kathmandu: city of the arts
As early as June 1979, UNESCO issued an appeal to art lovers the world over to come up with ideas and funds to protect over a hundred artistically valuable heritage sites and monuments in the three cities of the Kathmandu valley. Seven of these monuments and groups of buildings in the valley are in the World Heritage List. As they say, much water has flown under the bridge since then. Some of these monuments, fortunately, have been restored, some, unfortunately, have collapsed, and others, sadly, have been replaced by monstrosities. But luckily for all of us , the seven monuments and groups of buildings still stand, although a few of them are now vulnerable to the hazards of projects being implemented by the constructions put up indiscriminately by thoughtless and greedy urban community managers, politicians and traders.
Ironically, the exoticised picture of the Kathmandu valley still now circulating, its surrogate Shangri-La avatar after the loss of the one beyond the fleecy clouds, the one haven supposedly somewhere in Tibet, have brought many visitors here. Kathmandu is full of colourful stone and wooden structures. But their greatest power lay not in their putative natural quality but in the forms that have been given to them. Various art forms¾paintings, sculpture, even architecture and bronze works¾have always had a role to play in this ambience.
Everything, really, was in place until the sixties when all of a sudden young people from the West began to descend on Kathmandu in large numbers. They shook the arts and artefacts of the city, seemingly, out of their complacency. It was as if the Gods had come out of their seats and joined hands with them; artists came out with their colours and shared their vision with them. The visitors, too, most of whom are loosely labelled ‘hippies’, drew murals on the walls in emulation of the mandalic art forms. Others spread the news to the world that there was a small ancient metropolis still standing that is the repository of all forms of art. Everything from private dwellings to temples and monasteries and the religious and secular modes of cultural beliefs formed the subject matter for the arts. They told the world that an open museum of a city existed here. Ironically though, many excellent books about Nepali art are written by scholars on the basis of the art works in the holdings of individuals and museums in Europe and America.
The diverse art forms in the Kathmandu valley cannot be encompassed in any short essay. I have, therefore, chosen to briefly introduce the various genres of art that have been practised in the region over the millennia and describe the present scenario including modern art forms, galleries, and the practices and modes of exhibitions of arts in the valley.
Kathhmandu valley paintings have a very interesting history. The principal forms of paintings were murals, manuscript illuminations and thankas made for meditation. Though the basic techniques of thanka art have remained the same over the centuries, its popularity has increased in recent decades. As in yesteryear, artists today prepare canvases of unbleached cotton cloth and apply a paste of lime, glue and flour on them. Then, the dry surface is rubbed with smooth stone or conch shell. Next, the painter executes the painting, which sometimes takes years to finish. I used to watch closely the late Siddhimuni Shakya, doyen of Newari paubha at work. His techniques are emulated by young artists nowadays working on his canvas. He worked on every tiny details with the naked eyes, and rubbed gold over tiny shapes. He was one of the last paubha painters who applied the traditional vegetable pigments, and not the chemical colours as is customary today.
The paintings are not supposed to be the artist’s personal expression. They are a medium for evoking a shared consciousness and creating an ambience of devotion in the milieu in which they are executed. Essentially, they are different from the Western works of art that are the individual creations of artists. Colours have expressionistic values, and lines and contours are imaginatively used and reflect the individual’s right to choose his or her own way. The folios of the books that are replete with sketches show vividly the Nepali painter’s individual choice of subject matter and his ability to make lines look expressive and fresh.
Painting was introduced to Nepal as early as the Licchavi period (330-879). The murals which decorate the monasteries and temples of this period in Nepal impressed the Chinese ambassador Wang Hsuan-tse in the seventh century so much that he dubbed them as great works of art in his account of the country. He says that people decorated the walls of their houses with paintings which have not been found yet. Scholars believe that the Monastic style of painting as depicted in the illuminations of the eleventh century are derived from those murals of the Licchavi period which must have been executed in the same style as the wall paintings in the Buddhist caves at Ajanta that influenced both Eastern Indian Monastic paintings and Nepali Monastic paintings.
The earliest paintings date back to the eleventh century. These are manuscript illuminations executed on palm-leaf sheets and have wooden covers used to protect the manuscripts. The wood-cover illumination of the manuscript Prajnaparamita which a Newar scholar, the late Manbajra Bajracharya, claims is the earliest Nepali painting, is now under the custody of the Shakyas of Patan. It was painted by 920 A.D. The Nepali artists who used paper afterwards came to Nepal from Tibet in the thirteenth century.
Sculptors used stone, metal, terracotta and wood as their media. The icons are, so to speak, strewn around the cities of Kathmandu valley. They are to be seen in the temples, monasteries, lanes, courtyards, business centres, waterspouts and paddy fields. The early predominant icons are those of mother goddesses. The sculptors belonged to Saiva, Buddhist and Vaisnava schools. The icons represent those deities both in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The icons mainly served religious functions. Therefore, the aesthetic and religious impulses meet in these sculptures as is evident even today.
Woodcarving, part of traditional architecture, has also been an important feature of Nepali art since the twelfth century. Examples of the art form can be seen in temples, monasteries, private homes, palaces and public places. Woodcarvings reveal a secular concept of art. The subjects for the strut carvings are events of daily life and the cycles of seasons. The famous eighty-four sexual postures that are to be seen on the struts at the Saiva temples in the heart of Kathmandu show the Saiva tantric tradition but also reveal the artist’s free use of secular motifs.
The Bhaktapur Royal Palace houses a museum that has a collection of very important paintings with floral friezes, court scenes, mandala and gods. Old paintings that have been almost obscured by years of oil, soot and dust have been cleaned up chemicals. Patan Museum has been recently renovated, and its collection catalogued and annotated. It is now a world heritage building. The entire palace compound is the preservation site. The main collections are the stone sculptures, wooden roof struts, bronze figures, paubha paintings and images of various forms. Chauni National Museum has the greatest collection of all forms of traditional art.
Indian Rajput and Mughal traditions of art have influenced Nepali artists. Though Nepali artists have not produced perspective and depth of field under the influence of the art, because of them the Nepali palette becomes richer and pictures of the vegetation have become more prominent than before. The Rajput fashion in clothes has became more visible. Under Rajput and Mughal influence the painting of royal portraits became popular from the 17th century.
On what was the first visit by a Nepali to Belayat in 1850, Prime Minister Jungbahadur Rana took with him an artist named Bhajuman Sthapit, alias Chitrakar, who painted the portraits of Jung and his family and who is said to have brought new techniques of painting from Europe.
Chandraman Maskey was sent to Calcutta in 1918 by Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Rana to study painting. He was the first modern Nepali painter to be exposed to western styles of paintings and to the oriental art schools represented by Havell and Abanindranath Thakur. Lain Bangdel’s training in Britain and France in modern paintings and his first exhibition of modern paintings in 1962 in Kathmandu finally ushered in a new era in Nepali art.
The co-existence of traditional paintings like paubha and other traditional forms of art with modern paintings and sculpture is a unique feature of Nepali art and can be seen everywhere in Kathmandu nowadays.. The legacy of paubha has been carried over by talented painters like Lok Chitrakar and others. Modern painters trained in India, Europe, Australia and Nepal, people like Uttam Nepali, Manujbabu Mishra, Krishna Manandhar, Batsa Gopal Vaidya, Sashi Shah, Sashikala Tiwari, Ragini Upadhyay, Seema Shah, Ashmina Ranjit and Kiran Manandhar are very talented modern artists. Along with other younger artists, they have been exhibiting their works in galleries like Siddhartha and NAFA of Kathmandu.
With all the monuments, even traditional dwellings, old courtyards, temples and monasteries, art galleries showing traditional arts, freak streets selling huge and beautiful thanka paintings, bronze figures, tapestries and old items, Kathmandu gives visitors the impression of an open museum plus gallery instead of a city.
But the serious question any Nepali art lover must ask now is this: what directions are the diverse Nepali art forms taking? Whose responsibility is it to preserve the traditional sites of art and give continuity to the traditions of the country? The unpleasant side of the answer is that the influx of the foreign visitors will not let the legacy of art die out in the Kathmandu valley. That is a very simple solution to the problem of the preservation of an art tradition so rich and diverse. The other big question is–are the people who hold power aware of their artistic heritage? To many the colours, figures and monuments are invisible. But the great reason for hope is that the younger generation are beginning to see them.
Abhi Subedi is a poet-playwright and Professor of English at Tribhuban University, Kathmandu
As early as June 1979, UNESCO issued an appeal to art lovers the world over to come up with ideas and funds to protect over a hundred artistically valuable heritage sites and monuments in the three cities of the Kathmandu valley. Seven of these monuments and groups of buildings in the valley are in the…