Volume VI, Issue 3
Compiled by Beloo Mehra
Continued from
The Mother’s Work as an Artist
Editor’s Note: These selections from the book ‘Paintings and Drawings by the Mother’ (e-version available HERE) highlight the deeper relation between Art and Artist’s Consciousness.
Art as a Discipline for Developing the Consciousness
It must be remembered that even from childhood the Mother was conscious of a larger mission to which art and all other interests were subordinate. Art was for her a valuable part of life, but not the most important thing. It was a language which came naturally to her, and she used it as a means of expression and communication in the course of her work with people. For her, images could often reveal more than words.
Circa 1897-1908, France
Circa I897-1908, France
***
She regarded her art study in her early years as a discipline for developing the consciousness, not as a preparation for a brilliant career or a life dedicated to art for art’s sake. Once she had mastered painting to a sufficient degree for her purposes, she moved on to other things. Some remarks on specialisation the Mother made to a group of students are typical of her attitude.
This is something I have heard from my very childhood, and I believe our great grandparents heard the same thing, and from all time it has been preached that if you want to succeed in something you must do only that. And as for me, I was scolded all the time because I did many different things! And I was always told I would never be good at anything. I studied, I did painting, I did music, and besides was busy with other things still.
~ The Mother, CWM, Vol. 6, p. 19
And I was told my music wouldn’t be up to much, my painting wouldn’t be worthwhile, and my studies would be quite incomplete. Probably it is quite true, but still I have found that this had its advantages—those very advantages I am speaking about, of widening, making supple one’s mind and understanding. It is true that if I had wanted to be a first-class player and to play in concerts, it would have been necessary to do what they said.
And as for painting, if I had wanted to be among the great artists of the period, it would have been necessary to do that. That’s quite understandable. But still, that is just one point of view. I don’t see any necessity of being the greatest artist, the greatest musician. That has always seemed to me a vanity.
Drawing with Closed Eyes
The story behind one of the portrait-sketches is of interest for the light it sheds on the Mother’s method of drawing. The portrait of Champaklal done on 2nd February 1935 is unique in that it was done with closed eyes. When the Mother took the picture to Sri Aurobindo she said, “The pencil just went on moving.”
Though this kind of feat was not the Mother’s normal practice, it is a striking illustration of a principle on which she more than once insisted, namely, that the hand must acquire its own consciousness.
I have told you that no matter what you want to do, the first thing is to put consciousness in the cells of your hand. If you want to play, if you want to work, if you want to do anything at all with your hand, unless you push consciousness into the cells of your hand you will never do anything good—how many times have I told you that? And this is felt. You feel it. You can acquire it.
~ The Mother, CWM, Vol. 4, p. 403
All sorts of exercises may be done to make the hand conscious and there comes a moment when it becomes so conscious that you can leave it to do things; it does them by itself without your little mind having to intervene.
The title of the above painting was given by the Mother. During the early 1920s, Sri Aurobindo’s brother, Barin, was doing some oil painting under the Mother’s guidance. As is the common practice of artists, a small board was kept for depositing the surplus paint left on the palette after each session. A random mixture of colours covered most of the surface of this board.
One day when Barin had finished his work the Mother asked for the palette and, with the remaining paint, gave a few deft brush strokes to the centre of the board covered with old palette-scrapings. Thus the painting was completed. Evidently, something had struck the Mother in the swirl of colours on the board. The suggestion of a face may have been already visible in the midst of it.
In the finished painting, a face resembling Sri Aurobindo’s emerges from the chaos of colours which appropriately represents ‘the Inconscient’, according to the Mother’s title. The Mother herself confirmed that the face is Sri Aurobindo’s. It is likely, as is reported in one version of the story, that Sri Aurobindo was present at the time of this incident and she took the opportunity to paint a quick portrait of him. The Mother liked the painting enough to have it printed along with the title she gave it.
Guiding the Ashram Artists
The Mother gave her help and encouragement to a number of people in the Ashram who wished to draw and paint, both beginners and trained artists.
The results were varied, often original and sometimes remarkable. For two or three aspiring artists she herself made sketches and suggested compositions. The paintings of Chinmayi (Mehdi Begum) display an impressionistic style and carry a great deal of the Mother’s training and influence. The Mother demonstrated the technique of oil painting to Barin, Sri Aurobindo’s brother, in the 1920s, to Sanjiban in the 1930s and to Huta in the 1950s.
Savitri Paintings by Huta
The Mother encouraged Huta to illustrate Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, Savitri, and herself made sketches for the paintings. . .
Naturally, the actual execution of the paintings represents Huta’s style and ability and cannot be considered identical to what the Mother would have done with her own hand. Yet these “meditations on Savitri” give a hint of the kind of mystical imagery and symbolic expression she might have employed if she had taken up painting again in her later years.
Their purpose is, in the Mother’s own words, to make us “see some of the realities which are still invisible for the physical eyes.” The work with Huta in the 1960s on the illustration of Savitri was the Mother’s last substantial involvement with art.
To learn more about the Mother as an artist and her work with several artists at the Ashram, we recommend watching this documentary made for Acres for Auroville.
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The Art of the Future: Two Conversations of the Mother
