Valentine's Day Image: Krishna and His Mother

Today I want to share with you an image of the tender loving gaze between the child Krishna and his mother, Yashoda. Krishna was a mischievous child; however, in the eyes of his mother he could do no wrong. Their tender gaze transcends culture and tradition, and speaks of universal love...

I made this image during a 4-week apprenticeship at the studio of Babu Lal Marotia, a famous painter of Indian miniatures, during my trip to Jaipur, India in the summer of 2007. Sri Babu Lal was so warm and kind to me, and I'm very grateful to him and his family for inviting me into their home. I remember my time in Babu Lal's little rooftop studio among the impossibly narrow streets of the old town of the Pink City, seated between him and two of his relatives as they worked meticulously on miniatures destined for national or international exhibitions ... or the eager hands of tourists perusing the art stalls in Jaipur's City Palace. The process Babu Lal uses is the exact same one that artists in Jaipur and other parts of Rajasthan used during the lucrative art trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. First, pigments are carefully ground by hand from stones collected in the surrounding hills. When a painting is complete, one of Babu Lal's relatives cuts and applies a tissue-thin layer of gold leaf to such elements as jewellery and crowns (as he generously did in my painting). Jaipur has been a major centre for miniature painting and visual art since at least the eighteenth century. Sri Babu Lal is one of the city's great artists who lovingly keeps the tradition of Indian miniature painting very much alive in the twenty-first century.

To see more work from the studio of Babu Lal Marotia, click here and here.

Here is the full painting (still unfinished in parts) that I created during my 4 weeks with Babu Lal:

And finally, here is a painting by Babu Lal himself of Lord Krishna (a little older) and Sri Radha, Krishna's consort, which Babu Lal generously gave to me at the end of my summer with him. Thank you Babu Lal! Blessings to you and your family.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Kannagi in the Royal Court

(Detail 1)

(Detail 2)

My new piece "Kannagi at the Royal Court" has just been selected to be part of the "I Have the Right" exhibit on art & human rights sponsored by the PICTURE Art Foundation (http://www.pictureartfoundation.org/). Thank you PICTURE Art Foundation, and congratulations to all the artists who participated!

Where did the idea of "human rights" come from? We often assume it originated in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. Most people would be hard-pressed to come up with other sources for the idea of "human rights," perhaps (in a pinch) citing some texts from the 18th century European Enlightenment. In any case, most people pretty much equate the rise of "human rights" with the rise of modern Western democracies. However, it is a mistake to think that only modern (or Western) societies have exhibited a concern for "human rights." In fact, there is increasing evidence to show that pre-modern, non-Western cultures all over the world have supported ideas of "human rights" for centuries, mostly through story-telling. Also, most of the political and social ideas of these cultures were rooted in religions. Therefore, it's fair to say that many pre-modern, non-Western religions have also advanced (or at least supported) ideas of "human rights." One such example from India is the story of Kannagi from the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram ("The Tale of the Anklet," circa 2nd century CE).

Tom's Fairy Tales #3: The Elephant and the Sparrow

(Click to Enlarge)

So for my third instalment in my Fairy Tales series, I've gone way back to what many consider the oldest collection of fairy tales in the world. I've chosen a story from the Panchatantra, a medieval Indian collection of mostly animal stories in Sanskrit. It is one of the oldest works of literature in the world.

In this Sanskrit tale from the Panchatantra called "The Duel Between Elephant and Sparrow," a woodpecker and a sparrow, with the help of their friends, a tiny gnat and a frog, take revenge on a huge elephant, who in a fit of spring fever destroyed the sparrow's nest and crushed her eggs. The four friends devise the following plan to kill the elephant: first, the tiny gnat buzzes in the elephant's ear, so that he shuts his eyes in delight at the sweet sound. At that point, the woodpecker swoops in and pecks out the elephant's eyes, leaving him to stumble to where the frog croaks by the edge of a deep pit (sometimes a bog of quicksand, depending on the version of the story). Thinking that water is near, the elephant goes to where the croaking sound is and falls in the pit to his death. In my picture, the little gnat has just started buzzing and the elephant is lulled into a pleasant state, his eyes fluttering. The woodpecker is taking off to peck out his eyes and the sparrow watches attentively on a leaf…