Page 155 - Eye of the beholder

series of poetic stanzas and miniature paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries describes and depicts anthropomorphic images of ragas. In a broad sense, it can mean the whole tradition of existence of visual images of musical concepts in Indian culture. Its origins are found in treatises on music, then it was further developed in lyric poetry and, finally, in miniature painting. While Ragamala paintings may not be the perfect visualization of music, they were responsible for creating beautiful, warm and charming visual manifestations of the ragini and remain a unique idiom in Indian art. The Indian miniature artists advanced the uniqueness when they personified the spirit of the ragas turning them into visual forms encompassing contemporary social and cultural environment.
The immense lyrical and imaginative possibilities involved in such personifications inspired the Indian artists, both Hindu and Muslim, to strive for excellence in the visual representation of ragas. The Ragamala paintings, unique to Indian art, communicate through lines and colours what has traditionally been conveyed through sound. Ragamala paintings have given to the art world some of its masterpieces. The painters of Ragamala have followed the texts of Narada, Hanuman and Meshkaran for their artistic modalities of ragas, but their artistic innovations were not in correspondence with the texts. The painters created a new visual iconography of music. Muslim artists like Sahibdin of Mewar and Ruknudin of Bikaner have shown their great skills through Ragamala paintings.
GAUDA MALLAR OR RAGINI OF RAGA MEGHA 18TH TO 19TH CENTURY
The Ragamala paintings mostly sought inspiration from the romantic Krishna lore, the Baramasa genre of poetry as well as the precincts of the princely courts. While some paintings were religious in their imagery others depicted deeds of heroism, but most Ragamala paintings evoke the Shringara rasa or the romantic mood of love. While the principal figures remain the nayak and nayika, of equal importance were the objects which enhanced the mood and symbolized various aspects of romance.
The identification of the ragini Gaud Mallar, who is the Ragini of Raga Megha, is based on a visual format of the Utkanthita Nayika, particularly when she makes a bed of flowers for her lover, and waits for him. The provenance could be identified as that of Mewar from the representation of the species of trees and the handling of its decorative foliage. The Gaud Mallar Ragini or the Utkanthita Nayika of the Nayak-Nayika Bheda is familiarly represented seated under a tree on a bed of leaves or flowers, in this instance on the carpet of flowers and waits for her hero or the nayak to come. It is a charming and a beautiful painting where she sits in the middle ground of the composition, her face in profile and body turned to one side, gesturing to the bird seated on the tree to stop singing. The bird is an allusion to a song. Her restless mind in anticipation of the meeting finds the singing a disturbance.
Seated on a comfortable bed of white and pink tinted lotus petals, her sweet appealing youthful face has large elongated eyes with heavy lids, an aquiline nose with a nose ring and thin lips. Her luxuriant hair in the Rajasthani tradition is long as it cascades behind her back with an endearing wisp of a curl caresses her cheek. Her sartorial attire constitutes of a ghagra, which is printed cotton, a tight orange colour choli that barely covers her breasts and a transparent gossamer odhini covering her head and falls behind her as a thin veil. Such an arrangement give her a covert erotic nuances which juxtaposed with her skimpy choli, the artist establishes the impatient wait and anticipation, which would eventually lead to a union. She is adorned with delicate gold ornaments and weans large baali in her ears. The head ornament too is simple. But her arms are decorated with arm bands and a high tight wrist ornament.
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