Representations...

[Pia]

Have u guys ever noticed how Krishna and Rama are ALWAYS depicted as
clean shaven (incl the jpg of Mahabharata on this group).

But w.r.t. Rama its written in Ramayana that once he returns to
Ayodhya from exile, the best barbers gathered to cut and cleanse the
tangled mess of 14 years of tangled hair, so one would assume he had a
mess of hairy growth on his face too ! Unless he tended to his cheeks
but never to his head !

So why the clean-shaven pics ?

Pia

[Anindya]

Even more interesting, all other male characters are depicted with a
moustache at least.

In fact, this is very commonly done for Bhima, which is a mistake
because he was a 'makunda'.
(Disclaimer: I haven't found it in the MB yet.)

I don't know if this is because Rama and Krishna are avatars of
Vishnu, who is always depicted as clean shaven. Does anyone recall a
picture/sculpture of Vishnu where he has a beard or moustache?

[rajeev]

Very interesting observations! Come to think of it, I think most gods
are depicted as clean shaven. Indra, Shiva, Vishnu, Kartikeya, and so
on. Brahma as I recall is sometimes depicted with a beard (as Zeus
is). But I did a google search for Brahma images and most are clean-
shaven too.

I wonder to what extent Hindus maintained continuity in the depictions
of its gods. Did the Muslim invasions or the British affect this?
What is the "lineage" of the current depictions? If you look at the
paintings by Raja Ravi Varma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Raja_Ravi_Varma), the poses, modes of dress, adornments and even
expression on the face is very similar to common "photos" of gods you
see everywhere.

It is quite possible that the representations have survived faithfully
from a pre-Muslim age, since there are temple carvings and other
murthis. It would be interesting to see what changes took place in
these representations.

[Anindya]

But I've seen statues of Shiva, Indra etc with a beard in our old
temples, eg, Lingaraja, though rare.
But never Vishnu. Seems to have been the original Gillette guy.

Raja Ravi Varma is famous for being heavily influenced by European
painting styles.

And come to think of it, weren't most of the Greek gods, except Zeus,
also clean shaven ?
I wonder if this is a result not of Muslim, but of Alexander's
invasion. Greek painting and sculpture were quite influential in
ancient India.

The depictions of the gods in modern calendars and posters are of
course, just female faces, with a topknot added on, say.

Sis mentioned something once about how it is tougher to paint a
handsome male face than a pretty female one.

[rajeev]

Hmm... don't recall seeing Shiva with a moustache/beard!

Could have something to do with Greek influence. Certainly not Muslim
influence -- Muslims typically preferred bearded looks for men -- but
that raises lots of questions: is it even true that Greeks were "more
clean shaven" than Indians? Did Indians perceive this as a good
thing? Weren't the descriptions of gods already established by the
time we came into contact with Greeks?

In any case, the point I was trying to make re Muslim and British
influence was rather along the lines of how they affected the
continuity of Hindu portrayals. As I understand it, Hindu art (and
other parts of culture) was largely royal patronage-driven. During
the Muslim era this patronage would have been withdrawn totally. The
Brits had a mixed attitude. Some liked Indian culture and strove to
preserve it, the vast majority abhorred it, but a majority also seemed
content to leave it alone, neither patronizing nor destroying. In
fact this had a profound impact on the Telugu language. In the
mid-1800s Telugu was actually in danger of serious degeneration. The
Raya kingdoms had gone, the Asaf Jahi Nizams in Hyderabad state were
indifferent, and Telugu literature from 800 to 1600 CE was *actually*
in real danger of being permanently lost. It was actually an
Englishman who rescued whatever survives from that period today,
devoting almost his entire life to it.

I was wondering whether other aspects of culture (art, paintings of
gods) had similar choke-points in their development. There are some
interesting sources on this stuff, all based on records by Brits.
Christopher Pinney is one author who seems to write about this kind of
stuff. If I can find some time, I'll try to see what he has to say...
you can search google books for his stuff.

[Pia & Sanjeev]

Zeus, Neptune/Poseidon, Hades and Vulcan (okay, I'm getting Roman and
Greek names mixed up a bit) are all depicted with beards.

Its the younger 'stud' God Apollo, and the young messenger God Hermes/
Mercury, who are beard-free.

On other hand, Apollo was supposedly the conceptual model for all
young handsome males, even Gandhara style Buddha statues basically
turned Buddha into Apollo in heavier robes.

I've seen pics of Shiva both with and without facial hair. Wonder if
there are any regional influences involved there.....

Pia

[Pia & Sanjeev]

In any case, the point I was trying to make re Muslim and British
influence was rather along the lines of how they affected the
continuity of Hindu portrayals. As I understand it, Hindu art (and
other parts of culture) was largely royal patronage-driven. During
the Muslim era this patronage would have been withdrawn totally.

*****************************************************************************************************************************

In Bengal when the whole cultural renaissance happened -- there were
sort of two streams. The Ravi Varma school, that was very heavily
influenced by European art and that used actual human models as
subjects, and the who Abanindranath-Tagore Nandalal Bose school of art
that basically used the style of painting found in the Ajanta caves.

But interesting little snippet I heard about in recent seminar on
Indian art -- if you look at sculptures of Gods and Goddesses from
Cambodia etc, they have a common set of Hindu deities but their
statues often look very human. Apparently in the Cambodian courts it
was common for royal patrons to request that Lakshmi be made to look
like the queen, or Vishnu like the crown prince......whereupon in
India deities had an uniform 'too perfect to be human' look that
changed only minimally over time. So, for example, if you look at all
the elaborate carvings on some temple like Khajuraho....the poses,
ornaments, dress, implements of the deities and yakshas and yakshis
change, but the FACES are basically almost all the same -- very few
changes in shape of eyes of nose or structure of cheekbones from one
face to the next.....

[rajeev]

Fascinating. I remember reading somewhere that the main difference
between the European style and the Indian style (and the reason
European style painting was much more realistic) was that European
artists discovered the two-point and three-point perspective tricks.
Indians didn't seem much bothered about perspective, as you can see
for instance in this random picture:
http://fibercopia.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/sikhart-posted121007.jpg
I found on the web. (Look at the carpet...) Raja Ravi Varma is
obviously in the European mould; he seems to have consciously borrowed
a lot of ideas from European art.

I wonder *why* Indians were so uninterested in perspective and 3-d
representation!

[Pia & Sanjeev]

Hey:
Check out the Partha-sarathy painting by Nandalal Bose that I just
uploaded. Shows what i mean by the revival of the Ajanta style of
painting. Its still kind of 2D, though not as much as the rajasthani
miniature Rajeev linked to.

Pia