On the Wall

How do we choose what to put up on our walls?

I visited a neighbor who has spent most of his adult life in Africa. Contrary to expectations (true to the cliche, I thought his walls would be roaring with leonine artifacts), there were no memorabilia of his long stint in that very colorful country. There was just one detail that was subject to much private mirth. An entire wall covered with a poster (perhaps) of abundant flora and fauna.

I would never put up such a ghastly piece but I know there might be several who would be awestruck by the enormity and magnitude of the poster, the striking green of its aura. A Wordsworthian 'spots of time' moment.

What would  I put up?

On a recent trip to Delhi, I went to my favorite place, the National Gallery of Modern Art. I bought off a number of prints of the work of painters I particularly like. But even as I put across the 500 rupee note to the woman across the counter, I had this sinking feeling that this is a great waste of money because Bijou would probably vehemently disagree about what I call beautiful.

Most things concerning decor Bijou and I agree on. But sometimes he has a streak of Gujarati mixed with middle class Mallu love for the kitschy beautiful. The love that stirs our fellow folk to build ostentatious wedding cake houses that stick out like sore thumbs in pristine geography. Like the time he brought home two huuge portraits of Christ on the Cross and the scene at Gethsemene in vibrant motion picture colors reminiscent of filmstar images pinned to the inside of an auto rickshaw. I recoiled in horror. Bijou sensed that something had gone wrong but his bad angel the male ego refused to stash those things away. So there they are, up on the walls of my beautiful house, sternly reminding me of God's presence (or the lack of it ) in our lives.

I'll admit, I'm not one for godly pictures on walls. But people do put up images of their gods on their walls as a reminder of their faith to the outside world. And to their erring conscience of their gods' presence. Some put things that they think they should put up, as an icon of "artistic" taste and sensibility. For instance, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Little did Da Vinci know that his experiment with the nature of paint, with using chemical formulations that might affect the longevity of his work, his study of human form, of the representations of the lightness and the darkness of being would be so 'ably' and effortlessly reproduced by the mechanics of modern technology. That it would also be preserved into everyday commonness with reproductions circulating around the globe, across time.

So what would I put up?

Would I put up Amrita Shergill's Three Sisters? If one was to imagine a context for the painting, I would imagine that they are being looked at by a prospective groom. They are also being looked at by us, intruders but gazers nevertheless. Perhaps the girl in light green is the intended bride but the sisters are not spared scrutiny either. Tense and in anticipation of moving out of the onlooker's frame, the irritable defiance of the sister in red sets the mood of the painting. Conscious of being looked at, the figures subtly question your authority to look at them. The sister in pink is resigned, looking away, not defeated, but resigned to the inevitability of scrutiny.

Or would I put up this up? Shergill's Woman Resting on Charpoy.

Women in India never lounge about. Only in the privacy of solitude do we allow ourselves leisure, make ourselves a cup of tea. Never do I see women relaxing in their balconies or leaning against the wall on the steps of their houses. To do so would perhaps be an inadvertent signal of availability. Frightened by our own sexuality, we do not relax in our bodies. We cover up in public. We wear the sari but primly.We refuse to enjoy the sun on our skin. We might open up in the darkness of clubs and other such spaces of artficial freedom but we teach our babies to wear a slip or a banyan (or an undershirt). Bijou and some friends were made uneasy by this picture. Perhaps because the woman in red with one leg slightly raised challenges us to keep looking. The painter's access to her privacy brings the langour of her physical ease to public representation. We may see it but find ourelves doing so surreptitiously.

Things that are not exactly easy on the eye, disturbing but beautiful, is a work of art. But to call something beautiful is the choice we make. Bijou's preference for kitsch over academic art is also perhaps an "artistic" choice. 

After all, academic art was made to embrace kitsch not too long ago. 

(Anjolie Ela Menon is representative- see http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000918/mscape2.shtml and http://www.indiahabitat.org/vag/vag_mar2k1_artist5.htm)