Fountain Of Inspiration

Religion and the visual arts are intimately related. While neither of the two have had the privilege of a definition that does not succumb to the ravages of history, there are a number of eerie similarities between them. Both religion and painting are thoroughly annealed into the human psyche. Within a particular culture, the distinctions that set them apart are indecipherable. Their culturally embedded survival in the secular and rational societies of today is as much of an enigma. History suggests that every religion has made somewhat of a choice between the written word and the painted image. It is theological and legalistic vs the intuitive and the spiritual; like Calvinism as opposed to Eastern Christianity. The Hindu dharma has been a distinguished example of the latter,what with painting offering the dharmic texts more than mere illustration.Painting - an element of the 'sundaram' of the tripartite description of Hinduism as satyam-shivam-sundaram, which means aesthetics - lends the Hindu religion with much-needed insight and expression.