"Challenges in Conducting a Christian Art Exhibition in India" by Paul Kattukaran

Please Note: All posts on this blog are intended for informational purposes only, not as an evaluation or endorsement of any artist, art form, organization or website.  If you have concerns about the accuracy of any information presented please contact the author at hmsarthistorian@gmail.com.

The coordinator of Indian Christian Artists’ Forum, Art-i, Fr Paul Kattukaran (r)
presents an Indian image of Christ "My Guru" done by the late Goan artist
Angelo da Fonseca to Archbishop of Goa and Daman Filipe Neri Ferrao as a
token of inculturating Christian faith in India.

For reflections on the challenges that have faced the Indian Christian Art Exhibition mentioned in my last entry, click here.  The post's author is Paul Kattukaran, the Coordinator of the Indian Christian Artists’ Forum (Art-i).  For a news story about the opening of the exhibition (pictured above), click here.

Despite several setbacks, Kattukaran writes:

With all the challenges, the exhibition of Indian Christian Art in Old Goa is a success on different counts; first of all most Goan Christians and many at the national level came to know of the exhibition through the print media and internet, especially UCAN news. Secondly, this exhibition inaugurated and blessed by the Archbishop of Goa has become a stepping stone for Christian Art ministry in Goa and India.

Indian Christian Art Exhibition Opens in Goa, India

Please Note: All posts on this blog are intended for informational purposes only, not as an evaluation or endorsement of any artist, art form, organization or website.  If you have concerns about the accuracy of any information presented please contact the author at hmsarthistorian@gmail.com.

Angelo da Fonseca, Ecce Homo. 33x48cm

From the Times of India:

Goan artists bridged Christianity and eastern religions: ArchbishopTNN | Nov 26, 2014, 02.13AM IST 

OLD GOA: Archbishop of Goa and Daman Filipe Neri Ferrao inaugurated the Indian Christian Art Exhibition at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Archiepiscopal palace chapel, Se Cathedral premises, Old Goa. 

"This inter-religious dialogue was actively promoted by the likes of Angelo da Fonseca and Angela Trindade, both from Goa through their art, a bridge of understanding between Christianity and eastern, particularly, Indian religions," the archbishop said.  

The exhibition highlights the images created by the late Goan artists Angelo da Fonseca and Angela Trindade, apart from Alfred Thomas, Sr Genevieve SMMI and Sr Claire SMMI. The exhibition is conducted by Art-i, Christian Artists' Forum, Art-i established by the Office for Social Communications, Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, Delhi.

Fr Dominic Alvares SFX welcoming the archbishop and the dignitaries, said that the Indian Christian Artists' Forum has found a great patron in Ferrao in promoting the Indian images of Christ and the Goa archdiocese should lead other dioceses of India in promoting Indian Christian Art.

The co-ordinator of Indian Christian Artists' Forum, Art-i, Fr Paul Kattukaran presented an Indian image of Christ "My Guru" done by the late Goan artist Angelo da Fonseca as a token of inculturating Christian faith in India.

The exhibition will be open from 9am to 7pm everyday till the last day of the Exposition of the Sacred Relics of Saint Francis Xavier; January 4, 2015.

Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet by Hindu artist Bhanu Dudhat

Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet by Bhanu Dudhat, 30" X 24" Acrylic on Canvas

Take a look at this interesting folk-style painting by Hindu artist Bhanu Dudhat of India.  You can see more of his paintings here (26 total).  The paintings are great, though at least one is bit off on the details– the Last Supper has 13 disciples!  Overall, however, they are a pleasure to see.  There is also a long scroll painting showing many scenes from the Old Testament (click here, or here for the entire image at once).

According to Bhanu's biography, he is a Hindu ("He has full devotion to Lord Shiva. He believes Lord Shiva as the source of motivation").  Unfortunately, his biography is also long, rambling and badly written in English.  So I would suggest that you stick to browsing the artwork by Bhanu and his wife, Prabha– whose Hindu paintings are almost identical in style to her husband's biblical paintings (I'm not sure which one developed the folk style first, as Bhanu paints contemporary abstracts as well).  The folk style of the biblical and Hindu paintings may have begun with Bhanu's mother, who (according to Bhanu's biography) also painted.  If you want to slog through the biography to figure it out for yourself, go for it!

A Visually Contextualized Reflection on a Hindu Festival

Last week I posted about the 2012 Dashain Prayer Book produced by Cody C. Lorance, which used a rangoli painting of mine on the cover.  As I looked into the Hindu festival of Dashain, I read that it is focused on the goddess Durga.  I confess that I've only lightly researched Dashain, and a related festival in India called Durga Puja, the "largest outdoor art festival on earth" (October 20-24).  Durga Puja takes place during the last several days of Navratri, another Hindu festival.

In any case, I think that the main point of each Durga festival is the celebration of the victory of Good over Evil, in the form of the Durga's victory over the evil buffalo demon Mahishasura.  Unfortunately, this celebration of Good conquering Evil is ironic because it is spiritually a very dark and oppressive time when idols are fervently worshipped and the Giver of Life is unknown or ignored.

Seeing this image of Durga slaying the buffalo demon reminded me of another Hindu-style painting I once did called Jesus' Work on the Cross:

Jesus' Work on the Cross

I have no idea how this painting would be interpreted by Hindus, but my intent was to show the purpose of Jesus' sacrifice for our sins without simply showing him nailed to the cross.  And besides, the image of Jesus kicking Satan's tail has always been a favorite subject of mine!  Here Jesus spears Satan through the neck, effectively "crushing his head," while Satan "strikes" Jesus in the heel (Genesis 3:15).  Jesus wears a crown that symbolizes his divine kingship over heaven and earth.  The flaming halo around his head symbolizes the presence of the Holy Spirit upon him.

This image depicts the ultimate triumph of Good over Evil through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is motivated by his love for a lost world.  He didn't simply slay a demon; he defeated the King of the demons!  Of course, I suppose that it is Jesus' resurrection that confirmed his victory over Satan and Death, but that will have to wait for another painting.

A Brief History of Visual Contextualization in India Part 4: Saint Thomas Christians

For this installment in my series "A Brief History of Visual Contextualization in India," I'll be discussing India's first Christian community, the Saint Thomas Christians (or "Nasrani").  Saint Thomas Christians traditionally live in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala and descend from a union of the local Indian population with a Jewish diaspora community, who had become Christians in the earliest days of the faith.  The Saint Thomas denominations use a Syriac liturgy in their church services and trace their spiritual heritage back to the assumed arrival of the Apostle Thomas ("Doubting Thomas") in southern India in 52 A.D.  In the third century, Nestorian Christian missionaries from the Church of the East in Persia began to settle in Kerala and organize the churches there according to their beliefs and liturgy.  Later in 1665, due to religious pressure from Portugese Catholics, the Saint Thomas Christians began to split into various factions along Catholic/Nestorian lines.  Today, this schism has resulted in several different Saint Thomas denominations, including Nestorian, Catholic, Orthodox, and even (since 1961) Evangelical!

A Brief History of Visual Contextualization in India: Mughal Art

Christ as Salvator Mundi, 17th century.

Continuing with my series on visual contextualization in Indian art, I'll now turn to a another chapter in India's art history: Mughal Art.  The Mughal Empire was an Islamic ruling power in India from 1526-1858, although its "classic period" lasted from 1556-1707.  At its height, it controlled most of India, and parts of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.  Besides trusty Wikipedia, I also will also be referring to Crossing Cultural Frontiers: Biblical Themes in Mughal Paintings by Som Prakash Verma (or more information about the book, see Amazon).

A Brief History of Visual Contextualization in India: Part 1

In today's post I am beginning a brief series on contextualized visual art in India.  You might call it a collection of "highlights."  A major source of information for the series is the new book Christian Themes in Indian Art from Mughal Times to the Present (I own a copy that I am practically drooling over).

However, we should begin at the beginning, with the Indus Valley Civilization.  This was the first "great" civilization of India that built cities and left some form of material culture and art, though tantalizingly little.  Its religious beliefs, though still largely unknown, appear to have had at least some influence on one of India's subsequent major religions, Hinduism.

Patheos.com writes that

relatively little is in fact known about the details of the religious world of the Indus Valley civilization. Based on archaeological remains, however, it seems that this was a religious world that was particularly focused on ritual bathing and animal sacrifice, elements that may be the source of later Hinduism's attention to the purifying qualities of water and the centrality of sacrifice. Furthermore, a great many female figurines have been discovered in the ruins of the cities that date to this period. These seem to have been goddesses, and may have been particularly associated with fertility rituals.

Scholars have speculated that these figures are origins of the many goddesses who populate the vast Hindu pantheon. Male figures have also been found on stone seals. Some of these seals depict a seated figure surrounded by a variety of animals, including bulls. These images lead some scholars to label these "proto-Shiva" figures, since the great god Shiva is generally associated with animals (he is sometimes called "Pashupati," the Lord of the animals) and more particularly linked with the bull, which later becomes his special "vehicle."

Christian Folk Art from India

Here's a recent exhibition that I wish I could've seen-- "Christian Folk Art from India" at Augusta Savage Gallery at UMass from December 12 - 16, 2011, where

each piece in the collection is a painted cloth scroll depicting a Christian story or concept... the scrolls were used by Chitrakars, traveling painters/storytellers in the Bengal province of India, and the scrolls were used to help illustrate the stories that the Chitrakars shared with communities. 

In the 20th century, they occasionally used their traditional motifs and techniques to portray Christian subjects.  Also included in the show are works by Christian Indian artist Frank Wesley, as well as other Christian artworks and artifacts such as brass crucifixes, clay creches, posters, and other objects.

The works in the collection are owned by Georgana Falb Foster, 83, an independent scholar of South Asian studies and member of the American Council of Southern Asian Art.  In the 1990s, she gave the collection to the Museum of Art at the University of Iowa as a research collection.  She has given papers at the Conference of South Indian Religion and the Wisconsin South Asian conference and is a co-author of a chapter on the pilgrimage to the popular goddess Vaishno Devi in Jammu in "Sacred Geography of Goddesses in South Asia" Scholarly Books (2010).

Book Review: Holy Ground: A New Approach to the Mission of the Church in India

I just finished reading Holy Ground: A New Approach to the Mission of the Church in India, a survey of contextualized church architecture in India by Jyoti Sahi. 

Sahi adds his own insights, as well as background information regarding the historical context of the architectural styles.  The text is accompanied by scores of black and white photos.  The first four chapters deal with the historical background of how colonialism has affected the church in India and its image among Hindus.  The other six chapters deal with indigenous architectural styles, as grouped under specific themes: ashrams, prayer rooms, the church as a teaching aid, etc.

The premise for Sahi's survey is that church architecture is an outward expression of the church's theology.  He begins by affirming that inculturation is based on the Incarnation itself, and as a result, church architecture can “[intensify] the senses of the worshipper, so that ultimately God is experienced as incarnated into the life and physical being of the worshipper” (16).  He also stresses that artistic creation is “itself our way of of worshipping God – what in Indian spiritual tradition is called the individual's sadhana (devotional path or search)” (17).  Sadly, however, Sahi concludes that “enthusiasm for an Indian type of Church... has changed a great deal [since its height in the 1960's] and is apparently a spent force.  There seems to have been a growing sense within the Indian church over the past fourteen years that other concerns [poverty, etc.] have a priority” (13).