neo-tantrism, and modern art in india
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P. T. Reddy, Neo-Tantrism, and Modern Art in IndiaAuthor(s): Rebecca M. BrownSource: Art Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 26-49Published by: College Art Association
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Rebecca M. Brown
P. T.
Reddy,
Neo-Tantrism,
and
Modern
Art
in
India
P.T.
Reddy,
Moon
Landing
No.
2, I970,
oil
on
canvas,
28
x
24 in.
(71
x
61
cm).
Collection
of St.
Mary's College
of
Maryland, gift
of
Mr. Saul Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate of
RT.
Reddy)
The
July
1969
moon
landing
represents
a
canonical
moment
for
modernity.
For
the United
States,
it
meant
a
battle
victory
in
the
space
race
and
a
triumph
of
American science and
ingenuity.
P.T.
Reddy
(1915-1996),
an
artist
then
living
in
Hyderabad,
India,
saw
these
aspects
of the
moon
landing, certainly,
but
he
also
acknowledged
the
cosmic
importance
of
that
moment,
using
it
as a
springboard
for
a
series
of
etchings
and oil
paintings
on
the
theme
of
humans
on
the
moon.
Reddy's
series
reclaims
the
moon
landing
for the world
rather than
solely
for
Americans?fulfilling
Neil
Armstrong
s
for
mankind ?and
recenters
the
iconog
raphy
of the
moon
landing
away
from the
iconic
figure
planting
the
flag
in
the lunar
soil
(although
he
does
use
that
as
well)
toward
a
more
symbolic,
universaliz
ing representation
of the
unions
of
microcosm
and
macrocosm,
humanity
and
god,
the human
body
and the celestial
body. Reddy
images
this modern
moment
through
the
symbols
and
concepts
of
Tantra,
an
element of both Hinduism and Buddhism
focused
on
a
cosmology
of
union,
made
popular
in
the
1960s
and
1970s.
He thus takes the central
concepts
of
modernity?scientific
progress
and
inquiry,
humanity's
control
of
nature,
the
search
for
universality
through
abstraction?and
articulates them
through
his
personal
interpretation
of
the South
Asian visual culture
of
Tantra.
This
article
argues
that
Reddy's
use
of
Tantra allows
him
to
transcend
the
paradox
inherent
in
articulating
modern Indian
art. '
If
modern
art
develops
in
part
as an
avant-garde
reaction
to
a
norm,
then
those
so
outside the
norm as
to
be
ignored
by
it
cannot
participate
in
the
modern.
Furthermore,
if modern
art
relies
on
the
appropriation
of
the aesthetics of the
(usually
colonized)
Other,
then how
can
artists
in
colonized
or
formerly
colonized
contexts
make the
same
move?
If
one
is
already
the
Other,
to
whom
does
one
look
for modernist
inspira
tion
and self-articulation?
Reddy
must
work
within these
paradoxes,
and work
ing through
a
neo-Tantric
idiom,
he
creates
a
space
for
both
an
international
and
a
local articulation of
the
modern.
Thus,
Reddy
treads the
problematic
knife
edge
of the
modern,
teetering
between
looking
to
a
strand of
visual culture from
South Asia
(Tantrie
art)
and
creating
an
abstracted,
personal symbolic
vision?a
vision
that
attempts
to
speak
to
the
nation.
As
an
artist,
Reddy
can
be considered
neo-Tantric,
in
that
Tan
trie
imagery
offers
him
a venue
for
this
sort
of
bridging.2
He
does
not
escape
the
problematic
position
of
mimicking
the
moves
of
Western
modernity;
he
remains
within
the
historicity
of modern
art
history,
looking
to
the
primitive
in Tantra
in
order
to
build
the
modern
and
creating
a new
lan
guage
of
abstraction and
symbolism
in
order
to
participate
in
a
nation-centered
and
global-looking
modernity.
In
Reddy's
work,
we
see
connections
to
a
wide
range
of
other
neo-Tantric
artists,
including
G. R.
Santosh
(1929-1997),
S. H.
Raza
(b.
1922),
and
Biren De
(b. 1926),
and thus
he
serves
as a
good
entry
point
and
guide
to
the works under
this broad
rubric.
For
example,
his
moon
landing
series,
as
Iwill
elaborate
later,
relies
on an
understanding
of
a
geometric
symmetry
and
pattern
derived
from
Tantric
yantra
diagrams,
but deviates
significantly
from
that
source
to
develop
a
new
idiom
of
symbolic
representation.
Other works
explore
the
concept
of
unity
through
imagery
related
to mantras
or
cosmic
vibrations
and
sounds,
also central
to
Tantra.
Reddy
also
engages
in
dialogue
with
contemporary
life
and
politics,
as
27
art
journal
Many
thanks to P. T.
Reddy's family
and the
Teaching
Collection of Art
at
St.
Mary's College
of
Maryland
for
supporting
this research. Earlier
versions of
this
paper
were
presented
at
the
Royal
Ontario Museum
(2004),
the Association
of
Asian Studies Annual
Meeting (2003),
and the
South Asia Conference
in
Madison,
Wisconsin
(2002);
many
thanks
to
the audiences
at
those
venues
for their
input
and
feedback.
A
small
por
tion of this research
appeared
in
the International
Institute
for
Asian Studies Newsletter
(July 2003);
my
thanks
to
Kristy
Phillips
there
for
her interest
and
support.
My
students
at
St.
Mary's
and the
University
of Redlands assisted
me
in
completing
this
research and
thinking through
the
argument,
especially
Jacob
Lewis,
Richard
Warr,
and those
in
my
spring
2004 South Asian
art
course.
Thanks
also
to
Deborah Hutton
and
Jagdish
Mittal,
who
assisted me in
contacting
P. T.
Reddy's family
in
Hyderabad.
Padma
Kaimal,
Pika
Ghosh,
Samuel
Chambers,
and
Deepali
Dewan all read and
com
mented
on
earlier
versions of the
article;
with Art
Journal's
anonymous
reviewers,
their feedback
has
been
invaluable.
And
to
Adrian
Brown: without
my
father's
unfailing
support
of
my
academic and
life
endeavors,
this article
would
not
have been
possible.
1.
Reddy's
neo-Tantric idiom
represents
one
solu
tion
to
that
paradox;
other
neo-Tantric
artists
and
other
Indian artists have
navigated
this
paradox
in
a
variety
of
ways.
2. Other
artists
often
grouped
in
this
movement
have
resisted
the
label
neo-Tantric,
because
of
a
desire
not to
presume
to
be tantrikas
themselves,
but
also
because
they truly
did
not
see
their work
as a revival of Tantric art, as S. H. Raza
put
it.
Quoted
in
Geeti
Sen,
Bindu:
Space
and Time
in
Raza's
Vision
(New
Delhi:
Media
Transasia,
1997),
137. Neo-Tantra
for the
purposes
of
this
essay
does
not
assume
artists
are
practitioners
of
Tantra
or
even
trying
to
revive
Tantric
concepts
or
imagery,
but rather
that
Reddy
in
particular
and
neo-Tantric
artists
more
broadly
are
mining
a
par
ticular South Asian
visual
resource
for its
efficacy
in
carrying
their
contemporary messages.
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28
WINTER
2005:
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G. R.
Santosh, Untitled, 1973,
paint
on can
vas,
60
x
50 in.
(
152.4
x
127
cm).
Chester
and Davida Herwitz
Collection,
Peabody
Essex
Museum, Salem,
MA
(artwork
?
Estate of G. R.
Santosh,
photograph provid
ed by Peabody Essex Museum)
the
moon
landing
series
shows,
along
with
his Nehru
series
and other works
touching
on
poverty,
labor
movements,
and the social
changes
wrought
by
India's
Independence
in
1947.
Because
of
his
use
of
the neo-Tantric
idiom,
how
ever,
his
explorations
of
historical
concerns
such
as
these become
dehistoricized
and
abstracted,
as
I
discuss below.
Thus,
through
Reddy's
work,
I
argue
that
for
artists
struggling
with
being
both modern and Indian
in
the
1960s
and
1970s,
neo-Tantric
imagery
provided
one
solution,
indicating
a
path
through
the
abstraction/representation
bind and
retaining
both
a
universality
of
form
and
a
specificity
of
national
identity.
Neo-Tan
tra
Neo-Tantrism
is
less
an
organized
movement
than
a
conglomeration
of
artists
whom
critics
and
art
historians
see as
addressing
concepts
related
to
the renewed
interest
in
Buddhist and
Hindu
Tantric
practices
during
the
1960s
and
1970s.
Tantra
itself
evades
precise
definition,
as
scholars
of
religion
continue
to
disagree
on
its
boundaries
and
core
elements.
Current
consensus
draws
on a
set
of
texts
called
Tantras,
the earliest of which
was
composed
in
the
fifth
century
c.E.
Tantra
centers on an
understanding
of the
universe
as
the
concrete
manifestation of
the divine
energy
of
the
godhead,
which Tantric
practitioners
or
tantrikas
chan
nel
through
the
microcosm
of
the human
body
and
its
energies.3
The intercon
nectedness of
macrocosm
and
microcosm
and the
understanding
of
their
unity
together
form
a
core
element
of Tantric
belief.
The
m?ndala,
or
cosmic
map,
allows
practitioners
access
to
this
macro/micro
universe,
giving
a
place
to
the
various
energy-bearing
elements
of
the
world,
including gods,
demons,
and
ani
mals,
as
well
as
the
human
body
itself.
Indeed,
the
body
forms
a
crucial
part
of
Tantric
practice,
as
the
energies
within
it
parallel
macrocosmic
energy
(shakti).
Thus,
a
tantrika will
use
mantras,
or
sound
syllables
such
as
the
root
syllable
Om,
to connect
the body with that larger
universe.
The union of bodies
in
sexual
practice,
in
some
Tantric
contexts,
also achieves this
connection
between
microcosm
and
macrocosm.
These
generalizations
are,
of
course,
just
that?
certain
Tantric
sects
will
disagree
with
this
definition,
and like all
religious
systems,
Tantra
has
changed
over
time,
defying
easy
categorization.
Indeed,
the
history
of
attitudes toward
Tantra
in
scholarship
and
popular
culture has
itself
shifted
over
time,
revealing
as
much about the
moment
of
interpretation
as
about
Tantra's
meaning.
In
the
early
twentieth
century,
Western
scholars of India
saw
Tantra
as a
hidden form
of Buddhism
and Hinduism.
These scholars
thereby
revealed
their
inheritance
of
the
Victorian
attitudes
of
the
previous
century
that found
inTantrism
a
degradation
of
the
religions
of
India.4
Scholars assumed that
Brahmanical Hinduism based
on
the Vedas and
Upanishads
formed
the
core
of Hindu
religious
practice
and
that
Tantrism
was an
unwel
come,
radical
counterpart
with
a
consistently
marginal
status.
Thus,
scholarship
ignored
Tantrism
until the
1930s
and
1940s,
when several
writers
began
transla
tions
of
some
of the
core
Tantric
texts;5
their work
was
followed
in
the
1960s
and
1970s
by
studies
of
temples
and
other
artistic
remains
of earlier
Tantric
cults.6
Uncovering
something
hidden, then,
played
into
the
exotic,
esoteric
image
of
India
already
cultivated
by
colonial
discourse. The search for
knowledge
about
Tantra
came to a
head
in
this
period
in
part
because of the
greater
accessibility
29 art
journal
3. David Gordon
White,
Tantra
in
Practice:
Mapping
a
Tradition,
in
Tantra
in
Practice,
ed.
David Gordon White
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
2000),
9.
4. N.
N.
Bhattacharyya, History
of
the Tantric
Religion
(New
Delhi:
Manohar,
1982),
26.
5.
Jean
Filliozat,
?tude
de
d?monologie
indienne:
Le Kumaratantra de Ravana
et
les
textes
parall?les
indiens
tib?tains, chinois,
cambodgien
et
arabe,
Cahiers de laSoci?t?
Asiatique,
series
I,
vol.
4
(Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale,
1937).
6. Alice
Boner,
Principles
of
Composition
in
Hindu
Sculpture,
Cave
Temple
Period
(Leiden:
Brill,
1962);
Alice Boner, New
Light
on the Sun
Temple
of
Konarka: Four
Unpublished Manuscripts
Relating
to
Construction
History
and
Ritual
of
This
Temple,
trans,
and annotated
Alice Boner
and
Sadasiva
Rath
Sarma,
with
Rajendra
Prasad Das
(Varanasi:
Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series
Office,
1972);
Vastusutra
Upanisad:
The Essence
of
Form
in
Sacred
Art,
Sanskrit
text trans,
and ed. Alice
Boner,
Sadasiva Rath
Sarma,
and Bettina B?umer
(New
Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass,
1982).
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of Tibetan Buddhism that
came
with the exile of
the Dalai
Lama
from
Tibet
in
1959.
Coinciding
with
a
growing
Western
interest in
Asian
spirituality,
sparked
in
part
by
the
interaction of the Beat
poets
with Zen
in
the
19SOS,7
Tantric
schol
arship
soon
moved
more
into
the
mainstream
with
major
exhibitions and
publi
cations
on
Tantric
art?most
prominently
Aj
it
Mookerjee's
Tantra Art
and
Philip
Rawson's
Art
of
Tantra.8
Thus,
the
two
decades
of
the
1960s
and
1970s
mark
a
high
point
of
interest
in
the visual and
conceptual
aspects
of
this
hidden
form of
Hinduism and Buddhism.
More
recent
scholarship
has
reevaluated
the
hidden
quality
of
Tantra,
argu
ing
that
Tantra
enjoyed
mainstream
patronage
and
support
during
certain
his
torical
periods,
a
view
which
belies the Victorian
notion
of Tantra
as
degraded
Hinduism.9
Today
scholars
are
beginning
to
contextualize
the
very
idea
of
Tantra
as
hidden
as
part
and
parcel
of
Orientalism,
its concomitant
exoticization
of
India,
and
the need
for
a
debauchery
in
India
to
contrast
with
a
presumed
Victorian
reserved
quality.
Nonetheless,
in
the mid-twentieth
century,
when the neo-Tantric
art
move
ment
began,
the notion of Tantra as
embodying
these hidden
qualities
still
pre
dominated. Neither
Mookerjee
nor
Rawson
offers
a
historical
contextualization
of Tantric
art
forms,
so
in
their
writings
objects
from
diverse
periods
and
regions
inhabit similar
conceptual
spaces.
The
purity
of these
objects?as
Indian and
uniformly
timeless?goes unquestioned.
A
certain
philosophical
interpretation,
one
committed
to
the
purity
of
metaphysical categories,
therefore
undergirds
the
organization
of
these
texts on
Tantric
art.
This
interpretation
allows
the
objects,
symbols,
and
practices
to
transcend
time
and
to
present
a
unified
South
Asian
cultural
heritage.
It is
from this
image
of
Tantra
and
Tantric
art
that
P.T
Reddy
draws
his
imagery
and the
appeal
of
Tantra is
found:
a
universal-yet-Indian
conceptual
and
visual
well
from
which
to
drink.
An Indian Modern?
Modernity,
like
Tantra,
has
a
history,
sometimes
bound
up
with
the
representation
abstract
debate,
but
often
centering
on
notions
of
a
universal
aesthetic reliant
(ironically)
on
appropriated imagery
from
cultures
outside the
West,
a
valoriza
tion
of
originality,
and
a
belief
in
the
primacy
of
scientific
progress
and
the
quest
for
knowledge.
The
quest
to
understand
hidden Tantra fits into
an
overarching
context
of
modernity, dependent
on a
previous
history
of
colonial
power
in
the
subcontinent.
Historians and
literary
scholars have
long
been
aware
of
the
ways
in
which
modernity
relies
directly
on
colonial relations of
power,
which
supported
European
and American
growth
in
the
eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.IO
Dipesh Chakrabarty
and others
have focused
on
the
ideology
of
progress
and
development
embedded within
modernity
and
pointed
to
this historicism
as
a
necessary
move
in
the
justification
of
colonialism
in
the
nineteenth
century.
Historicism
is
what
made
modernity
or
capitalism
look
not
simply global
but
rather
as
something
that became
global
over
time,
by originating
in
one
place
(Europe)
and then
spreading
outside it. Thus
modernity,
as
understood
from
this
perspective,
becomes
intertwined
in
and
inseparable
from colonialism:
the
colonial
space
articulates the
difference
between
civilized and
not-civilized
30 WINTER
2005
7. Rick Fields, How the Swans Came to the Lake
(Boston:
Shambala,
1992).
8.
Ajit Mookerjee,
Tantra Art
(New
Delhi,
New
York,
Paris: Ravi
Kumar
Gallery,
1966);
Philip
Rawson,
Art
of
Tantra
(London:
Thames and
Hudson,
1973).
9. See
White,
Tantra
in
Practice, 31-34,
and
many
of
the
essays
in
Katherine Anne
Harper
and
Robert
Brown, eds.,
Roots
of
Tantra
(Albany:
SUNY
Press,
2002),
in
particular Harper's
The
Warring
Saktis: A
Paradigm
for
Gupta
Conquests,
I
15-32.
10.
Ngugi
Wa
Thiongo,
Borders
and
Bridges:
Seeking
Connections between
Things,
in
The
Pre-Occupation of
Postcolonial
Studies,
ed. Fawzia
Afzal-Khan and
Kalpana
Seshadri-Crooks
(Durham:
Duke
University
Press,
2000),
I
19-25.
I I.
Dipesh
Chakrabarty,
Provincializing
Europe
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
2000),
7.
Chakrabarty
is
certainly
not
alone in this
critique;
see
Lisa Lowe and
David
Lloyd's
introduction
to
their
edited
volume,
The Politics
of
Culture
in
the
Shadow
of
Capital
(Durham:
Duke
Univeristy
Press,
1997),
1-32;
and
Gyan
Prakash,
Introduc
tion:
After
Colonialism,
in
his
edited
volume,
After
Colonialism:
Imperial
Histories and Postcolonial
Displacements
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1995),
3-20.
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by placing
the nots further back
on
the timeline of modern
progress.
Chakrabarty
frames
this
as
the not
yet
of
modernity's
historicist outlook:
colonial
regions
are
not
yet ready?for democracy,
for
industrialization,
for
the
concepts
related
to
abstract
art.I2
The difference that the historicist
reading
of
modernity
sets
up
between the
normative
European
modern and
any
other culture
attempting
to
articulate the
modern allows
for
another
movement
within late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth
century
culture:
a move
toward the
primitive
as
authentic, timeless,
and
non
modern.
One
can see
this
impulse
toward the
primitive
encompassed by
the
Symbolist
movement
of the late nineteenth
century,
the
Arts
and Crafts
move
ment
of the
early
twentieth
century,
the Cubist
interest
in
formal and
spiritual
qualities
of African
sculpture,
and the Abstract
Expressionists'
interest
in
Jungian,
primordial
conceptions
of
universality
and
spirituality.
This
impulse
extends
to
those
in
Asia
as
well,
as seen
in
SoetsuYanagi's
aesthetic
writings
of
the
1930s
and Ananda
Coomaraswamy's
philosophical
arguments
of
the
1920s.13
Indeed,
modernism
arises
out
of
and
in
conjunction
with the
very
defini
tion
of this Other
as
developed
through
Orientalist discourse. That
is,
early
twentieth-century
modernism
in
Europe springs
from
nineteenth-century
definitions of the
Orient
as a
space
of the
Other,
suitable for colonization
and rich with
potential
material for
appropriation
to
a
modernist
context.I4
The
production
of the
Orient
and
its
support
of
the colonization
of
northern
Africa
and South Asia
by
European
nations
itself
produced
a
difficult
position
for
authors
of
nationalist
movements
in
these
countries,
who needed
to
overcome
a
positionality
as
Other while
simultaneously maintaining
an
identity
separate
from
the
colonizing
culture.ls
For
modernist
artists
of
Europe,
then,
non-Western
art
was never
far from
their
consciousness.
This
space
outside demands articulation within the
con
text
of
a
modernity
defined
as
progress
over
and
against
the either
static
or
at
best behind
state
of colonized
regions of
the world. We
see, then,
how
depen
dent the
concept
of
progressive modernity
remains
on a
group
of
cultures that
have not
yet
arrived
at
the modern.
In
the
case
of
art
history,
the
gap
between
the modern
and
the not
yet
is
reinforced
by
the
romanticization
and valoriza
tion
of the so-called
native,
primitive,
indigenous
Other
as a source
for
artistic
inspiration.
Stated
differently,
that Other
needs
to
be
not-(yet-)modern
in
order
for
the modern
to
utilize the aesthetic and
spiritual authenticity
of
the
native
for
shoring
up
a
space
of
Western
modernity.
This
dependency?the
need
to
freeze
the native
in
a
particular
way
in
order
to
support
a
vision
of modernism?leaves
no
space
for
modernity
in
a
contemporaneous
non-Western
context.
How
do those
artists in
the native
context
vis-?-vis Western
modernism
find
a
space
for
themselves?
How do
art
historians
attempting
to
engage
with
art
produced
outside of the flow chart
of the
history
of modern
art
place
these artists? And how
can
these
artists
be
modern
when
a
major
part
of the definition of
modernity
lies
in
the
use
of
an
authentic,
native
Other?
If the
concept
of
the modern
during
this
period
involved
a
debate between
abstraction
and
representation
and rested
on
a
prior
search
for
the authentic
in
the aesthetic
forms of
the
(usually colonized)
Other,
then the
understanding
of
Tantra
in
the
1960s
and
1970s
served the Indian
artist
well.
Seen
as a
universal,
3 I art
journal
12.
Chakrabarty,
49-50,
65-66.
13. Soetsu
Yanagi,
The
Unknown
Craftsman
(New
York:
Kodansha,
1974);
Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy,
Christian and Oriental
Philosophy
of
Art
(New
York:
Dover
Publications, 1956;
orig
inally
pub.
1942
as
Why
Exhibit Works
of
Art?).
14. Edward Said's Orientalism
is
the canonical
text
here
(New
York:
Vintage,
1979),
and for
art
history,
Linda Nochlin's
essay
The
Imaginary
Orient,
Art
in
America
71,
no.
5
(May 1983):
I 18-3
1, 187-91,
offers
an
exploration
of Said's
concepts
as
they play
out
in
nineteenth-century
Orientalist
painting.
15. For a discussion of the relation between
colonialism
and nationalist
movements,
see
Partha
Chatterjee,
The
Nation
and Its
Fragments
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1993).
For
a
discussion
of
visual
culture
in
relation
to
the
nationalist
movement
in
Bengal,
see
Tapati
Guha
Thakurta,
The
Making
of
a
New Indian
Art,
Artists, Aesthetics,
and Nationalism
in
Bengal,
c.
1850-1920
(Cambridge,
U.K.:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1992).
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abstract
conceptual
framework,
it
also
operates
as an
internal
Other,
hidden
out
side
mainstream
Indian
culture
and
exotic
to
Indians themselves.
Tantra
also
works
as an
ancient,
timeless
cultural
element,
something
that
European
mod
erns
valued
in
their search
for
universalizing
concepts
and forms.
Thus,
in
Tantra,
Reddy
and others of the neo-Tantric
movement
found
a
way
to
articulate them
selves
as
Indian
artists,
usually
as
the Other
appropriated by
the
West,
but also
as
modern
artists,
themselves
appropriating
traditional,
othered
forms
to con
struct
a
modern
Indian
aesthetic.
I
turn now to
Reddy's
various
forays
into
the
many aspects
of
Tantra
to
demonstrate how
his
work
navigates
the modern
Indian
paradox
in
four
ways:
through
the
use
of
the
yantra
form,
the
exploration
of
sound,
an
abstraction
of
writing,
and
in
relation
to
twentieth-century
Indian
events
through
imaging
Nehru.
Reddy's
Context
Reddy's
art career
began
when
his
high
school
art
instructor
noticed his
drawing
ability
and
encouraged
him to
apply
for a
scholarship
to
pursue
art. The
presti
gious
P.
J.
Reddy Scholarship
(which, despite
the coincidence
in
name,
was
not
funded
by
P.
T
Reddy's relations)
allowed
him
to
study painting
at
the
Sir
J. J.
School
of
Arts
in
Bombay
beginning
in
193s.16
During
these
years,
he
was
engaged
with both Indian and
European
art
movements,
most
notably
those
of
the
earlier twentieth
century
in
Europe.
Founded
by
the
British
in
the nineteenth
century,
art
schools
in
Madras, Calcutta,
and
Bombay initially
followed
the
Western academic mode
of
art instruction:
sculpture
from
plaster
casts
of
ancient
Greek
works,
painting
from
copies
of the
Renaissance
masters,
and other acade
mic
art
school
topics.,7
With the
rise
of the nationalist
movement
in
the late
nineteenth
century,
leaders
of
these
art
schools
shifted the
emphasis
from
Western
art to
the
study
and?as
they
saw
it?preservation
of
the
ancient
Indian
past. Copies
of
fifth-century paintings
at
Ajanta replaced
those
of
the
Renaissance
masters,
and
study
of
woodcarving
and
metal
casting
supplanted
examination
of
plaster
casts.
These
two
phases
reflect
a
shift
in
the colonial role
in
India:
from
the
spreading
of
Western
civilization
in
the
vein
of
Thomas
Macaulay's
Minute
on
Indian
Education,
to
the benevolent reclamation of what India
(with
the
assistance
and
urging
of the
colonizer)
cast
away
in
the
name
of
modernization
and
Westernization.l8
The
effort
to
preserve
various
vernacular
art
traditions
mirrored
similar efforts
in
the
West
centered
on
William Morris's
Arts
and
Crafts
movement,
whose main
proponents
in
India included the British-trained
geologist-cum-art
historian Ananda
K.
Coomaraswamy. Coomaraswamy
utilized
the
Arts
and
Crafts revalorization of
medieval and
Renaissance
art
in
order
to
celebrate what he
saw as
India's
spiritual,
craft-based vernacular
art
forms.19
Rather
than
dismiss
Indian
art
as nonart or as
monstrous,
this
shift
in
discourse
reclaimed
India
as a
space
of
so-called
authenticity against
the
postindustrial
space
of
Britain
and Western
Europe.20
By
the
time
Reddy
attended
art
school,
a
shift back toward
study
of
Europe
meant
his curriculum included
contemporary
European
artists.
Thus,
critics
of
the
time
drew
comparisons
between his work and
Henri
Matisse's
coloration,
citing
his
use
of the
Expressionists'
palette
while
simultaneously
celebrating
his Indian color
sensibility21
As
those
Western
artists had themselves turned
to
32
WINTER
2005
16. For
more on
the Sir
J. J.
School
of
Art,
see
Partha
Mitter,
The Formative Period
(Circa
1856-1900): SirJ. J.
School
of Art and the
Raj,
Marg46,
no.
I
(September 1994):
1-14;
Deepali
Dewan,
Crafting
Knowledge
and
Knowledge
of Crafts: Art
Education, Colonialism,
and the
Madras
School of Arts
in
Nineteenth-Century
South
Asia
(PhD
diss.,
University
of
Minnesota,
2001);
Yashodhara
Dalmia,
From
Jamshetjee
Jeejeebhoy
to
the
Progressive
Painters,
in
Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture, ed. Sujata
Patel
and
Alice Thorner
(Bombay:
Oxford
University
Press,
1995),
182-93.
17.These
cities
are now
called
Chennai, Kolkata,
and
Mumbai,
respectively.
I
use
the earlier
names
to
be
consistent
with
the
period
discussed
in
the
article.
18.
Barbara
D.
Metcalf
and
Thomas
R.
Metcalf,
A
Concise
History
of
India
(New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press,
2002),
81
;
T. B.
Macaulay,
Minute
on
Indian
Education,
in
Thomas
Babington
Macaulay:
Selected
Writings,
ed.
J.
Clive and
T
Pinney
(1835;
Chicago,
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1972).
19.
Coomaraswamy,
Christian
and Oriental
Philosophy
of
Art,
and
Medieval
Aesthetic,
Art
Bulletin
17,
no.
I
(March 1935):
31-47.
20. See
Jayanta
Chakrabarti,
Coomaraswamy's
Approach to IndianAesthetics: ItsRelevance
Today,
in
Ananda
Coomaraswamy:
A
Centenary
Volume,
ed.
Kalyan
Kumar
Dasgupta
(Calcutta:
Centre of Advanced
Study
in
Ancient Indian
History
and
Culture,
Calcutta
University, 1981).
See also Partha
Mitter,
Much
Maligned
Monsters
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago,
1977).
21. Richard
Bartholomew,
untitled critical
essay
in
40 Years
of
P. T
Reddy (Hyderabad:
Andhra
Pradesh Lalit Kala
Akademi,
1982),
351-59.
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primitive
and
folk
societies
for
inspiration
in
color
and
form,
Reddy's
Indian
palette
shouldn't have
surprised
the
critics.
This discourse of authenti
cation?Reddy
as
Indian?points
to
the
problematic
circularity
in
which
Reddy
and others found themselves.
Like the nationalist
shift
within the
art
schools,
India
was
somehow authentic and backward while
simultaneously
a source
of
modern aesthetics
and moral
grounding.
What
modernity
had lost
was
found
in
India,
and
so
the
position
of the
mid-century
Indian
artist
lay
in
that
impossible
zone
between the
critique
of
Western
industrialization
and the
escape
to an
authenticity
found
in
the
Indian
as
Other.
In
the
early
1940s,
with four
contemporaries?A.
A.
Majeed,
M.T.
Bhople,
C.
B.
Baptista,
and
M.Y.
Kulkarni?Reddy
formed
a
group
named the
Contempo
rary
Group
of
Painters
by
its
members but renamed the
Young
Turks
by
the
crit
ics
and
artists
of
Bombay.22 Together they organized
an
exhibition of their works
in
1941.
In
1942
the
Sir
J. J.
School
awarded
Reddy
a
prestigious
postgraduation
fellowship
in
recognition
of
his
painting.
However,
Reddy's
awareness
of
the
upheaval
around
him
caused
him
to
reject
the
fellowship
and
commit
his
ener
gies
to the
burgeoning
Quit
India
movement,
to
help
throw off the
yoke
of the
colonizing
British. The
Young
Turks
group
disbanded,
and the
following
years
saw
Reddy
move
into
the commercial
art
market,
working
on
film
sets,
in
print
ing
presses,
and
in
textile-printing
firms while he devoted
time to
the anticolo
nial
campaign.
In
1946,
he
left
Bombay
for
Lahore
in
order
to
pursue
jobs
with
film
companies,
only
to
be
forced
to
leave the
city
upon
Partition
in
1947.23
Like
many
displaced
by
the
Partition
of
India and
Pakistan,
Reddy
left
all
of
his
belongings, including
many
art
works,
in
his residence
in
Lahore,
only
to
find
out
later that
they
had all been
destroyed by
the
subsequent
tenants.
Thus,
much of his
early
work
is
known
only
through
his
narration
of
it
and
reproduc
tions
in
portfolios produced
in
1941
and
1942.24
Reddy
returned
to
Hyderabad,
married,
and
in
1948
started
a
furnishings
firm with
several
partners.
In
the
early
1950s, Reddy
turned
again
to
painting,
after
an
absence
of
a
decade.
His
full
return to
the Indian
art
scene was
marked
by
a one-man
exhibition
in
Bombay
in
1956.
During
the decade
of
Reddy's
absence,
the
Bombay
art
world had
matured,
in
particular
due
to
a
second
group
of
young
artists
formed
in
1947,
the
Bombay
Progressive
Artists'
Group.25
This
larger
collection of
artists
formed the
core
of
the
post-Independence
art
movement
in
the
region.
The
Progressives
looked
in
part
to
Europe
in
their
work,
rejecting
the earlier
generation's
move
toward
a
search for Indianness within
a
contemporary
idiom and instead
turning
to
an
international
modernism.
Thus,
by
the end
of
the
1940s,
many
of the
Progres
sives,
including
F. N. Souza and
Raza,
relocated
to
London,
Paris,
and elsewhere
in
Europe,
making
connections
with
artists
there such
as
Alberto
Giacometti and
Andr?
Breton.
The
period
of
1942
to
1956
saw
Reddy
left behind
in
the
Bombay
art
scene as
he devoted his
time
and
energies
to
participating
in
the
Quit
India
movement,
building
a
livelihood,
and
starting
a
family. Reddy
took
advantage
of
the
1950s
art
scene
in
Bombay
to
reeducate
himself
on
the
various
movements
of the
time.
Despite
his location
in
Hyderabad,
Reddy
became
very
familiar with
the work of
M. R
Husain, Souza, Raza,
V. S.
Gaitonde,
N. S.
Bendre,
and their
sources
of modernist
inspiration
in
Europe.26
Reddy's path through
the
art
world
in
India
reveals and underscores the
3 3 art
journal
22. 40 Years
of
P. T
Reddy,
391.
23.
Ibid.,
392.
24.
Portfolio of
Paintings,
Sculptures,
and
Drawings,
1941,
essay
by
C. R.
Gerard;
40
Drawings
of
P. T.
Reddy, self-published portfolio,
1942,
essay
by
R.
V.
Leydon.
Both
essays
are
reprinted
in
40
Years
of
P. T.
Reddy.
25. The
Bombay Progressive
Artists'
Group
is
central for
post-Independence
Indianmodern
painting
in
the
region,
with
members of
high
stature
both then and
now,
including
M. F.
Husain
and F.N. Souza. While
progressive
initially
meant a
left-leaning political
stance
(borrowed
in
part
from established
leftist
theater
and
literary
associations),
it
quickly
shifted
to
a
modernist,
formal
progressivism.
See R. Siva
Kumar,
Modern
Indian
Art:
A Brief
Overview,
Art
Journal
58,
no.
3
(Fall
1999):
18-19.
26.
During
his 1956
one-man
show
at
the
Jehangir
Art
Gallery
in
Bombay,
he
met
many
of
the
artists
of the
Progressive
group.
P.T
Reddy, My
Expression,
in
40 Years
of
P. T
Reddy,
30.
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K. C. S.
Paniker,
Words and
Symbols,
1965,
oil
on
canvas,
59'/S
x
473/<
in.
(
151.1
x
121.3
cm).
Collection of National
Gallery
of
Modern
Art,
New Delhi
(artwork
?
Estate of K. C. S.
Paniker)
intersection
of
politics
and
art
for those who lived
through Independence,
Partition,
and the
early
building
of the nation. On
the
one
hand,
due
to
his loca
tion
in
Andhra Pradesh
and
his
minimal
travel outside
India,
Reddy
exists
on
the
periphery
of
the
international
art
scene.
His
work,
however,
addresses
cur
rent
local
concerns,
as
well
as
engaging
with
contemporary
art-historical
move
ments
in
India,
themselves linked
to
wider
concerns
of
the
art
world.
Reddy,
then,
resides
on
the border
between international
art star
and
local modern
artist,
and his work
illuminates
an
important aspect
of India's
relationship
to
the
world and
its
dialogue
with
thatworld.
By
the later
1950s,
when
Reddy
reentered the
Bombay
art
scene,
the drive
toward
participation
in
a
universal modernism
had
abated
somewhat.
Many
of
the
artists
who had
left
for
Europe
returned
to
India and
helped
to
reassess
the
direction
of
Indian
art
making
for
the
building
of
the
nation. In
southern
India,
the Madras
counterpart
to
the
Bombay Progressives
was
the
Progressive
Artists
Association,
led
by
K.
C. S.
Paniker
( 1911-1977).
While
it
started
in
a
post
Impressionist
vein
at
its
founding
in
1944,
this
focus
had
shifted
by
the
1950s,
34
WINTER
2005
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and
in
the
early
1960s
Paniker
moved toward
a new
aesthetic
based
on
the
ten
sion
between
figuration
and abstraction.
The realization
that traditional
Indian
art
forms
such
as
murals,
miniatures,
and folk
painting
existed
between these
two
poles
served the modern
Indian
artist
well. Paniker
turned
to
this middle
ground
and,
guided
by
a
belief
that
modern
art
should
retain
a
national
flavor,
produced
his
Words and
Symbols
series of
the
early
1960s.
Based
on
Malayalam
script
from
the
southern
Indian
region
of
Kerala,
these
words and
symbols
could
not
be read
but
recalled
a
lost
past,
while
also
creating
an
abstraction
rooted
in
the
culture
and
history
of the Indian
subcontinent.27
Paniker 'swork did
not
occur
in
a
vacuum;
other
artists
were
also
realizing
the
power
of
this interstitial
space
between
abstraction and
figuration,
and
like
Paniker
turned
to
symbolism
to
explore
it.
This
moment
congealed
in
the
move
to
the
neo-Tantric,
and
artists
remade
Tantra
s
esoteric
symbolic language
into
a
contemporary
modernism for
India,
neither
abstract
nor
figurative.
Reddy
was
inspired
to
pursue
neo-Tantric
symbolism
by
his
wifeYasoda
Reddy's
book,
Harivamsha
inTelugu,
which he
illustrated
according
to
traditional
iconography.28
The
experience
of
painting
the
illustrations
for the
text
led
him
to
develop,
in
consultation
withYasoda,
a
personal iconography
related
to
tradition
al
Tantra but
not
merely reproducing
it.29
In his
yantra-inspired
works he
explores
issues
of
unity
between
the
macrocosm
and the
microcosm,
a
theme
which
con
tinues
in
his
egg-shaped,
more
abstract
works
often
based
on
sound
syllables
and
the
primordial
point,
or
bindu. His
more
directly political
works
draw
on some
of
these
same
symbols
but
employ
them
to
articulate
Reddy's
views
on
post
Independence
political
and social
developments.
M?ndala/
Yantra
Reddy's
m?ndala
works
vary
significantly
in
their theme
and
even
in
their
for
mat. Rather than drawing
on
full-blown, complex Tibetan m?ndala imagery,
Reddy
instead
looks
to
simpler
geometric diagrams,
or
yantras,
to
give
the
framework
for his
symbolic
language.
In
Sree of
1971,
Reddy
begins
from the
tra
ditional
Sri
Yantra,
with
an
architectonic
square
frame
housing
a
series
of
circular
lotus
forms,
culminating
in
the
center
with the
overlapping
triangles
of the
yantra
itself.30
He
adds
to
this
base
a
devanaqari
Sri
in
the
center,
reemphasizing
both
his title
and the
form
of the
yantra
he
utilizes.
Finally,
he
adds
what becomes
cru
cial
for his
yantra
works:
a
human form.
In
this
case,
two
figures
overlay
the
Sri
Yantra,
their
heads
opposite
one
another
at
top
and
bottom,
their bodies
joined
in
sexual
union
in
the
center.
Reddy
has
arranged
their
arms
in
a
circular
fashion
reinforcing
the lotus
form,
but
their
legs
are
not
symmetrical:
the
legs
of
the
bottom
figure
form
a
V,
with the feet
flanking
the
head
of
the
top
figure.
The
legs
of this
upper
figure
bend
at
the knees and
splay
outward,
echoing
the
two
direc
tions of the
triangles
of the
Sri
Yantra:
one
pointing
up,
the
other
pointing
down.
In
Tantric
symbolism,
the
triangles
themselves
serve as
representations
of
the
female
and
male,
with the
female
triangle
pointing
downward
and the
male
pointing
up.
The
overlapping
of the
triangles
in
a
basic
Sri
Yantra,
then,
indicates
the sexual
and
spiritual
union articulated
more
directly
in
Reddy's
piece.
Like
wise,
the Sri
spelled
out
in
the
center
of
the
image
would
have
been
unneces
sary
in
a
Tantric
context,
where the
iconography
of the
Sri
Yantra
is
widely
known.
3
5 art
journal
27. Achinto
Sen-Gupta,
Neo-Tantric 20th
Century
Indian
Painting,
Arts
of
Asia
31,
no.
3
(May/June
2001):
I
13;
K.
C. S.
Paniker,
Lalit
Kala
Contemporary Journal
12/13
(1971):
II.
28.
The
Harivamsha
is
a
Sanskrit
text
dating
to
approximately
the fourth
century
C.
E. and
appended
to
the
Indian
epic
the
Mahabharata. It
is
a
genealogy
of
Vishnu and focuses
in
particular
on
stories
of
the
young
Krishna,
an avatar
of
Vishnu.
Yasoda
Reddy
translated the
text
into
Telugu
for
circulation
inAndhra
Pradesh
and other
regions
where
the
language
is
spoken.
P. Yasoda
Reddy,
Telugulo
Harivamshamulo
(Hyderabad:
Sudharma
Publications,
1973).
29. P.T.
Reddy's
personal
statement in
Neo
Tantra:
Contemporary
Indian
Painting
Inspired
by
Tradition,
ed.
Edith
Tonelli
(Los
Angeles:
Frederick
Wight Gallery,
University
of
California,
1985),
36.
30. See the
Rajasthani
example
of the Sri Yantra
from around
1800
in
Philip
Rawson,
Art
of
Tantra
(1973;
London:
Thames
and
Hudson,
1995),
65,
fig.
43.
A
diagram
of the
Sri
Yantra
was
published
in
Ajit
Mookerjee,
Tantra
Art: Its
Philosophy
and
Physics (New
Delhi: Ravi
Kumar,
1966),
22,
pi.
7,
and
bears
great
resemblance
in form
to
Reddy's
piece. Mookerjee's
book
is
mentioned
as a
great
influence
on
neo-Tantric
artists of the 1960s
and
1970s,
in
Achinto
Sen-Gupta,
105-06.
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12/25
P.T.
Reddy,
Sree, 1971,
intaglio,
16l?
x
16V?
in.
(41.9
x
41.9
cm).
Collection of
St.
Mary's
College
of
Maryland,
gift
of
Mr.
Saul Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate
of
RT.
Reddy)
Reddy
here
presents
the
geometric
forms
and
architectonic elements of
the
Sri Yantra more
fully,
perhaps
for awider
audience,
clarifying
the abstract
sym
bolism
of
union
for the
uninitiated viewer.
Moreover,
he
does
so
by
undermin
ing
the
neat
geometry
of
the Sri
Yantra,
for the human
body
cannot
conform
precisely
to
the circle
of the lotus
or
the
triangle
of the
yantra.
Reddy's
work
thus
acknowledges
a
certain
messiness in
the
translation
of
Tantric
form
to con
temporary
contexts
and
highlights
the
Tantric
emphasis
on
the microcosm
of
the
physical
human
body.
Sree
is
not
alone
in
taking
already-existing
Tantric
forms
and
articulating
them in
a
different
way.
Reddy's
ShreeChakra
(1979)
makes similar
moves,
but
eliminates
the
human
figures.3'
A
much
simpler
image,
the
Sri
now
becomes clearer
alongside
its
attendant
gestures,
which
form
the
shape
of
an
8 and
then
curve
around the
devanagari syllable.
The circular
gesture
points
to
the
second
half of the title: chakra
r
wheel.
Each
image
offers
differing messages
to
the
viewer:
the
simpler,
later
print
seems
to
flatten the
space
of
the
m?ndala,
whereas the
earlier
one
(with
all
of
its
complexity
and
overlay)
reinforces the
three-dimensionality
of
space
that
meditation
on a
yantra
or
m?ndala
image
would
normally produce.
While
these
two
images
are
directly
related
to
existing
yantra
orms,
Reddy
also
moves
away
from
given
iconographies
to
create
his
own.
Sree
Chakra
(The
Kiss)
of
1972
retains the
Sri
syllable
and
the
entwined
human
forms.
Framing
the
36 WINTER
2005
31. Published
in
Tonelli, Neo-Tantra,
37.
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-
8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
13/25
RT.
Reddy,
Shree
Chakra, 1979,
watercolor
and
tempera,
16%
x
16%
in.
(41.5
x
41.5
cm).
Collection of
National
Gallery
of
Modern
Art,
New
Delhi
(artwork
?
Estate
of P.T.
Reddy)
composition
with
a
similar
architectonic,
square
base,
he
uses
the
arc
at
the
top
of the syllable to echo the inner circle of the yantra,framing the kiss with the
word.
In
a
movement
away
from
transparency,
Reddy places
a
lotus
form
in
the
center
of
the
composition,
covering
the
mouth and
nose
of the heads that domi
nate
the
composition.
Two
nose
forms
hover
opposite
one
another
just
above
the interlocked
triangles
and bindu
in
the
center.
The
kiss
therefore
appears
to
take
place
somewhat
above
the central
point,
or to
put
it
another
way,
the central
point
resides within
the
body
of
the
lower
(male,
because
pointing upward)
figure.
The work becomes less
balanced than
Sree
r
Shree
Chakra,
just
slightly high
lighting
one
half of the
exchange
over
the
other.
The
Tantric
concept
of
bindu s
used here. Bindu
is
the central
origin
point
in
a
yantra
and is crucial
for
its
construction.32Thus,
the
image
can
also read
as
rep
resenting
a
kiss,
in
that what
we see
is
the
action
or
sensation
itself,
as
condensed
in
the
lotus
form
that takes
the
place
of
the bindu.
hile
maintaining
the
role
of
the human
form
from
his
Sree
piece,
Reddy
here allows that
human
form
and the
Sri
to
dominate,
shifting
the
center
of the kiss
into
the lower
figure, thereby
creating
his
own
reading
of the Sri Yantra
in
a
much
more
opaque
form.
Naming
the
image
The
Kiss
references Western
art
(Auguste
Rodin's
1880-82
sculpture,
for
example),
drawing
the
ostensibly
Indian
subject
matter
into
a
relationship
with
a
broader,
universalized
concept.
These
works?from
Sree
to
The Kiss?illustrate the
range
of
Reddy's
yantra-type
3
7
art
journal
32.
Rawson,
70.
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8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
14/25
P.T.
Reddy,
Sree Chakra
(The Kiss),
1972,
intaglio,
16
x
16 in.
(40.6
x
40.6
cm).
Collection
of
St.
Mary's College
of
Maryland, gift
of Mr. Saul Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate of P.T.
Reddy)
imagery.
Some utilize
forms found
in
Mookerjee's
1966
Tantra rt
publication,
combining
them
in
new
ways
but
remaining
close
to
traditional
imagery.
In all
cases,
Reddy's
work,
like
Paniker
's,
straddles
the abstract
/representational
divide,
one
of the central debates of
modern
art
during
this
period.
He
also looks
to
the
internal
Other of
Tantra,
considered
a
hidden
spiritual
element
by
viewers in
the
mid-twentieth
century,
and
appropriates
its
imagery
to
form
a new
aesthetic
for
Indian
art,
one
that
speaks
to
universal
concepts
such
as
birth,
origin,
root,
and
union.
In
making
this
move,
he echoes the
path
of
European
modernists
from
earlier
in
the
century
who looked
to
their
own
Others
in
order
to
find
a
window
into
the authentic
and
universal;
for
example,
one
sees
this
internal
Othering
in
Paul
Gauguin's
appropriation
of
provincial
French
subject
matter.
These
yantra
works,
however,
also
tie
themselves
inextricably
to a
South
Asian
aes
thetic
tradition,
something
that shows
Reddy's
attention
to
the tension between
an
internationalizing
Modern
(as
articulated
by,
for
example,
Le Cor busier's
architecture) and a local, regional modern. If Jackson Pollock drew on the ges
tures
and
rhythms
of
his
vibrant,
local
New
York
jazz
scene
(in
some
ways
both
a
local and
an
Other
space),
Reddy
here
works
through
the local Indian
iconogra
phies
and
concepts
in
order
to
achieve his
own
modern
idiom.
38
WINTER
200?
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8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
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8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
16/25
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8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
17/25
P.T.
Reddy, Beginning
of
Sound, 1971,
etching,
19%
x
\A%
in.
(49
x
36
cm).
Collection of St.
Mary's
College
of
Maryland, gift
of Mr. Saul Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate of P.T.
Reddy)
41 art
journal
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-
8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
18/25
P.T.
Reddy,
Form No. 3
(Sree),
1972,
litho
graph,
18
x
13
in.
(45.8
x
33
cm).
Collection
of
St.
Mary's College
of
Maryland, gift
of Mr.
Saul Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate
of P.T.
Reddy)
42 WINTER
2005
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-
8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
19/25
P.T.
Reddy,
Unknown
Script,
1972,
lithograph,
18
x
I
A
(45.8
x
35
cm).
Collection
of
St.
Mary's College
of
Maryland,
gift
of Mr. Saul
Rosen
(artwork
?
Estate of
P.T.
Reddy)
Reddy
underscores the
diversity
of
contemporary
India:
Malayalam
is
exotic
and
foreign
for
most
Indians who
speak
other
languages.
By
playing
with the
edge
of
exoticism
while
developing
a
language
of
Indian modernism
for
South
Asia
and the international
art
world,
Reddy
taps
into the
relationship
between moder
nity
and the Other
exploited by
many
Western
artists.
He
does
this, however,
from the side of the Other?a self-exoticization that reveals the tension within
Indian-modern
from
which he
develops
his
iconographies.34Thus,
rather than
merely
repeating
the
pattern
that
Western
artists
pursued
in
their
modernism,
Reddy's
work
must
necessarily
shift
that
pattern,
working through
the Otherness
of
Tantra
in
order
to
escape
from
the conundrum
of
being
himself both
Other
and
modern.
43 art
journal
34. For
exoticism,
writing,
and
its
relationship
to
more
contemporary attempts
to
articulate the
positionality
of
diasporic
art,
see
Faisal
Devji,
Translated
Pleasures,
in
Shahzia Sikander
(Chicago: University
of
Chicago,
1999),
11-15.
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8/18/2019 Neo-Tantrism, And Modern Art in India
20/25
Worldly
Neo-Tantra:
Reddy,
Nehru,
and the Moon
For both the neo-Tantric artists and the
modernists,
the
tension
between
the
spiritual
and the
material
found
expression
through
symbols
that defied
partic
ular
iconographie
or
culturally
grounded
systems
and instead evoked
broader
universal
expressions
of
spirituality,
patterns
in
the
universe,
and
sense
percep
tion. The articulation of this
relationship
in
modernist
art
begins
much earlier
and dates
in
the
West
to
the
late-nineteenth-century
Symbolist
movement,
a
movement
often
called
on
for
comparison
to
the
neo-Tantric
movement.
Symbolism
sprang
from
a
literary
context
but
quickly spread
to
music
and
the
visual
arts,
directing
its
energies
to
both
spiritual
and
political
ends.35
As
discussed
above,
while
one
impetus
for the
popularity
of
Tantrism
in
the
1950s
and
1960s
was
the
politically charged
exile
of
the Dalai
Lama
from
Tibet and the
concurrent
publicization
of
esoteric,
politico-religious
Tibetan
Buddhism,
the literature
on
Tantra from the
1960s
and
1970s
dehistoricizes
and
depoliticizes
both
the
art
and the
philosophy
of
Tantra.
In
Mookerjee's
1966
Tantra Art and in Rawson's exhibition catalogues and
texts
of the early 1970s, this
political
engagement
was
elided
in
favor of
a more
metaphysical,
ahistorical,
and abstracted
understanding
of the
philosophy
and
imagery
of
Tantra.
Following Mookerjee's
and
Rawson's
texts,
most
neo-Tantric
art
exists
out
side
contemporary
histories
and
political
machinations?indeed,
one
might
see
the works
from
the
movement
and
their
popularity
as a
certain form of
escapism
from the
events
of
post-Independence
India.
Neo-Tantric
artists
generally
steer
clear
of
any
anchoring
element that
might identify
their
works
as
related
to a
particular period
or
historical
moment.
Reddy,
however,
seems
to
work
against
this
pure,
abstracted,
ahistorical
imagery by experimenting
with
images
of
India's first
prime
minister,
Jawaharlal
Nehru. But while he
inserts
a
historical
figure
into
his
works,
this does
not
result
in
a
direct
comment on
contempora
neous
worldly
affairs;
instead
neo-Tantra draws Nehru's
image
into
an
iconic
framework,
using
his
face
as a
symbol
of the
period
just
after
Independence.
Reddy's
paintings
of
him
belie
a
certain
nostalgia
for
this earlier
moment in
Indian
history,
one
imbued with
an
optimism,
or as
Salman Rushdie
might
say,
one
infected
with the
optimism
bug.36
Thus,
we
might
read Nehru's
image
as a
symbol
for
what,
by
the
mid
1970s,
had been lost
ofthat
first
positive
glow
of
Independence.
Indeed,
1976,
when
Reddy painted
these
works,
marked
the
height
of Nehru's
daughter
and
then-Prime
Minister
Indira
Gandhi's
Emergency,
a
period
of
martial
law from
June
1975
to
1977.
Spurred by
a
high
court
ruling
thatGandhi's
1971
election
was
invalid,
the
Emergency
included
extreme
antipoverty
measures
such
as
slum
clearance and forced sterilization
programs,
as
well
as
a
wide
suspension
of
civil
liberties.
Against
this
backdrop,
and with fears
rising
of
the
collapse
of India's
democracy, Reddy's images of Nehru can be read as an attempt to recapture
some
of the earlier
moments
of
hope,
perhaps
linked
as
well
to
his
own
work
in
the
Quit
India
movement
before
Independence.
Reddy's
celebration
of Nehru
is
formally
similar
to
his
yantra
prints
discussed
above. These
watercolors
illustrate
the
different
facets of Nehru:
as
philosopher,
as
power,
as
peace,
and
as a rose.
Each
image
uses
a
circular
top related