BY OSWALD J. COULDREY, M.A., (Oxon)

To The Editor, TRIVENI.

Dear Sir,

The sentiments expressed by Mr. O. C. Gangoly in his letter about Damerla Rama Rao did not vastly surprise me, since I had inferred (as perhaps my article suggested) a certain coldness at least toward my subject in the breasts of the Shining Ones of the Rupam heaven, But the volume and vehemence of his protest, and indeed its appearance at all at this juncture, is not so easy to understand. His plea that my appreciation was in any way "a slur on the merits and achievements of living Andhra artists" is so patently absurd that I shall waste no more of your space on it. If Mr. Gangoly was afraid that by commemorating Rama Rao I was tempting his successors to imitate his faults, I wish he had said so without these extravagant variations, whatever obscure forensic purpose they may have been designed to serve. I am grateful for the opportunity which you offer me of replying to his attack. At the same time I doubt if there is much more that can profitably be said in the matter within the compass of a letter. Your readers know what I think of Rama Rao (although my article was more concerned to remember than to praise him) and they know also what Mr. Gangoly has to say on the subject. It would be unseemly for my ‘mountain of praise’ to rise up again after the passage southwards of this pontifical civilizer and would-be Agastya of the arts, especially as in this instance the said mountain has not been flattened out at all but is still there for all to see who wish to. Mr. Gangoly's letter is little more than an amplification of the review quoted in my article. Where he tries to go beyond it, he merely becomes incoherent. Thus in one breath we are told that the heights which Rama Rao might or might not have achieved are a matter of idle speculation; in the next, that he ruined an artistic future which never materialized by adopting standards and models of which Mr. Gangoly disapproves. Again, his addiction to these heresies is theatrically described as "one of the most tragic occurrences of the revival of Indian painting," a phrase which might intelligibly be applied to the supposed perversion of a young painter of power and promise, but which is deprived of all meaning when the writer proceeds to insist with tiresome redundancy on what he calls the ‘average mediocrity’ of this painter's gift.

As for the spate of professional polysyllables with which he drenches our poor painter and his supposed models, your readers can judge for themselves whether the feeling suggested in the pictures reproduced with my article is misplaced or exaggerated (which I presume to be what critics mean by ‘sentimental’ when they use the word reproachfully), or whether, apart from my own reference to the painter's boyish delight in scene-painting, there is any excuse for using the phrase ‘theatrical costume-pieces’ in connection with these delicately idealized pictures of contemporary life. For the rest, bad my friend's ‘concoctions’ been more obviously and even clumsily reminiscent of ancient Ajanta or medieval Delhi or eighteenth-century Yedo or nineteenth-century Kangra, or some other place and epoch that has some relish of salvation in it according to Mr. Gangoly's habits of association, I dare say that we should have heard nothing of spurious and derivative, of futile mannerisms and decadent travesties. Whatever may be thought of neo-Hellenism in nineteenth-century Europe

and of the painters who favoured it (and I notice that our critic does not decorate his diatribe with the name of Ingres), I have given my reasons for holding that a breath of the same tradition might afford a far livelier inspiration to a young Indian painter of today. When all India goes into suits and boots (unless it has already done so), it will be time to speak with the airy cosmopolitanism which Mr. Gangoly knows so well how to assume when it suits his argument.

Finally we are told that Rama Rao's painting is absolutely devoid of any linear and plastic qualities, and incidentally that I, who praise them, have no perception of linear values. Whoever says so, in my humble opinion, shows but a hide-bound conception of linear value. Damerla's line has not the emphasis and variety of the Chinese brushline, nor does it follow economy and abstraction to the degree that is usual in older Oriental art, nor, for that matter, does that of the Periclean vase-painters which is yet not absolutely devoid of quality, Our painter's also is firm and purposeful for all its delicacy, and diligent in the search for the more complex curves and contrasts which his closer observance of natural forms affords; and in his best pictures it plays its part harmoniously enough in the exquisite design. I do not say that he has perfected his instrument. The most astonishing genius, starting as he did, would not have done so in the time that was his. That he had to fashion his instrument himself is a fact that will be taken into account in any serious attempt to estimate his capacity. I am not sure (nor, I think, was he sure himself) that the purely linear method which he favoured in the last three years of his brief life was the one best suited to the quality of his vision. But his gallant attempt to combine the Western reverence for Nature with something of the clarity of Eastern art will at least command the respect of every open-minded aesthetic philosopher. In the meanwhile, and in spite of his few years and unproved equipment, by sheer force of genius he achieved perhaps half a dozen designs (I speak with caution because I know so little of his mature work at first hand) which were not only unique in their time and place of birth, but which will not be ‘overrun and superseded’ simply because really fine work in art is never overrun and superseded. That is my claim for Rama Rao. Time, not Mr. Gangoly, will decide whether I am right or wrong. Meanwhile there must be many picture lovers unencumbered by my ‘burden of love and affection’ for the painter, who will share my delight in his work and be interested in the story of its growth in the face of so many difficulties. I judge from the response of my friends here in England, for South India is not the only region of the world that is in danger from the influence of this ‘unsuccessful artist.’

Mr. Gangoly writes me down an ‘early Victorian.’ So was Ruskin, whose wisdom is not yet buried, though it is out of fashion. It is true that I share with Ruskin a kindness for the natural language of the eye. That language also is rather out of fashion here at the moment; largely because we have studied it with too much singleness of purpose in the past, but the same cannot be said of India. This language is sure to return to favour, for, though it is probably the most difficult of all pictorial languages to use imaginatively, it is also in many ways the most exactly and subtly expressive, as it certainly is the most immediate and universal in appeal. That Rama Rao was well on the way to use this language with a mastery rare in India is probably his real offence in Mr. Gangoly's mind, for Mr. Gangoly, while he appears to have no very fine discrimination in the said language (or he would never lump the Yakshinis of Barhut in the same scale-pan with them of Sanchi) has obviously a rooted dislike for it, perhaps because it tends to wean the world away from the more cryptic vehicles to which his loyalty is given. His bias is illustrated with amusing regularity at the end of nearly all his pleasant homilies on Indian art in Triveni. He writes of the ‘aggressive anatomy’ of Praxiteles. In the current number he prefers an ‘early Mayurian’ chauri-bearer (apparently the supporter of some lost group) to all the Venuses of Greek sculpture. I am tempted to seek my revenge for his calling me an early Victorian by calling him an ‘early Mayurian’; a very early Mayurian ‘dated about 350 B.C.’ like the chauri-bearer. In any case it will he seen that if Rama Rao and incidentally myself stand low in his critical opinion we are after all in excellent company. Mr. Gangoly is a connoissuer of old Indian art to whose enthusiasm and enterprise every student of the subject and indeed all of us are deeply indebted. After his hand-some and repeated tributes to my qualities of heart (as distinguished from my head) it would be churlish in me not to mention it. But even in his favourite field we must reserve the right to differ occasionally from his aesthetic judgments. For him to set himself up as the infallible dispenser of blame and fame to living Indian painters appears to me (to pay him back me in his own coin) to be ‘the height of indiscretion.’

Abingdon Yours very truly,

Berkshire, England.

OSWALD COULDREY.

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