Khodidas Parmar art Gallery

  29 September 2021 

  Sunday reading task: Visit to an Art Gallery: Ajanta Exhibition

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 Art gallery: Ajanta Exhibition 

         

  The art gallery is magnificent and has moreover a full time dedication to real art. I love that gallery so much as it always welcomes new art. That gallery is really big and has more attention from the people who are looking for some cool art. The KHODIDAS Parmar was also a great painter and have more over collection located there. I personally love that art. The atmosphere is so positive and the people who came there were also knowledgeable people of that particular art form.

• Khodidas Parmar    

Born: July 31,1930
Died: March 2004.

                 Khodidas Parmar was born on July 31, 1930, and was the only son of a poor Karadia Rajput family. He was named after the goddess Khodiyar as the family thought of him being a gift from the goddess after many daughters.  

             Though hailing from a poor family, his parents were determined for him to get a good education. He did his M.A. with Gujarati and Sanskrit, learnt painting even as he studied and went on to become a guide to students doing doctoral research on folk literature for their Ph. D. He was trained in art by Guru Somalal Shah from 1948 – 1951 whom he met at the Alfred High school.

              A recipient of several awards, he has participated in several group shows and his works are a part of several permanent collections like the Museum of Modern Art and National Art Gallery, New Delhi. Parmar passed away in March 2004 in Bhavnagar.

 

Ajanta caves:-  

The Buddhist Caves in Ajanta are approximately 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments dating from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state in India. The caves include paintings and rock-cut sculptures described as among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly expressive paintings that present emotions through gesture, pose and form.

              

                The caves were built in two phases, the first starting around the 2nd century BCE and the second occurring from 400 to 650 CE, according to older accounts, or in a brief period of 460–480 CE according to later scholarship. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Ajanta Caves

                         The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries and worship-halls of different Buddhist traditions carved into a 75-metre (246 ft) wall of rock. The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha, pictorial tales from Aryasura's Jatakamala, and rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities. While vivid colours and mural wall-painting were abundant in Indian history as evidenced by historical records, Caves 16, 17, 1 and 2 of Ajanta form the largest corpus of surviving ancient Indian wall-painting. 

             "The second phase of paintings started around 5th–6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". According to Spink, the construction activity at the incomplete Ajanta Caves was abandoned by wealthy patrons in about 480 CE, a few years after the death of  Harishena. The Ajanta caves are mentioned in the 17th-century text Ain-i-Akbari by Abu al-Fazl, as twenty-four rock-cut temples each with remarkable idols. 

• Paintings:- 

                   

Life circles of Lord Buddha

 The paintings in the Ajanta caves have previous births of the Buddha. These fables embed ancient morals and cultural lores that are also found in the fable ses and legends of Hindu and Jain texts. The Jataka tales are exemplified through the life example and sacrifices that the Buddha made in hundreds of his past incarnations, where he is depicted as having been reborn as an animal or human. The Ajanta frescos are classical paintings and the work of confident artists, without cliches, rich and full. They are luxurious, sensuous and celebrate physical beauty, aspects that early Western observers felt were shockingly out of place in these caves presumed to be meant for religious worship and ascetic monastic life. 

 

•   Tathagata:

The image of Tathagata

   Tathāgata is a Pali word; Gautama Buddha uses it when referring to himself or other Buddhas in the Pāli Canon. The term is often thought to mean either "one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata), "one who has thus come" (tathā-āgata), or sometimes "one who has thus not gone" (tathā-Agata). This is interpreted as signifying that the Tathāgata is beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena. There are, however, other interpretations and the precise original meaning of the word is not certain. 

The Buddha is quoted on numerous occasions in the Pali Canon as referring to himself as the Tathāgata instead of using the pronouns me, I or myself. This may be meant to emphasize by implication that the teaching is uttered by one who has transcended the human condition, one beyond the otherwise endless cycle of rebirth and death, i.e. beyond dukkha. 

Just as tathata designates true reality in general, so the word which developed into "Tathagata  " designated the true self, the true reality within man. 

• The image on later painting other arts:- 

Impact on later painting and other arts Edit

The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka. Some influences from Ajanta have also been suggested in the Kizil Caves of the Tarim Basin, in particular in early caves such as the Peacock Cave.

The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists with examples from ancient India to follow. Nandalal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore and Syed Thajudeen also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.

Anna Pavlova's ballet Ajanta's Frescoes was inspired by her visit to Ajanta, choreographed by Ivan Clustine, with music by Nikolai Tcherepnin (one report says Mikhail Fokine in 1923). and premiered at Covent Garden in 1923.

Jewish American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote about the caves in "Ajanta," the opening poem of her third collection Beast in View (1944). Rukeyser was inspired in part by writings on the caves by artist Mukul Dey in 1925 and art historian Stella Kramrisch in 1937.

•  Other painting of the art Gallery:- 

This is a small piece of information about the Ajanta caves and the Khodidas Parmar art gallery and his paintings. And the best experience of the art Exhibition.

 (1066: words )

Edmund Spenser as a poet

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser (c.1552 - 13 January 1599) was an English poet and poet Laureate. Spenser is a controversial figure due to his Zeal for the destruction of Irish culture and colonization of Ireland, yet he is one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy.

• Life

Edmund Spenser was born in Smithfield, London, around the year 1552; however, there is still some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the merchant Taylor's school and matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1570 Spenser went to Ireland probably in the service of the newly appointed lord deputy, Arthur Grey. from 1579 to 1580, he served with the English force during the Second Desmond Rebellion.

In1590 Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work, with the likely assistance of Raleigh. And through his poetry, Spenser hoped to secure a place at court, with he visited Raleigh's company to deliver his most famous work, The Faerie Queene. However, he boldly antagonized the queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley, and all he received in 1591. When it was proposed that he receive payment of 100 pounds for his epic poem, Burghley remarked, "what, all this for a song!"

In 1598, during the Nine year's war, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh o' Neil, His castle at Kilcolman was burned, and Ben Jonson who may have had private information asserted that one of his infant children died in the blaze. though local legend has it that his wife also died. He possessed a second holding to the south, at Rennie, on a rock overlooking the river Blackwater in North cork. The ruins of it are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as " Spenser 's Oak" until it was destroyed in a lightning strike in 1960. Local legend has it that he penned some or all of " the Faerie Queene " under this tree. Queen Victoria is said to have visited the tree while staying in a nearby convamore House during her state visit to Ireland before she died. In the following year Spenser travelled to London,  where he died in distressed circumstances, aged forty-six, It was arranged for his coffin to be carried by other poets, upon which they there many pens and pieces of poetry into his grave with many tears.

The Spenserian stanza and sonnet :

  Spenser used a distinctive verse form, called the Spenserian stanza in several works, including The Faerie Queene. The stanza's main meter is iambic pentameter with a final line in iambic hexameter and the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. He also used his own rhyme scheme for the sonnet. In a Spenserian sonnet, the last line of every quatrain is linked with the first line of the next one, yielding the rhyme scheme ababbcbccdcdee. " Men call you fayre " is a fine sonnet from Amoretti. The poet presents the concept of true beauty in the spiritual beauty in the poem. In the end, the poet praises her spiritual beauty and he worships her because of her Divine soul. 

Shorter poems :

                Spenser published numerous relatively short poems in the last decade of the sixteenth century, almost all of which consider love or sorrow, in 1591. He published complaints, a collection of poems that expresses complaints, in mournful or making tones. Four years later in 1995, Spenser published Amoretti and Epithalamion. This volume contains eighty-eight sonnets commemorating his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle. In the following year, Spenser released prothalamion. A wedding song was written for the daughter of a duke, allegedly in hopes to gain favour in the court.

Learned and Well Versed in Literature 

Spenser is a learned man, well-versed in literature and Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in the literature of his own age. Spenser has read widely ancient literature and in his own works reference to Ovid, Homer, Aristo, Ronsard, Petrarch, Tasso, etc. are frequent. No one, therefore, can hope to understand and enjoy the poetry of Spenser who is not familiar with 

(1) the classical mythology 

(2) classical literature 

(3) pastoral tradition of Greece and Rome, and 

(4) the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato. 

Spenser as The poet's poet :

It was Charles Lamb who called Spenser ‘The Poets’ Poet’. At least there are two reasons why Spenser is regarded as the poets’ poet and the second father of English Poetry. Firstly, Spenser rendered incalculable service to English poetry in a variety of ways and left behind him models of poetic excellence to be imitated and followed by a host of poets who came in his wake. He is also called the “Prince of Poets of his time”. He coached more poets and more eminent ones than any other poets. Besides, he is the poets’ poet because he is not the poet of the common man, but only of the scholars and poets with well-versed in the classical tradition and humanistic studies. During the Renaissance, Spenser’s poetry could really be appreciated by those who were familiar with classical writers and authors of the Renaissance. Since only scholars and poets had that necessary equipment to understand Spenser, and the common man had not that facility to understand him, Spenser is called the poet of poets and not the poet of the ordinary man. Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a host of poets followed him, called him their master, and exalted him as their guide and mentor. Dryden acknowledged him as his master and added that “No man was ever born with a greater genius or more knowledge to support it”. Pope is all praises for him, and James Thomson referred to him as “my master Spenser”, Shelley, Byron and Keats wrote their best poems in the Spenserian stanza (a long stanza of nine lines with the rhyme a-b-a-b-b-a-b-a-a). He is the poets’ poet in the true sense for he is the fountainhead of all those excellencies and beauties which are scattered in the works of subsequent poets, and for which they expressed their indebtedness to him and called him their master.

His Famous Work 

• The Shepherd's calendar (1579) 
• The Faerie Queene ( 1590, 1596, 1609) 
• Virgin's Gnat (1590) 
• Amoretti (1595
• Epithalamion (1595)
• Four Hymns (1596)
• 
  

Let's discuss about 'The Faerie Queene' 


The Faerie Queene

Spenser's masterpiece is the epic poem The Faerie Queene. The first three books of The Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and the second set of three books was published in 1596. 
The Faerie Queene is an epic poem by  Edmund Spenser, which follows the adventures of a number of mediaeval knights. The poem, written in a deliberately archaic style, draws on history and myth, particularly the legend of Arthur. Each book follows the adventures of a knight who represents a particular virtue (holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship,  justice and courtesy) and who has that quality in him or herself tested by the plot. The Faerie Queene is an allegorical work in praise of Elizabeth - 1 and of Elizabethan notions of virtue. The poem employs frequent allusions to recent history and contemporary politics in its celebration and critique of the Tudor dynasty, such as the religious controversies and reforms under Mary and Elizabeth, Spenser wrote that one of his intentions was that the reading of this work should ' fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle disciple Spenser invented a new verse from his epic. that is now known as the Spenserian stanza. 
The poem is unfinished Spenser's original plan was for 12 books, but we have just seven the last being incomplete. The first three books were published in.1590 and the second three in 1596. 

Theme of Faerie Queene 

• The Importance of a virtuous life  
• Disguises, false, identities and Hypocrisy 
• Love and its power 
• Protestantism 

The Faerie Queene as a source for King Lear 

           In book 2, the knight Guyon reads an old history of Faerie land, which gives  Spenser the opportunity to recount a  chronicle of British rulers. In canto 10, stanzas 27 -32. Spenser tells the story of Lear, The story is similar to that found in Holinshed and Geoffrey of Monmouth. However, in Spenser's version, Leyr is looking to retire in his old age. After the love test and division of the realm, he weds Gonorill to the king of Scotland and Regan to the king of Cambria. Cordell/Cordelia is sent dowerless to Aganip of Celtica. In an ending very similar to Holinshed's, cordeill restores Leyr to crown and end later inherits it only to be overthrown by her nephew. In Spenser's version, Cordell hangs rather than stabs or slays herself which may be the source for the method of Cordelia's murder in Shakespeare's play. 

Warrior women in The Faerie Queene 

         In book 5, canto 5, sir Terpin tells the knight Artegall of an Amazon queen called Radigund who defeated and enslaved him. Ridgid is described as proud, lustful and skilled at arms, she is reported both to kill men and make them do housework such as cleaning and sewing . Artegall fights Redigund and is himself made captive. 
     In canto 7, Britomart goes to rescue Artegall, with whom she is in love. She seeks out Radigund and kills her in a fight, releasing Artegall dressed in women's clothes, she asks him,  ' what my - game hath misfortune made of you ? ' relating this inversion gender role to the topsy-turvy world of festive license and misrule.  
Britomart and Radigund represent two different types of warrior women: Radigund the Amazon is a renegade who operates outside of the social control of men, Whereas Britomart upholds patriarchy. In this way, Spenser is able to criticize the idea of female rule without necessarily criticising Elizabeth - 1 herself. He explicitly excludes ' lawful sovereignties ' in his condemnation of the liberty of women: 

         Such is cruelties of womankynd,

 When they have shaken off the shamefast band, 

With which wise Nature did them strongly bynd, 

T'obay  the heasts of man's well ruling hand, 

That then all rule and reason they withstand, 

To purchase a licentious libertie, 

But virtuous woman wisely understand, 

That they were borne ti base humilitie, 

Unless the heavens them lift to lawful soveraintie .

Conclusion : 

Spenser is rendered as poet's poet because of his influential writing style but he is not The price of poet's, but The price of poet's of his age.

(:-1761: words)