Creative thinking

Anjolie-Ela Menon's painting entitled The Kavadias has its theme drawn from the religious practice of thousands of pilgrims undertaking long and arduous journeys by foot to the river Ganga in order to bring back the holy Ganga water for worship of the Shiva linga in their villages. The pilgrims are called kavadias because they carry the water on a kavadi ,a wooden stick slung over their shoulders with two pots of water on both the ends .The journey sometimes stretches for days and the trek may be as much as 500 kms.

Representations of religio-cultural themes in painting have been very common in Indian art because religion is hardly kept separate from culture and daily life in the Indian conscious .It is difficult to arrive at a secular interpretation of the Indian way of life.Myths are a part of the shared consciousness and get translated in daily life into social and cultural practices.

The painting has a unique structure where three tablos are incorporated,two of them depicting two separate kavadias leaving their homes and the third one in the middle depicted in the process of walking. In the left side panel the kavadia is shown leaving his wife with a suckling baby and a child and in the right one,he is shown leaving an aged father.The beauty of the painting stems largely from the use of the vivid colours and the the use of light and shade alternately to bring into relief the lively characters of the family and their reactions as the Kavadias leave for the distant place.

"Still Life with an acquarium" by a schizhphrenic artist Bruce Doyle

(Bruce Doyle
Still Life with Aquarium, 1988)


This work involved a multi-staged printing process and a high degree of organizational skills, suggesting the work was created with a relatively calm state of mind despite the artist's diagnosis of schizophrenia. This highlights the problematic nature of correlating artworks to an individual diagnosis, rather than understanding them in the context of the artist's precise state of mind at the time.

http://www.daxcollection.org.au/selectedworks.html

The creative process in the case of people suffering from mental diseases perhaps reflects the state of their minds .But not in all cases. In the above case the painting does not show any unusual or abnormal perceptions of reality.

When you look at the painting you get a feeling that the perception of the artist is no different than any other person's. There is a certain order which is instinctively felt within a normal person when he sees a similar arrangement which we may call "normal" and any deviation from this arrangement may result out of a distortion of perception. On the first look one does not feel that any distortion has taken place .For example there is just one chair but four cups and the chair is out of alignment with the width of the table.But this does not mean that no conscious desire is in evidence to reproduce reality .For the sake of verisimilitude the handles of the three cups are made visible from the angle from which the picture is laid out and one cup's handle is turned the other side making it invisible in this perspective.There are four fish in the aquarium ,all of which are swimming in the same direction as they do in real life.

Let us see how the artist has dealt with the problem of space within the painting.This is not a surreal painting where distortions from real life take place in the way objects are laid out. The depth of field is indicative of the relative spaces between objects as they are seen in real life. For example the size of the aquarium is less relative to the size of the flower vase giving one the impression that the depth of the location of the aquarium has not been adequately built in the space.

But all this does not mean that there are perceptual errors arising out of the mental state of the artist.A perfectly "normal" artist may choose to do away with detailed scale-mapping of the objects. So there is nothing in the painting which would suggest the working of a person with a mental health problem.

The human mind has this constant need to conform because it is otherwise free beyond any limitations that define structures governing human activity.There is this need to be like everybody .The moment we are free we feel lost and disoriented in the vast wild wastes of logical possibility. Hence the defining structures.We always try to devise newer structures because we are afraid of being sucked into the uncertainty of the infinity,the kind of borderless existence that fills us with fear.Human existence is a matter of so much enclosed space with a dream which refuses to acknowledge contours. Art is a uniquely human endeavour to break down structures ,to demolish contours and become part of space which is not defined by any outlines. The only way such a thing is possible when the body disappears . Art is a death-like experience when the individual attempts to burst out of enclosed spaces.

Dance is an effort to extend human existence into the infinity of space.When the dancer throws her limbs in space in her dance movements she extends the frontiers of her own enclosed space. The abstract artist demolishes the outlines of physical objects and abolishes form and structure in order to experience freedom. That is the only way one invents freedom,the freedom which is hiding behind form and symmetry.When we dream on the side of our pillow we experience scary freedom ,when we disappear in the vastness of space . We have invented our God , a finite God with arms akimbo ,enclosed in the claustrophobic space of a human-like form because we are scared of an infinite God who is not enclosed in finite space.

The Persistence of Memory, 1931
by Salvador Dali

Attempts to conquer time lead to failure and frustration with time's tokens living on as memories refusing to fade away .The colors of the painting are wonderful.

(Photo by Bennehboy-Ilove corps on Flickr
Tate: Photographing Britain)

What is interesting in this picture is the body postures of the lady and gentleman whose silhouettes form the focus in the foreground.Their shadows are not clearly delineated in the pool of light but definitely convey some sort of an attempt to lose themselves and become real and three-dimensional. Both seem to be going separate ways but between them is a common objective and a destination. May be they are attending the same meeting or something. Apparently there is a bunch of people in the darkness of the background ,perhaps around the registration desk. The quiet efficiency of the atmosphere is revealed in the way silence comes through in the softness of the light.