In Quest of Identity: Art & Indigenism in post-colonial culture with special reference to contemporary Indian painting
GEETA KAPUR
( This series of articles will be published in a book form when concluded. It will be available on an advan~e payment of Rs. 10/- )
PART II
CHAPTER IV
IMPLICATIONS OF INT"ERNATIONALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART
A critical attitude toward contemporary International a rt follows from the arguments developed till now. May point of view, stated in sImple terms, is that Internationalism as a cult, imposes upon the individual artist and especially one outside the Western metropolis, a set of false assumptIOns and imperatives. Internationali~m,
it is reasonably argued must follow, when di sparate cultures are familiarised by the communication media of advanced tecbnology ( Mcluhan ) and at the same time unified, by the common culture of advanced industrialism. Internationalism is then, an imperative of the modern world; it also becomes in effect, the m~ure of modernity, or of the progress t oward modernity. Thus modernity, progress and lnteroati onalism are treated as interdependant concepts. A 11 three are controversial, but particularly wben transferred to tbe realm of art which seems to me to belie the ir assumpti ons , or at least, to resist their deterministic effect. To those, not possessed by the promises of material progress alone, modernism has a deeply controversial content. Because it is in the realm of values, it must be constantly questioned and examined. The point is not to deny it, but to arnve at the fundamental concept of it. .Tn art, modernism embodies a confluence of ideas derived from different culture: yet until now the forming will has been of the Western man, conditioned by bis own cultural history. As tbe supremacy of the West begins to be challenged modernism must be understood not as an inevitably conditioned phenomenon but a set of facts and values in tbe process of transformation by the will of non-Western peoples, till now excluded from tbe modern world by historic circumstances. One may further argue that the very use of these terms, modernis m, Internationalism and especially progress,
are misapplied to art activity. The content of these terms, or their underlying values have been determined by political and industrial- commercial developments at a specific historic time in the West. If art is considered a merely contingent ac¼vity to the above supposedly more basic activitid1~etermine the shape of culture- it will be measured by the value5 ~ secreted by these activities, especially the value of progress. But if it is recognised that what witb the exercise of creative imagination we are able to push againsr the boundaries of lived reality and aspire toward an ideal freedom, tben art, tbe prime product of this imagination takes on a unique role. In the pursuit of art, the determinism of history is challenged and by the same argument, the definitions of modernism and progress. Stripped of these two arms-modernism and progress-internationalism is a mere dummy without content or direction. To go on to the notion of Internationalism ' itseif, we must begin by questioning the optimistic assumption that in the contemporary word it represents, through the effects of advanced technology, a synthesis of d ifferent cultures For example Mcluban, tends to disengage media technology from its source and operators. He assigns it a paramount role-of bringing into a just coincidence the superior elements of past ( and neglected) civiliL.ations and tbe sensibilities of our electronic age. He anticipates a truly §ynthetic culture of the future and a new, intensely aware and responsive man. Tbe I nternational culture and the International man? If the synthesis is.o occur through the effect of advanced technology and its consequences of express communication, it must also be reckoned that these carry the motives and values indeed wholesale ideol ogies, of the operators who belon g to particular cultures and classes. Having sei zed and subordin ated through a series of of historic intiatives; vast numbers of people, these
groups perpetuate their su premacy, precisely . through the manipulation of advanced technology. The content of Internationalism does not devel()p through some notion of International justice but by exertion of specific interests. True Internationali , m must assume some measure of political and economic parity; until then it remains a treacherous ideal". The argument in favour of Internationalism that will appeal to many people not thinking in futuristic terms is that it is a substitute, in contemporary terminology, of the lon ~ standing idea of universalism. But there is an important distinction to be made and I will foHow Herbert Read in his very fine formuhtion of this distinction. In a speech entitled the 'Problems of Internationalism in Art' given at the Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968 he said : ' Universality is a question of depth of the depth of the artists vision and sympathy, Tnternationl lisrn is a question of width-of the extent of the aud ience to which the artist is expected to appeal." 1 Universality is achieved by the artist as a consequence of his depth-involvement with a theme that is an integral part of his experience or val ll es and which precisely through this intimacy gains insight into the root experience of men. Internationalism, on the other hand, is a self-conscious intention which must enter, through an anticipation of the taste of a vast audience, into the subject matter and style of the work. Following upon a general discussion on lnernationalism, I would like to suggest that there are interests groups that promote an International style-or more correctly a mainstream of International avant grade art. They also set up the criteria and the machinery to validate H. Read, . The Problem of Internationalism in Art " Th e Magazine. Institute of Contemporary Arts, ( No.7, October 1968 ), P. 2.
this ; one of the most effective of which is the network of famous International exhibitions. One can identity different categories of vested interests: commercial a rt dealers operating on an International art market; official agencies of different countries projecting their national culture into the world scene; welknown critics, selecting and evaluating contemporary works on a world-wide basis. And though each group may appear to have different functions, indeed different aims and integrity, there is, between them a remarkable coincidence of choice. From the point of view of the art dealers, with their branches in the important world metropolis, the art work is like a commodity, subject to similar means of International distribution and sale. They will tend to enco~rage a standardised (recognisable) style that yields at the same time, continual innovation and novelty. Their buyers, the affluent consmopolitan bourgeosie, want art tbat is stimulating in being new and advanced. But it should not be obscure, nor disturbing in a way that challenges their secure cultural status or conversely, their areas of ignorance and impoverishment. (Although it may be argued that even this can be overcome in the advanced commercial societies where all eccentricities are tamed by those who can buy them). From the point of view of the state cultural agencies. interested in projecting an image of their country, art works must be eminently exportable. The most important consideration is to appar advanced -assuming that-if advancement is quantifiable in the realm of science, technology and economics, it is also, in art. The other consideration, especially with the neglected non-Western cultures, now taking a position in the world scene, is to express a unique cultural identity. But they are never
indifferent to the first consideration of appearing advanced (or modern). Therefore the choice falls upon works that embody typical characteristics of the culture (e.g., myths and symbols) but transform these into a contemporary idiom-also immediately recognisable as such, in terms of techniques and style. On the whole however, the first consideration wins. International exhibitions become arenas where different nations test their respective adva ncement-the under-developed ones with some anxiety, following the criteria of advanced art, set by the galleries and critics of the progressive West. * I But advancement in art assumes that there is ' some selected mainstream that is continually developing in terms of its own logic or/and in correspondence to the times. This role of selection and judgment is performed, even more crucially and with wide spread effect, by the critics. The category of critics (including curators of museums) I am referring to are those who organise International exhibitions, review for International magazines and sit on International juries. Even the most sincere and sophisticated critic amongst them, required to select and judge from vast numbers of disparate works, is likely to seek a solution by which these works can be compared with some measure of rationality and objectivity. The solution is to apply forillal criteria, ignoring or suppressing the content, which, because of its experiential-ideological roots is likely to be problematic if the critic is unfamiliar with these. 路1
Harold Rosenberg in his book, The Anxious Object quotes a press release from the 6th Biennale at Sao Paulo: "Brazilian culture, cannot afford to remain indifferent to the progress of present techniques and the evaluation of artistic creation." And he adds : "To fall behind in the progress of technique in painting would be equivalent to falling behind in electronics. A nation that did so would be making public confession of backwardness." Rosenberg, The Anx ious Object, p. 20-21.
I am proposing that an International art scene, on a scale such as at present, can only be conceived or comprehended, on the basis of some uDifying factor-and this is necessarily the formal-stylistic factor, It is of course difficult to identify the cause and the effect in the development of this phenomenon. Was it the preoccupation since the early years of this century, with the formal qualities of art and the subsequent emergence of abstract art that made possible the contemporary InternationaHsm in art? Or was it the growing pressure of Internationalism on other accounts (politics, technology and commerce) that conditioned the sensibilities, and the value-criteria of artists and critics, inducing them to seek a means - a stylistic convention-by which Internationalism could be claimed in art? * I It is probably necessary to assign a cause and effect relationship as both factors have worked reciprocally. Internationalism and formalism have accompanied each other and have, for all the claims of avant-gardism made art conformist and conventional. Where content is retained (as e.g., in Pop art) it is contained within an area of immediate recognition and effect, ensured as in the case of Pop art by its identification with the familiar images of commercial mass media. I have argued so far to suggest that art that circulates in the International hot circuit, displays a . primacy of style over meaning. This makes it more accessible but at the same time lamentably impoverished. 路1
The extraction of formal qualities of an art work dates back to the turn of this century, when for the 6rst time. the independent and exploratory, role of 'language' was acknowledged along with the consept of 路significant' form. This was a natural consequence of the 19th century developments in art but it was also a consequence of the ~ opening outj of areas of non-Western (and pre-Renaissancee) art which in order to be comprehended needed more 'universal' criteria. On the basis of an aesthetic apprehension of form the Western art critics were able to embrace, within their own terms, Primitive, Oriental and Western medieval art. Once admitted into the Western sensibility, these arts affected in turn the values and direction of modern Western art.
Adil Jussawalla
The following was read out to a large and somewhat speechless audience of artists and art critics on the terrace of the Jehangir Art Ga]]ery, Bombay, on 31st January 1972. It didn't cause a riot as I'd expected it to. No one even discussed the paper, though the owner of Ga]]ery Chemould, who had convened the symposium, did say a commiserating word in my ear. lowe it to the editor of Vrishchik to have rescued the paper from an early death in a dusty drawer and the writer from well-merited oblivion. In view of my failure that night, and the failure of the artists and the art critics pf(~sent, I dedicate this paper, which is a consideration of the artist's role in India, to them, and call it •
.' '.' !view of - a volcano with various members -of ' the artistic profession warming their arses on it i .. . i
"
You may read on if you wish :
vB
Any consideration of the artist's role in India. and I presume the organizers of this symposium would prefer me to talk about his role in India-must take in the special features of the Indian art-scene and I'm afraid a lot of this . paper will have to be spent filling in the details of this scene. I , can't refer you to books on this subject as I can to books on the art-scene in Europe, the Sates and Latin America, and I can at best make a few limited observations in the few minutes I've been given. I have inevitably bad to oversimplify, but I hope this can be remedIed in any discussion that may follow.
Now, no country whether Socialist or Capitalist ar an ' evolving social democracy as ours claims to be; ". c'a n' '-yet boast a society in which the majority of its :citfzens .
appreciate art. But the bourgeois critic in non-Socialist countrjes tends to draw two false conclusion from this :' (a) that because this minority of art-lovers general1y come from the bourgeoisie and the upper class, the working class is incapable of appreciating art, and (b) that if m~st . people do not appreciate certain kinds of art, there must be something wrong with them rather than the art. While the elitist nature of such views is blunted in such countries . as I 'propose to consider the following : What the role of the England, France and the States by various institutional Indian artist has been form the thirties onwards; , what his moves to democratize art-adult education classes, free role is now and (expecting howls of disagreement from the lectures, " taking art to the workers路", as Arnold Wesker liberals in the audience) what his role should be. tried in his Centre 42-in India, we have an art appreciating Not being an artist in the terms covered by this symposium- elite holding both the above mentioned views but with, neither the will nor the energy to generate any democratic that ~s, not being a painter, a sculptor or a potter -and , movement that may soften the outlines of their class not having had to side with any of their factions yet, I character. While this is all to the good , in - terms of shoul~ in the()ry ~e able to consider their role quite revolutionary theory, the art elite in India might well , begin objectively. In practice however, whatever I may have to to consider what is false about its two assumptions, and if say about their role in India has a lot to do with what I it cares to lower its gaze just a little, see the volcano it is ./ consid.er to be own role as a writer. I would like to make sitting on. it absolutely clear that while I do not expect the visual and plastic arts to do the work of literature and vice vers,a , Firstly, there is no evidence whatever that the percentage of in terms of their responsibility towards the so.ciety they work those who are able to respond to art is any higher in the . fO.r, I do not expect artists to play one kipd.of rqle and middle and upper classes than in the working class. . That writers a substantially different one. And whatever it is members of the first two rather than of the third who standards I may use to criticize the former in terms of their patronize art galleries has to do with the positions of failure to understand this respoflsibility or in terms of the most galleries in the major cities in non-working class areas; wide gap between their actual and professed commitm~nts, and to the fact that members of the upper and middle they are the. same ,standards I would apply to myself and classes are more likely to have been educated into believing my fellow-writers. that they are meant to respond to art, though they are never quite sure how In actual fact, the responses-of both Artists, art critics and art historians have quite rightly been a member of the upper class and of the working class impatient of literary approaches to the visual and plastic before, say, a large' abstract', may be uncertain , and arts, and have understandably been on the ' defensive ambivalent. But where the former has been educated into against both literary and non-literary philistines . . But in interpreting this ambivalence as a sign of his sensitivity, the lndia , this defensiveness has been c:arried to absurd extremes. , Nor, in India, are there art critics strong enough latter is likely to interpret it as a sign of ignorance and hence of inferiority. What has he missed that that sahib there has to defend the artists in bis extremity. At present both so clearly caught? If a society values this painting at arti fl ts and art critics seem steadfastly to refuse to confront Rs. 3000J-and him at only Rs. 200/-a month, where does the public, preenirng themselves and their ruffled sensibilities he figure in its scale of values? Clearly for a member of behind the fatal defence that the cultivation required to the working class to step into an art gal1ery in India is for appreciate modern art in all its fullness is so extreme that him to step on to trecherous ground. Why should he only a privileged few can attain it ; namely themselves. do it ? It is one of the aims of this paper to challenge this view.
The second view that if only a tiny minority appreciate art in India it is the fault of the people and not the art, only holds if it can be proved that all art at any given time is worth appreciating. We have often heard the bourgeois critic say that it doesn't matter whether we have Abstract art or Tantric art or even Socialist Realist art-as long as it's good. But the point is it, good for whom 1 And even if there were certain purely formal values that were recognized as good by members of a)) classes would the content necessarily be ' good' for all classes? In a class society such as India's, in the midst of growing class conflicts, it is entirely logical that art which is considered' good' by the ruling class, is either art which minimizes the conflict, ignores it totally, or makes that class feel that it has a pseudo-revolutionary role to play in the struggle. Let me iJlustrate ; For many years now, it has been fashionable to paint peasants, fishermen and adivasis as decorative elongations in a landscape or as melancholy and fatalistic lumps. We are aJl familiar with these attenuated fisherwomen, blue adivasis and sad-eyed cowherds. We can safely hang them up in our Jiving rooms with no fear that they might ever want to hang us. A decorative stylization of rural force~, or a sentimentaliLation of them are ways in which we can forget of even deny that such forces are a threat to us. They make us forget the landless, rural revolts, the Naxalites. No reasonably conscious artist would deny that these are the determining forces that shape and will continue to shape Indian Society. And yet his paintings refuse to show even a sign of tbis. The para))el with European Baroque art, with its garlanded sheperdesses and pretty village scenes, is very strong. In the words of Ernst Fisher, this is art , meant to calm the nerves of an uneasy society. Art became a magic means of deceiving the ruling class about the social dangers which surround it '. Unfortunately, in India, decorative styles in painting are given a bogus sort of currency by referring them to decorative elements in traditional Indian painting . Some painters seem to believe they are continuing an Indian tradition simply by continuing to raint in a decorative way. This may be so. But can this be the determining style in painting when the determining forces of society run counter to it ? Similarly, those other abdications of social responsibility in Indian painting, which go by the name of Abstract and Tantric art. Let me be clear that I am not against these forms per se but that their use by Indian painters does raise some important questions which they don't even bother to consider. To my mind, Abstract art was the logical corner into which the fragmentations caused by industrialization and the resultant separation of form and c.ontent drove the artist. But the questions this raises in
India are: Should form develop independantly of content in a society where the pressures for such a separation are minimal and where the major need of art is to put fragmentation in its proper place within the socio-cultural framework and not encourage it ? As for Tantric art - I see it as yet another example of the Indian's continuing flight from the social collective to the cosmos-a flight continuall) encouraged by escapist elements in Hindu religious tradition-and which we never seem to be able to prevent ourselves from taking. With Tantric art and with various other forms of modern Indian art which seem to have a religious nexus, the identification of mysticism with mystification is complete. So it is perfectly possible that art which is considered 'good' by the ruling class is art which means nothing to the working class since consciously or unconsciously it tries to play down the progressive and historical forces of its time which the working class embodies. I realize this is a gross oversimplification and may not need to be stated for S0me of you here. rn any age, there may be perfectly good specimens of art which, with no overt reference to any clas~ outside the one it exists for, reveals that class in the tull glory of its contradictions and decay. And the issue is further complicated by the fact that various Capitalist industries-mass entertainment, advertizing, etc., have helped corrupt working class taste and made it coincide with bourgeois taste. One can hardly deal with these issues in detail here. But I want to make it absolutely clear that I don't believe there is only one way or one style in art in which the artist can express progressive forces at work within a society or the contradictions within a certain class in that sClciety. [ am by no means suggesting that the role of the artist from now on is to stick a musclebound peasant or worker in a suitably aggressive posture into his paintings in the manner of the Russia路" Socialist Realists just because we happen to think we are developing a Socialist pattern of society and because there is such a thing as a Socialist view of art. But I do believe that the arts in India are at a stage when the artist must try and clsse~s the modern artistic movements of the last forty years within a very reaJistic, very comprehensive sociological overview, and whether for or against the sociogical approacn, take a more forceful view of his role. It is no use his exclaiming under the encouragement of the bourgeois critic that he is just a formmaker or an image-maker, whose forms must be considered independently of the forces at work in society. Even allowing him to ignore content, it is high time the Indian artist admitted to himself that there are certain forms and images which have evolved out. of the forces at work in Indian society and others which he has just lifted from a set of circumstances entirely different from his, without
sufficient consideration of these forms and stuck them on to the fabric of his sensibility like a badly-gummed collage. I believe we are at the third stage in the devlopment of modern Indian art and let me amuse the aesthetes in the audience by quickly sketching in the first two stages. The first step was to open the Indian eye, gummed shut and oozing pus for over two hundred years. This was in the early thirties. During those two hundred years, the Indian's aesthetic sense had been shrivelling away, existing only in villages and small-town communities of traditional craftsmen. Being a period of intense nationalism, the artists of the thirties naturally tried to revive the Indian's aesthetic sense by forcing his eye to see beauty and dynamism in certain national forms and objects: the sweeping line of the sari as revealed by lamini Roy, the heavy fall of limbs and clothes <:is revealed by Amrita Sher-Gil, the sensuousness of the Indian body as revealed by Nandalal Bose. The first Indian painters were literally eye-openers. The process of cleaning and educating the eye continued through the thirties and forties till Independance, with the Bengal School substituting a certain mternationaHsm in matters of form, and social aware::ess in place of traditional Indian themes. The second stage was really an extension of this internationalism and did not really flourish till after lndependance. This was when artists began to feel no need for a nationalist nucleus to art and began to be intensely interested in the formal experiments of international artists. Now in the fifties and the early sixtie!", all the international styles in art flowered simultaneously. This was also the period when foreigners began to buy Indian paintings, when, for better or for worse, foreign critics like Rudy Von Leyden began to patronize Indian art, and wht n art dealers began to discover that art pays. It is very difficult for me to speak critically of this period which produced a number of painters whose work then I liked: Souza, Samant, Gaitonde, Ara. I have a clear memory of ]962 , when I had first returned from England, that there was a cloud below where we are now and [ used to walk on it. There was this feeling of tremendous artistic potential gathering together in one place and the pleasurable feeling that Bombay was the place where it would find, release. Ten years later, if tnat cloud exists, [ WOuld rather put my head in it so as not to see the shabby horrors of a bankrupt and dishonest art scene. And this brings me -to the third stage-the stage we're at. The change basicaJ!y is n0t that the artist's skill and proficiency have declined, but that while he has continued to maintain a defensive attitude towards his public, the public has changed its attitude towards hIm.
It is true that there is no significant cbange of attitude from the bulk of his buyers--the upper class - or in the attitude of institutional buyers, like Air India and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. (While the latter seems content merely to ride out the fashions of the moment, the tourist-orientation of the former may actually have helped create a market for exotic, decorative art. But that is a point that needs 路 to b6 dealt with elsewhere. ) But among young students, even upper class students, it is no longer fashionable to say they like modern art just because it is 'modern '. 'What kind of modern art do we need? ' Some them ask. C Is it valuable to me? Is it valuab1e to us ?' Then, many among the rising middle class and the nouveau riche are also making the wonderful discovery tbat art pays; and there are more and more art galleries and more and more art dealers to help spread the news. The results? More and more elongated fisherwomen, more and more meaningless abstracts, more and more lumpy Ganeshes, more and more investments to hand on the wall. Then, surpri,ing as it may seem to some of us, despite our best efforts, the working class wiIJ not keep still. The more conscious it becomes of its historical role, the more politicized it becomes, the less willingly do its members submit to feeling inferior in a value sy~tem which allows Air India to pay one of its painters Rs. 32,000/ - for a month's work and a ground mechanic Rs. 500/- for the same period of time. Of course, there are a number of painters who are aware of the dominant forces at work in society and their paintings evolve accordingly. But even the best confront a cruel dilemma as far as their role is concerned. I mean no criticism here. I doubt if there is a single artist, whether painter, writer or musician, with even a modicum of social responsibility who has not fe1t the futile vanity of his pursuing his art in a country where the priorities call out for some other kind of action. Everything cries out tor concerted political action and yet the tools of bis trade, tbe pen, the typewriter the chisel or the brush, chain him to it. Some artists of considerable talent have in the face of this dilemma abandoned their art and become political theorists or activists. But this is by no means the only solution and can never be a general one, otherwise the message of this paper would be quite simply put: Down your tools and pick up the hammer and the sickle instead. No. The challenge before us lies in the fact that the majority of artists faced with this dilemma have to reconcile its two poles tbrougb and in their art. <
The challenge is being squarely faced by certain artistsnot all of Whom see the dilemma in the same terms as I do and not all of whom hold a Socialist view of art: Bhupen Khakhar, Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna, Altaf Mohamedi, Gieve Patel - but they might all be willing to admit that the ; effectiveness of their paintings is constantly been nullified by certain Capitalist forces at work within the art ma rket. Of the two Capitalist art markets, the international and domestic, the international is obviously much the stronger, but contrary to what a number of critics accuse Indian painters ~f, I don't believe that this market has affected their work significantly. There is this scene in the Polish film, Everything for Sale, when one of the characters, a film director, perplexed as to what form his film on a dead actor should take, rejects one of his friend's suggestions on the grounds that if accepted, it wouldn't make a Festival film. Well, some Indian painters might consciously try and paint Trinenalle or Bienalle paintings and Delhi ' s diplomatic enclave may still compel others to go on painting harmless exotica, but I think the major Indian painters have avoided this. [he influence of the international market on the Indian painter is far more subtle, I believe it affects the artist's attitude towards his works rather than the work itself. He lives in a society with minimal facilities for any kind of education, leave alone art education, with the fields of communication and publicity still in their infancy, with the people struggling in a mass of unformed values - whether these concern art, education, or politics itself - and yet the artist continues to behave as though he were wallowing in the lap of a highly developed Capitalist society, expecting large sections of the educated public to talk intelligently about his art and high society to fall at his feet in a shower of rupee notes and glossy art magazines. He complains he is not understood. Over and over ag ain, whichever way you look at his work, that plaintive refrain: I am not understood. For the benefit of such artists I would like to quote what Herbert Read, by no means Marxist, felt were the conditions revolutionary British artists expected for themselves in Britain in the thirties: He says that the artist is probably himself in revolt against the individllalistic basis of the art market and prepared for the sacrifices involved in the transition to some other basis. He would not be human if he did not want people to buy his pictures and no doubt the liason between patron and artist has its sentimental value. But actually the artist would prefer to get on with what he would call his work without having to worry about the financial economy of his existence. He would like to be a member of a co-operative body which guaranteed him his means of subsistence; he would like to be refa ~ded as just as necessary to the general economy
a
of a country as the destructive or defensive personnel of the army and the police force. He might deserve but would not claim exceptional treatment; he would only insist on being recognized as one of the essential elements in the structure of a an autonomous society .' That' autonomous' gives the game away somewhat and even without it, I don't know how many British artists would subscribe to such a role now and how many did then. But without turning this into a Jana Sanghi revivalist plea, I would like you to see how close this description of an artist's place in soriety comes to his place in traditional Indian society: an artist, an artesan, responsible for such magnificence as Ellora and Ajanta, yet without a name to call his own - part of the social collective and not claiming any special treatment outside it. As for the d omestic market, perha ps few In1ian arti sts want to shift the individualistic base of the market to another. If they did, they would perhaps work more seriously towards trying to bring about the kind of social transformation that would rna ke such a collective possible If they want the Capita list nature of the market to go, then Capitalist must go-there are no two ways about it. This would mean their working towards a Socialist tran ' formation of society alongside those they have traditionally ignored: workers, artesans, writers, students and so on . If they are serious about this change they had better prepare for the painful confroctation they have long been avoiding. I don't mean artists should speak in public, teach, or write lengthy dissertations if they can't. We at least deserve to be spaf'~ d that. But that they should, for a start, stop being so defensive about their art. The secondary role of artists then - their duty, I should say-is to break out of this defensiveness, not to condescend to the public any more but to try and work with it, and so make it aware of their art, its nature and its objectives. Artists with Socialist objectives will be doing these things any way. But the majority of Indian artists, who don't have such objectives, might at least make a start by confronting their long - despised public and finding out what it thinks of their art . The volcano shows signs of blowiug up under their arses sooner than they think. I take for granted that all artists-whether holding a Socialist view of art or not-have a primary role to play as eye-openers in a society gone purblind with dullness. I also believe that the proliferation of styles that has resulted from their attempts at playing this particular role is not in itself to be condemned. But artists should be willing to admit that not all styles have an equal public value at any given time and that, in the matter of styles, some of them have shamelessly deceived the public.
A certain amount of deceit tbese last forty years, but more than tbat, a great deal of arrogance, bas caused tbe public to suspect them deeply. A young student can confidently say this in a review of a book on student po wer:
•
The role of artists and students of art in social revolution is negligible, so tbat it does not matter whether they are encouraged in imperialist art or free expression. Those splashes of paint on a canvas. whether done by a conformist or non-conformist will have little effect on the masses. Moreover, most of these militant students will finally end up in the rat-race by joining some advertising agency or some textile mill. Others, who become professionals, will, as Paul Baran puts it in tbis book "Tbe Political Economy of Growtb" play tbeir part in
creating escapist works, obscuring and distorting all the understanding of tbe real world. " 1
It should be clear from tbis paper tbat I do not share the studenfs view on the uselessness of the artist's rolewbether tbe society he works for is at a revolutionary stage in its development or not. The purblind eye needs forever to be bealed, cberished, loved. The artist is onl of the few people who can do it. But if he continues to nurture a private sensibility, continues to pre-suppose, in the words of Ernst Fisher, a : nervously over-stimulated' or a 'sentimentally flabby' state for the appreciation of his art, and is thereby left bebind by tbe ' forces of history, be can't really claim it was never his fault. 1. From a review which appeared in " Student IS Call". Vol. 4,
No.1 , November 1971.
c#l5
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