting and poetry, a single art with two faces. Inspired by the gigantic Bhagavad-Gita literary work, I interpreted through my paintings, according to the power of my creative spirit, using different means of expression, and transposed through myself in the orchestration of color and movement parts of this philosophical poem. In addition to the pictorial one, it was necessary to communicate the musical feature that I felt reading this poem.

This is confirmed by a thought of Dragan Jeremic, PhD: ”... all the arts represent a unique circuit and all the artists a single family pooled together and guided by a unique effort of human beings to seize the spheres higher than those in which daily life is conducted”.

I strived to convey the idea by artistic means, thoughts and feelings of the song, give them a new form. Life is the form, and the form is a manner of living. Artwork is both one and the other at the same time, but in each other, not side by side. The form is a material structure of the content and the content is both conceptual and emotional energy of the form, it’s arrested and yet infinitely extended moment. Retracing the emergence and existence of artwork, we shall find out that, primarily, reflections of the matter – feelings and ideas – give birth to the matter or form; and then, thus created, the form or matter will send out reflections, radiating energy that is condensed into feelings and ideas inside of us, through the entire system of stimulations. A work of art lives if the matter or form is shaped, and if its radiation is strong and active. No conceptuality is possible outside of the matter – form. And vice versa, the relationship between the lines and colors has no value outside their validity. The problem lies in discovering such interdependence, in finding real or at least possible correlates of the form. This is the origin of the need to establish a relationship, as realistic as possible, between the visible and plastic factors of artwork and their invisible, conceptual and emotional emanations: for the latter to be interpreted in the function of the former. The internal process of expression is parallel to and not identical with the external process of its formation.

The awareness of the reader is encouraged to take a personal view of the spiritual experience by the artistic quality of the Bhagavad Gita. Artistic reality is the reality in practice. The painter and the recipient are equally concerned by the issue of an eye that both _looks at and sees_. What is looked at is a source of information, and what is seen is a source of understanding and is most closely associated with understanding, with the essence of man, with humanity itself. Something can be apprehended in a moment, and yet understood only when seen by the eye. ”Simultaneous eye” is a _mediator_, mediating between the indicator and the indicated. Each eye-sight has the tendency towards a certain meaning and when it comes to seeing, it is about understanding, and therefore about meaning. Understanding is part of experiencing the world. A single part, and yet it is exactly through this part that the world comes into action.

Let us suppose now that we are led by the poet in the most beautiful order from one part of the object to another; let us assume that the poet can make the connection among these parts the clearest possible: how much time will be required for this? What is suddenly embraced by an eye is little by little expanded, noticeably slowly, and it often happens that when the last line is reached the first one is forgotten. Nevertheless, these lines should introduce a whole: the observed parts remain always present in the eye; it may pass over them repeatedly; on the contrary, parts that are heard will be lost to the ear unless they remain in memory. Even when they are memorized, how much effort, how much endeavor will be required for all the impressions to be renewed equally vividly and in the same order, to be reviewed at once in our thoughts, even with moderate speed, in order to reach a possible idea of the whole?

An unusual effort needs to be placed to find the _thought_ no longer only in the verbal sign, the word, which seems to be the most natural character of verbal, but also in a sign which is so different from words, as a figurative sign in general or a music sign; meaning to understand ”other art” strictly as a system of signs or _ways of speaking_ through which a thought is manifested, that is, through which a thought concretely exists as a thought; secondly because, when the effort has been made, it also needs to be understood that even in this case, as it was in the case of words or linguistic signs, just to be expressed or realized, a thought (the target) is forced _to adapt itself_ to the specific nature and relevant limits of signs (agents) whose limitations (precisely semantic) constitute, as an assumption, the standard of expressive artistic perfection of the thought itself.

This subsequently means that it is necessary, in its most general form, to outline postulate identity (dialectical) thoughts and ways of speech, (so that no thought is worthy of the name that is not a word or a line or color or volume or interval-tone, etc.).

The difference between painting and poetry is in the nature of means and types of characters used. Paining uses figures and colors in space, while articulated sounds in time are used by poetry. Objects with their visible characteristics are the specific subject of painting, while action is the characteristic subject of poetry. Painting may directly imitate visible objects, and action may be indirectly hinted by displaying a single moment on the basis of which conclusions about the moment that preceded it and the one that followed may be drawn. Poetry is primarily engaged in action, and yet it may also present objects, implying them through action. The succession in time is characteristic for poets and the succession in space for painters.

Each perceptual experience necessarily involves cognitive thinking. There is no ”pure sensual pleasure” as some associative meanings, various flows of thought and value judgments will certainly, to some extent, be involved in the process.

It is necessary to mention the correspondence between the elements that are used in different arts. For example, to what extent is the line in the visual arts analogous to the melody in music? The color in painting, harmony in music? Harmony in music is analogous to color in visual arts. Melodic themes are varied by the musician by being put in different tonalities and chords, just as the same linear motif is addressed by the painter using various combinations of colors. Following this analogy, the question arises whether there are any laws of harmony of colors, such as those established for music harmony. There are mathematical relations between physical light waves of different colors, the same as between different sound waves; on the basis of these, arbitrary chords of colors may be set. There is real analogy between musical chords and chords of colors, and yet it is based on ”aesthetic functionality” rather than on the physical relations. It is assumed that there is no definite and predictable relationship between physical phenomena, for example the proportion between sound and light waves, and aesthetic effects. Aesthetic effects are psychological in nature, and made of many variable factors. The fact that two objects are physically similar does not mean that it will be so in an artistic context, or that it will produce similar emotional effects.CHAPTER 1 – FIRST VERSION
LAMENTING THE CONSEQUENCE OF WAR
(THE YOGA OF THE DESPONDENCY OF ARJUNA)

In the first chapter, Arjuna, the principal figure of the _Bhagavad Gita_, is afraid to get in a fight with his kinsmen. Lord Krishna, who is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, comes on the scene, and is presented in this song as the charioteer of Arjuna. He encourages him to fight, regardless of all prejudices, and thus to fulfill his duty. This motif serves as a historical background of the whole poem _Bhagavad-Gita_, expressed based on traditional beliefs, reasoning and philosophical and religious teaching of Hindus.

It takes special ”responsibility” to display such an intimate organic unity of philosophy and religion. The selected format is 35x50 cm, with a combined technique.

The dark background on which the first chapter is visually presented is in accord with the very title. The _Bhagavad Gita_, as an episode from the _Mahabharata_, begins at the point when the armies of two groups of cousins, the Kauravas and Pandavas, are preparing for battle. How to picture using art elements Arjuna who is riddled with deep sorrow and remorse, seeing that the two armies will engage in a fratricidal war? How to picture his charioteer, Lord Krishna, who is cheering and encouraging him to fight to fulfill his duty (Dharma)? The battlefield where the battle takes place is called Kurukshetra or Dharmakshetra, which is the field of duty, which certainly points to the allegorical character of this work of literature. Dharma means the highest duty, justice, eternal law and is a very broad concept in Indian philosophy and religion. Some believe that in this case the term ”Dharmakshetra” means allegorically Brahmin religion, and mystically the figure of man where an internal struggle between conscience and passion is always present. It is historically established that Kurukshetra is presently Sirhind, extending between the rivers of Sutlej and Yamuna.

Krishna, who is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, is in the focus of the painting. The central part of the composition is highlighted by specific texture that is partly tapered and then spread to the sky, where the tone is the brightest, thus ”speaking” symbolically of the ”flames of conflict” and the ”Creator”. The (condensed) energy of two conflicting tribes is emphasized by the space which narrows in the distance. The chariot driven by Krishna is stylized and represented by a line which is wavy at the back of the chariot, while in the front part it follows a ”steady” flow that merges with the figure of Krishna. The line representing the roof of the chariot is uninterrupted on the right, and broken on the left, which symbolizes Arjuna’s dilemma. In addition, the remorse is shown by a specific pattern around the image of Arjuna, divided by his bow in an alternating black and white variant. The line of the bow shows the division in Arjuna’s mind and sadness because of the consequences of war.

Krishna is presented as a contour in the color of old gold (symbolizing spirituality), which enables the viewer to imagine his portrait, since the man is only a visible form of energy. The flag and the symbol on it touch the roof of the chariot thus rounding up the necessary whole.

The line structure in the color of old gold runs down to Krishna, thus pointing to the Creator as such and necessarily emphasizing His importance. It represents cosmic energy and makes a number of points on the way from heaven to earth and vice versa. It is exactly this interchangeability that reveals the symbolism of Genesis, or transience. The horizontal white lines behind the chariot and manes of horses are a sign of movement, just like the line-point that comes into the format and seamlessly allows us to look at the whole scene in peace. The illustration as a whole contains a patina of antiquity that is necessary in this case.

When reading the Bhagavad Gita, the need arises to illustrate each chapter in several ways, so that each is presented in two versions.CHAPTER 1 – SECOND VERSION
LAMENTING THE CONSEQUENCE OF WAR
(THE YOGA OF THE DESPONDENCY OF ARJUNA)

Another way of picturing the ”Sorrow because of the consequences of war” shows Krishna and Arjuna in the foreground. Krishna is facing the viewer and in a way constantly communicating with him, while introducing him to the story as a whole. This painting seems to record a shorter period of time than the previous one, while the period that preceded it and followed is felt more powerfully. The sound of horns, drums, gongs and trumpets, which raised a wild roar, is illustrated by a line as visual means, its flow, position and tone. The chariot surface is still divided by Arjuna’s bow into black and white, good and bad, in the form of a straight pattern. The division is more obvious than in the former example, it is not intermittent, because Arjuna has less time left for the dilemma, since the conflict almost began. The chariot is still stylized in a certain way, and its wheel is shown in a line coil which gives the impression of movement and in addition to other elements does not allow the motive to be static. The perspective is more realistic, less pronounced than in the first example, and the sharp lines that divide the sky from the ground, with their respective ends and positions, participate in the moment of tension between the two nations. The composition is again focused on Krishna, as deserved, with a wide strip of linear structure leading us to him, with some minor surfaces colored in white, which have their own symbolism, light, wisdom, purity and good intentions. The strip continues to the bottom of the format and in a way represents a connection with heaven and earth. It is somewhat narrower than at the top and covers the width of Krishna’s body, and is no longer a straight-line. Different colors on the surface leading to Krishna and Arjuna show all differences between rival nations, and a variety of sounds produced by those who released them at the time.

There is also a noticeable relationship of complementarity in the upper part of the painting, which leaves us a certain kind of hope in a better tomorrow by its pure and intense surface.

What arises when illustrating the first chapter is certain descriptiveness, which originates from the content. Both versions allow only necessary descriptiveness and stylization is visible both in figurative and every other sense.CHAPTER 2 – FIRST VERSION
THE ETERNAL REALITY OF THE SOULS IMMORTALITY
(SANKHYA-YOGA)

Illustrating a text means finding the essence of the work of literature, pulling it out and representing it with visual elements, so that the observer is able to experience the content through line, color composition, texture, in other words to read the painting. Every good painting is a balance, may contain a story, and yet its existence is not necessary. It will tell its own story, express meaning and radiation, by woven elements, harmony, focus, form, symbolic richness ... Illustrating this chapter means illustrating the Steady Being. The Bhagavad Gita reads: ”The unreal hath no being; there is no non-being of the Real; the truth about both has been seen by the knowers of the Truth (or the seers of the Essence)“. That (the soul) by which the entire Universe is pervaded is known to be immortal. ”No one can compass the destruction of that which is imperishable. It hath been said that those bodies of the Embodied (soul) which is eternal, indestructible and infinite, have an end. Do thou, therefore, fight, O Bharata“.

How to represent the spirit, matter? In this painting the Steady Being is represented as a circle, which is the geometric symbol of perfection. It is the most important form of this composition, but does not occupy the central place! Why? The circle as a mobile form, very movable, seeks to stabilize, to produce the required effect. In this case it is drawn towards the bottom of the painting, thus determining the stability of the entire composition. Besides being the largest form in terms of size, it continuously radiates light and a special kind of energy. The very circle includes a line structure which, while changing its direction, in filled and empty surfaces, keeps a special kind of energy that lives and preserves the sound, word, thought ... It is both timeless and temporal, with the possibility of being experienced again in a different way, depending on the emotions, and yet always similar. The circle contains three spiral forms, the Gunas (literally ”bond”, ”node”), as fundamental ancient qualities of the matter, manifested in a threefold manner. Sattva corresponds to pure being, _Rajas_ to feelings, and _Tamas_ to body. The perfection is achieved by an Indian yogi in balance of the three Gunas. The place they occupy in the circle corresponds with their meaning, which means that they are placed by priority, the law of nature. In addition, the three Gunas are symbolically shown outside the circle in a pyramidal composition, which regardless of their visible mobility reinforces the entire motive.

The very top of the format is occupied by the Indestructible, which pervades the Universe, and is connected by strands in the color of old gold with the Invariable Being. In the stylized parts of the ”Universe”, there is a division between good and bad (black and white), day and night, joy and sadness, knowledge and ignorance ... At the very top of the format there are two strips that are connected to the upper edge of the painting, thus constantly pointing to the power of the Indestructible. They are visually moving up, and yet there is a need for short black lines whose contrast in color on a white surface and horizontal position will strike a balance with vertical shape and discreetly reduce the tension of reference to the above.

There is an obvious and not too stressed complementarity, which gives specific harmony to this painting. The way of treating the background, or the surface that is surrounding the shown forms, is intentionally put into the background, by color and smooth texture in relation to the elements that speak of „The Eternal Reality of the Souls’ Immortality.”CHAPTER 2 – SECOND VERSION
THE ETERNAL REALITY OF THE SOULS IMMORTALITY
(SANKHYA-YOGA)

Another version of this chapter represents the indestructible, eternal, unborn and unchanging, through the body dweller (man). It is shown by stylized elements: ”Weapons cut It not, fire burns It not, water wets It not, wind dries It not. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, ancient and immovable. This (Self) is said to be unmanifested, unthinkable and unchangeable. Therefore, knowing This to be such, thou shouldst not grieve“. The form of human body is accentuated by linear structure that can be hinted in the upper part to which it is connected (Universe). An orange tone is extended along the line of human body, which symbolizes wisdom. The white color around the body dweller already has no precise anatomy, as the character in the central part, and it is necessary to emphasize the feasible, non-flammable, nonwettable, non-dryable, eternal, omnipresent, firm, immovable, and ancient. The tones of the background around the figure that contains the symbols of what is burning, wetting and drying are dark at the bottom of the format, slowly turning brighter towards the top, with the intention of emphasizing the Creator.

The Gunas, the fundamental ancient quality of the matter, having a threefold manifestation, are shown inside of the man’s figure. They are interconnected and shown as a spiral and line. Sattva (pure being) is presented in white and is found in the upper part of the figure due to the symbolism of good, Rajas (feeling) is marked in red, while Tamas (body) is black. The connection among all the elements in the composition is obvious, which can be seen at the point where the human figure, with lines interrupted in three places, merges with a triangular shape, which represents the sky, the universe, and the indestructible.