The image and the reality

 The image and the reality

It has always baffled me why there were no art depicting Sree Narayana Guru, one of the few renaissance men Kerala has produced. Looking back we could see a sea of paintings and art woks inspired from the life of the man called Jesus ,the Nazrane, from where nothing good come. We do not know how Jesus looked like but there was a BBC story on him depicting in black and much removed from the hallowed look he has been bestowed by the western artists. Of course every god is painted according to the view of the devout and what we see may not be the real Christ .Our view, our love and devotion shape the image of god to the common being. Iconography has been built around the principle colours dress and everything was woven around it. Christ and his image and image of his followers are captured in its pristine purity from the earliest times to today. Works of Leonardo or Da Vinci or Caravaggio are classics which depict the life against a different back grounds. Even the finding a  new Da vinci work Sebastian is treated with great reverence and hailed with fanfare. Andrie Rublove, the greatest of the iconographers ,made more famous by the film on him by Tarkovskey ,was one among them. His name stands till now as one. In the film there is a very poignant line uttered by Theophilies who has failed as a painter : why  are you not painting where as we could not paint? Of course one  might be having the technique and the paint and the time and devotion but it requires greater genius to paint .The question of  creativity is of paramount importance in the works of Tarkovskey and is still relevant here. What is art and the feel to capture life and images?

We would have expected a flowering of art around Sree Narayana Guru, one of the bold revolutionaries in the modern era in Kerala. His call for negation of caste, his installation of a mirror as an idol ,his fight against the orthodoxy are tales always bringing in cheer to every human being if he loves human being irrespective of caste and creed . But it has not happened.

When I asked the question to M V Devan renowned artist and art critic , he replied: Gurus idol was done by an Italian artist who has created a very robust guru which was replicated and many didn’t dare to break the tradition. If other artists have done or visualized guru as he is seen in many of the photos of him , it would have created a new iconography, a new rich panorama of the guru and his life and after..

 Riyas Komu has done that thing in his depiction of the guru . Here the image of the guru is serious, scarred by the life around him. Solid and serious . like many of the Buddhas reincarnated through the Gaandhara and Chinese art. It’s a real homage to Guru as I see him, as Kerala looks at him

Those who are against such a solid creation are doing a disservice to the memory of Guru who needs to be reinterpreted through different types of art and instill in us a feeling for what Guru has stood for

I hope there would be more images of Guru looking at life with scars the world inflicted on him

He is not a god running away from life .He is a part of Kerala ethos which nobody can deny

A Buddha Kerala has offered to the world.