8 THE TIMES OF INDIA, SUNDAY, NOVEMllER tff, t97J

ENGINEERS' CUTTING TOOLS

• "ACHINE TOOLS

• HACHINf TOOL ACCESSORIH

• GREY IRON CASTINGS

~

THE TIMES OF iNDIA

)ULSES, PLEASE

I RECENTLY came across tortions consisting of linear a book titled "Kitsch"- elongations completely disregard-

The World of Bad Taste by ing anatomy, perhaps as popula-rised by an artist like Rasik

Gillo Oodles. Going through Raval. Examples of pseudo-ab-the contents, I was pleasantly straction may be notc;:d in maze-surprised to discover that · like linear loops which may also what I had written in an arti- look like sari-draped females.

Husainesque distortions have cle in The Tim,es of India also been adoptetl showing broken ("Pop Art With Religious limbs, where outl ines are matle Motifs," May 17, 1970), was to criss-cross ea.:h other at limb actually an aspect of kitsch in joints. Another kind of greeting

card that comes to mind is that India, without being aware of of tbe coloured drawing of a the book. stylised peacock. on which an actu-

The article referred to had al feather is pasted. analysed the phenomenon or The instances mentioned above garisbly coloured calendars which may be taken as examples of are printed by the million all reducing modern art to kitsch; over the country, invariably using yet, tbe same phenomenon call stock figures like godd.:sses, be seen in reverse also, i ,e., the actresses, national heroes etc., so-called products of modern art the origin of which bad been which look like kitsch. This traced by me to Ravi Varma especially prevai ls in what passes oleographs and bazar paintings as modern art in the Hindl-of the middle and late nineteenth speaking provinces so frequently century. reproduced in weekly magazines

The following is an attempt to and seen in art exhibitions. eJaborate on the problem of This tendency has to be dis-kitsch in India in the comext tinguished from the deliberate of tbe book by Mr. Dorfles, use of kitsch elements in modern

Kitsch derives from the Ger- art, which has been successfully man verb "ve kitschen", which accomplished by Amencan pop means "to make cheap", Kitsch artists. What has to be underlined may therefore be defineu as however is the danger of a lot "artistic rubbish". Tbe "'ord of our present-day painting in "kitschmenscb", translated mto India (the argument can be eXicnd-English as kitschOlan, stands for Cid also to contemporary sc:ulpture) a man of bad taste. Kitsch is a turning out to be nothing more phenomenon of post-industrial than kitsch. western society, i.e., it emerged To elaborate further on visual during t~e nineteenth century kitsch I would like to take ex-and contlnues 10 our own time. amples of the delineation of OUI

[n India it is more a pheno- national heroes which easily lend mellon of the twentieth cenlury, themselves to mathemati cal for-that IS, Its emergence is attribu- mulations : table to our colltact with Europ- Jlespectacled old man with t!an kit ch as well as to the bald head = Gandhi. consequences of illdu~lrialisa(io[) Young man without moustache presently taking place. The simul- but ",earing a Gandhi cap = tancous breakdown of our [ra' Nehru_ ditional art processes and the vulgarisation of taste served as Moustached old man wearIng

HE sudden or the spectacular ~he ~round for the successful a Gandhi cap=Shastri. event makes the headlines, u~vaslOn of India by European Bespectacled young man wear-

)t the slow and inexorable pro- ~:~~~. toIt~h~r!~~~sndm~~1fev;p t~: T h V I 1# 1# 0 f At ing a military cap = Netaji. Iss. The spectre of malnutri , 19tb century when the British e U·· garlsatlon r Vulgarly reproduced master-m is a typical case in point. administrators involved t hemsclv~s· ." pieces of art in miniature are not I 60 '1 10 the "improving" of Indian art as common in India as in the aere are as many as ml - manufactures, West, like the mantelpiece-size III children who are chroni- sculptural reproduction of Leo-lly undernourished here. But According to western commenta- nardo's "Last Supper", which is

tors, kitsch is the artistic nourish- all . . )body seems to give a damn f actu y a pamtlng. But our lout them. There are no crash n~~t 0 the hmasses. But mass kitsch is another man 's living a direct impact on man's per, can be enumerated are the garish- kitsch in India in the literal sense most famous tourist souvenir,

Cure IS c aracterised by bad · room." ception. Its obvious example~ in ly coloured Ganapatis and cheek- as in the West-like porno or the miniature Taj Mahal in ogrammes or otber measures t~ste. ~urprisingly there is no For obvious reasons kitsch is our country are the popular ca- to-cheek Shiva - Parvati sculp- nudie magazines and striptease plaster, is a supreme example r the.l·r [·ell·ef. Indeed, in some kitsch In the traditional art of n 'd d' h U' d lendars as described earlier. tures in plaster, as the counter- in the absol ute-it can be obser- at kitsch,. We may enumerate

the past. This is true for both lore WI esprea In t e mte K't b h d al t f til b"t 1. 1 d Ih f f'l

tYS malnutrition plays grea~er the West and tbe East. In the States than in Europe. In tact, 1 sc , pOJ'Dogl'ap y an more s par ~ o· e U IqUIOUS ca enu- ve at most 0 our 1m maga- other souvenirs and mementoes voc than drought and famine t f th nostalgia for Europe as the an- are also inter-related and the way ars, Then there are ' uch items as zines are fast adopting the de- as the Jaipuri joota in brass

~ ar. 0 e past, one may dis(ill- cestral home of most Americans it makes use of religious sentiments Sai Baba on key-chalns,cult images vices and techniques of western turned into an ash tray, or a ecisely because it is an un- gUish between good and indiffer- provides the grist to the kitsch is interesting. of Srinathji made from beads porno magazines. miniature pair of tablas used en enemy. It not only claims ent .or bad art as products of mill as in tbe manufacture of the It should not be misconstrued etc. Indeed, it call even be said And who is not familiar with as pepper and salt shakers. In e lives of at least one million a hIghly ~ifted craftsmansbip following objects: plastic Parthe- that all advertising is kitsch. But that certain movies with religious the silhouetted faces closing in for spite of his wanderlust, the tour-, and a -'ess gIfted craftsmanshi p. . f G k V . .. . themes (the so-called mythologies) [ t d h t d t [ldren each year but stunts The e I h 11 nons, copIes 0 ree . enuses as It IS InterestIng to pinpoint wnere a kiss. This brings us to silhouette s en s up as t e mos ar en I h . at d I th d' t.e t~S a sbo t e we recognised garden sculptures, reconstructed kitsch elements are used, as in are kitsch in cinema par excell- albums, invariably given as wed- kitschman! e p YSlc an menta grow IS lOC IOn etween sophisticated R h' . l' h . I' ence, where a flabby J-ntadhari a t d f lk oman arc es, mlntature rep Icas t e case of the Intercbangeabl Ity ding gifts if the bride is believed M f d

countless more. Besides, i; at k't °h Hart. But folk art of Rodin 's Thinker advertised as of the seductive actress with the actor clad in an animal skin and to have pretensions to chitrakala. any 0 our presenjt- aYf

public lth experts have found that no I sc. owever, although suitable items for paper weights goddess which can be used an artificial snake entwined round The silhouetted man-woman em- monuments are examp es 0 kitsch

'f' h' h taken as mass cultuN, kitsch cuts • and book-ends. The Walt Disney . his shoulders is supposed to re- in sculpture, like the martyrs' ~re are SpeCl lC groups W Ie across class barriers. to promote a commerCial product. present Shiva (Mahadeva). It is brace against the inevitable back- monument at Flora Fountain

ff t d b de 0 r 'sh created comic character, Donald The incongruity between the drop of a full moon and a (H eh k ~ a ec e y un rn u I ' - The processes 'tnvolved I'n D k d also interesting to note that the utatma ow) in Bombay.

h uc, represente as a garden product and the image and also naked silhouetted female figure I h f' I ·t

!nt. Among t em are women, the making of kitsch are often gnome, is an archetypal kitsch tampering with the dignity of the Shiva of the cinema and the in a dance posture carrying of- n ft e lrsthiP ace I s anatomy and

10 generally eat last, after the those which easily lend them- image. Image are part of the process Shiva of the calendar look alike. ferings to the gods in her 00(- era tsmans p are bad, and its it of the family, and hence selves to mass production and Gillo Dorfles has observed that of kit chification, as in the pic- stretched arms, are frequent kitsch symbolism is so prosaic. Secondly

h 1 even quick COltlmunl'catl'on wI'lh- ' tlJI'e of Lavml' on s\"eelmeat The way the sensuality of the . d' lb . it has no relationship to the t e east. kItsch belongs to all the arts, ~ .~ nude and suggestion is employed Images use In a ums, greetIng neighbouring fountain, the build-out much m<:ntal involvement. to all man's forms of expression. boxes and Shivaji on the wrap- V> hen jll.\taposillg a pair of male cards alld magazine vignette illus- ing. and the spaces that surround

80 long as there isn't enough Since taste is the major distin- Therefore one can talk of kitsch pers of bidis and female figures in advertise- trations. it. Such monuments aeate comic to go around the prospects guisbing factor, it has been in, the adve,rtiSin~ and communl'ca- Olh 1 Ii . t h' " II I K' h' D' al' . cis ff , . rightly said that "one man'~ +' er pqpu ar re glollS aT e- mf'nts as I(S cInematIc para e. ItSC lD IV 1 greetlDg car e ects without comic intention.

religious. patriotic s<;nlinlems, they ersatz sen,iments.

or mystical e okt only

Relevant to the same pheno­menon are vulgar adaptations of traditional sculpture, . like the dancing females derived from Khajuraho apsaras used as a t1ecoration for cinemas. The gralld mon umentality of the original culpturcs thus gets distorted into what look like crudely simplified- oversize figures' of Indian deities.

Finally may be mentioned kit­sch in architecture, mostly in the category of pseudo-tradl tionai adaptations like the Bida Man­dir in Delhi, or the stall design~ based on Bhubaneswar ' temples displaying engineering goods I had once seen in an industrial fair in New Delhi. In the De­fence Colony of the same city, numerous houses have kitsch elements in the way incongruou~ and disproportionate use is made of Chaitya windows, Islamic arches and jali, Rajput jarokhas, Italian pilasters and mouldine.s. But the most kitsch among arcili­tectural monstrosities is the Old Woman's Shoe on Malabar Hill in Bombay. Its obvious incongrui­ty and ludicrousness lie in its being oversize and tbe possibility of climbing up and down inside it. I am sure readers can add to this list from their own experi­ences.

A word must be added about interior decoration-the interiors of residences of both the rich and the lower income groups. Here pomp and vulgarity is revealed in exam ples readily available from the Indian cinema, e.g., the sprawl­ing drawing-cum-living room of the proverbial Thakur sahib. The gaudy interiors and the decofll­tively designed entrances of many recently constructed temples are authentic kitsch.

The examples cited make it amply clear that kitsch products are directed to sensual tItillation and sentimental appeal, display­ing incongruity of material, sizeo use, etc. I have not tried to deal with the phenomenology of kitsch in depth since my purpose has been to emphasise that the prob­lem of lack of taste in India is much more acute than is ordina­rily realised.

It is reflected in all the areas of the arts, but more so in the visual arts whose range is very large because they include any­thing that is part of our environ­ment, and whatever we surround ourselves with, including all the objects which we use in our daily Ii ves.

The prevalence of bad taste is al 0 a major factor crippl­ing our creati vity and aesthetic sense, which explains why good literature, good painting, good cinema, etc., cannot thrive in India. We are not doing anything to overcome it. We have to re­cognise the problem of kitscb and try to combat it by the education and cultivation of the aesthetic sensibility,

Ratan Parimoo most families are indeed lions Inedla be ause thl!Y have fa cts of a kit ch natu re which .I\ -.l<~ougb we baye no porno- is also exemplified in figural dis- Instead of evoklng authentic

.ak. But there is no cause ra .... lEmI~mBl&la .. a. .. ~ .................... ~ .......... m.Im~~ .. ~~a.~~ .. ma~~;. .. ag~~~~~~~~~~!!~~~~~~~~" .. ~~~~~~~~ .. ~~~;. ........ Ba ............... -------