Mutable: Indian Ceramics in a State of Flux
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interpreted as the opposite of contemporaneity.” Rather regarding artistic work and its qualification by beauty than being perceived as a binary divide, the two have against a background of rapid industrialization that was been continuously assimilated, adapted and engaged in an expression of the spirit of man. an ongoing process of negotiation.1 This holds true for India as well as for some other non-Western countries. Yanagi’s theory of the “Beauty of Irregularity,” a chapter from an unpublished manuscript titled The Book of The articulation of this negotiation in aesthetic language Pots, caused a ripple effect in the world of pottery Mutable: Indian Ceramics has largely revolved around the contribution of a beginning with Bernard Leach and Hamada Shoji. Here number of individuals on whom this essay will focus. Yanagi is at his rhetorical best, linking spiritualism and The transnational context of Japan and India involves craftsmanship. He also discusses Okakura’s Book of Tea in a State of Flux the contributions of Gurcharan Singh of Delhi Blue (1906), in which the Oriental recognition of the beauty Pottery, Kripal Singh Shekhawat of Jaipur, and Deborah of irregularity and the imperfect is a product of Zen 1 Smith and Ray Meeker of Golden Bridge Pottery in thinking and describes an aesthetic based upon simple Kristine Michael Pondicherry (now Puducherry). The ties that link these naturalness and reverence, which are then equated to pioneer potters deal with the long shadow cast by the freedom. “Beauty must be associated with freedom— combined influence of Japanese Mingei craft theory and freedom is beauty,” he declared, “as the love of the Western arts and crafts writings on the idealized notion irregular is a sign of the basic quest for freedom.” It is of the craftsman on the formation of the Modernist this beauty with inner implications that is referred to studio pottery movement in India. as shibui, which can be translated as a combination of adjectives such as austere, subdued, restrained, simple Mingei theory, according to Yuko Kikuchi,2 was Yanagi and pure. While explaining the importance of objects Just as clay is in a continuous state of flux between The building of links or bridges between the tropes of Soetsu’s cultural hybridization of craft created by the in the tea ceremony, Yanagi explains that tea taught the unfired and fired state, so also is the eventful vernacular and modern art-cum-design is the pivotal “negotiating of the borders of Orient and Occident… people to look at and handle utilitarian objects more chronology of its aesthetic and technological history. point of the Mutable exhibition, which explored the where Yanagi selected, absorbed, translated and carefully than they had before, and this inspired in Throughout the colonial period, pottery was able to enormous range of cultural practices that deal with Publishingappropriated” arts and crafts theories into the shared them a deeper interest and greater respect for those maintain its economic and local market base due aesthetics, function and sustainability. The aim was to common ground of Japanese indigenous context in objects. Tea formulated criteria for recognizing beauty to the simple production processes and sustainable show the fluid and relative categories of the craft, rather an original manner. These dealt with the principles of through form, colour and design. In the early tea bowls, technology which enabled it to pave the way towards than reinforce limiting and preservationist approaches. beauty, aesthetic theories and modernist ideas which the masters perceived the virtue of poverty in the its regeneration as a distinct modern art form in the The reformist, idealist and spiritualist voices of pottery’s enthusiastically looked to Japonisme as its inspiration.3 world of beauty called shibusa, the humility that may 20th century. A critical part of the nationalist discourse, exponents are largely consonant with the arts and crafts Yanagi explained to a largely Western audience about be described as subdued, austere and restrained. Most along with weaving, pottery played a singular role movements of the 19th century, leading to a persistence the canon of beauty for all Japanese people. tea masters preferred the incomplete; they looked for in the development of Gandhi’s and Tagore’s new of the craft through Oriental or Western aesthetics in the slight scars or irregularities of form. The Oriental, he educational strategies for an independent India through search to create a national identity. The development He and Okakura Kakuzo (aka Tenshin) were some of grandly declared, sought the natural, the irregular and their vision of integrating crafts with skills for life. The of the schools of art and their teaching of ceramic the most important theorists in the Mingei movement the free—where the Occidental sees only disharmony, craftsman’s place in culture, however, was fractured in design, form, function and its ornamentedMapin surface, who also had a great impact on English, Japanese and the Orient sees harmony. He also quoted Kabir, the the post-Independence spurt of industrialization, new often inspired by regional artistic treatment of surface Indian views of pottery as “the beautiful truthfulness Indian mystic poet, in his chapter on the Buddhist idea technologies and modern materials which enabled the as in Jaipur Blue Pottery, architectural reliefs or Ajanta of the domestic handmade crafts.” Yanagi was first a of beauty. displacement of the potters’ traditional functional role Cave paintings leads one to understand that, eventually, pupil and then friend of D. T. Suzuki, who made a form in rural society. The marginalization of potters in urban pottery need not be seen as a© sub-genre of fine art or of Buddhism known to the West. His aesthetic was Okakura Kakuzo’s grand narrative in the Ideals of the areas to the outskirts of the city, shrinking urban and only rooted in traditional forms and concepts. Rather, that of “the seeing eye,” an epithet that Bernard Leach East (1903) begins with his statement “Asia is One,” but rural markets, and restricted access to clay sites and it has developed into a form of contemporary personal also used for him as he was never a craftsman but an his discourse rests on the triangulation of three mighty fuel due to property development and changing land expression which engages its audience on its own aesthete. Yanagi’s position in Japan is comparable to that Asian civilizations—India, China and Japan. His trip usage are some of the issues that they have faced and terms with a characteristic language. As curator Apinan of England’s John Ruskin and William Morris.4 Through to India in 1901–02 was facilitated by Sister Nivedita, continue to face. Poshysnanda has written, “Tradition should not be his book The Unknown Craftsman, he proposed a theory Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore.5 His 16 | Mutable: Ceramic and Clay Art in India Since 1947 Mutable: Indian Ceramics in a State of Flux | 17 artistic pedagogy also rests on a triangle—tradition, artists but also, in turn, were influenced by the new Rabindranath Tagore. However, while making use of at the School of Art in Jaipur’s Kishanpol Bazaar.8 His nature and originality; these interact interestingly in his “wash style” initiated in Bengal; this exchange gave Morris’s terms, Coomaraswamy departed from him as own training—first at the Lucknow School of Art and Asian triangle in which Japan is positioned at the apex contemporary Japanese art an Indian touch.6 Kampo he considered colonialism a far more important factor in later with Nandalal Bose at Santiniketan, from where embodying its artistic heritage, India is represented by Arai, a painter of the Nihon Bijutsuin, came to Calcutta artistic production than class relations. he graduated as a painter in 1947, and his subsequent the synthesis of the Vedas and the Chinese by Confucius in 1916 on Rabindranath Tagore’s invitation. He visited exposure in Japan to Oriental painting techniques—led and communist ethics. At a lecture delivered at the Calcutta and Santiniketan and travelled around India However, in a country with a strong artisanal base, him to develop a new reference point in aesthetics and World Trade Fair in St Louis in 1904, Okakura affirmed from 1916 to 1918. dealing with revivalism in traditional forms was what in creating a market for the local craft. Kripal Singh that, “we feel ourselves to be the sole guardians of the Kripal Singh Shekhawat achieved with his teaching used the pottery surface as his canvas, mingling all his art inheritance of Asia.” And then again, “Japanese art Yokoyama Taikan was a student of Okakura and was and practice of Jaipur Blue Pottery in a systematic sensitivity from Santiniketan, the Ajanta and Bagh Caves stands alone in the world” and reveals its tensions of greatly influenced by his thoughts. He was an important gurukul system in both his personal home studio and and his Japanese Nihonga techniques to create a new solitude and exclusivity from the rest of Asia which had leader in the Nihonga or “Japanese traditional” school hybrid canon of decorative underglaze painting. a colonial history. Okakura was deeply impressed by the of modern Japanese art. He was extremely influential in Under the instruction of Nandalal Bose, Kripal Singh and revivalist national movement for culture and arts, going the evolution of the Nihonga technique, having departed the artist Beohar Rammanohar Sinha worked on the on with the Tagores in 1902. On returning to Japan, from the tradition of line drawing. His style was called handcrafted and painted Preamble to the Constitution he sent two distinguished artists of the Nihonga style, “Mourou-tai” (blurred style). His trip to India, made of India in 1949. The illustrations and the decorative Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida Shunso to Calcutta (now jointly with Hishida, inspired some of Yokoyama’s most borders are quintessentially of the Santiniketan or Kala Kolkata), where they met and exchanged opinions and important work and also was immensely important for Bhavana style and were greatly inspired by the cave artistic views with Rabindranath and Abanindranath the evolution of Indian Modernism.