Aesthics in Pictorial Language

It is the first ever effort "to comprehend Orissan painting as a constituted language and to grasp the principles by which it functions". Unlike its plastic art traditions, the Orissan paintings clearly represent the vernacular (the regional language) tradition covering a period of roughly three hundred years beginning with eighteenth century. "The interchangeability of pictorial and literary images, so successfully happening on the palm-leaf pages that you almost read the pictures and perceive the text," says the author. The text and pictures complement each other in a way that affords an ecstatic experience to the viewer. What the author is trying to show here is that a picture has a language that corroborates with the vernacular medium of the region and that it is an issue within the parameters of cognitive aesthetic study. Aesthetics of Pictorial Language, comments Professor Niranjan Mohanty, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, "epitomizes a fine piece of scholarship: both in terms of its presentation and documentation. In trying to signify the qualities embodied in the aesthetic space, the author has effortlessly ransacked the cupboards of rich Orissan art forms - from its tribal to modern and postmodern. The book unravels the ubiquitous, and almost indefinable, connection between the aesthetic space and the space generated by the pictorial language. It critically examines, interrogates and investigates the interiority of such spaces in order to posit the view that such spaces engender a creativity both for the viewers and readers, critics and artists." Reinterpreting diverse art forms: Rock Art, Tribal Art, Folk/Rural Art, Temple Murals, Pata Paintings, Palm Leaf Illustrations, and modern Easel Paintings, Soubhagya Pathy evidences a rare critical insight with which he moulds the formal structure of this book. Supporting the text are about 250 photographs: largely in black-and-white.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: Aesthetic space and the pictorial language 1 2. Rock art: Pre-linguistic expressions 23 3. Tribal art: Language of the primitives 37 4. Folk diagrams Jhoti and Cita: Language with a rural sensibility 5. Temple murals: Language of Mytho-religico discourse 86 6. Pata paintings: Language of new devotion 114 7. Palm leaf illustrations: Language of the poet Elite 144 8. Silpa Sastra and Citra Sastra illustrations: Inner language of structural forms 179 9. Easel paintings, installations and happenings: Language alien 188 10. Conclusion: Towards the formation of art linguistics 242

About the Author :
Dr Soubhagya Pathy, a poet, painter and critic, has authored/co-authored a number of books, curated exhibitions, and held his own one-man exhibitions. He edits Angarag: a journal on performing and visual arts.