Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.126

v2.c76.126

Thus we get two different versions as to the origin of Citra-vidyā. One ascribes the origin to Nagnajit and the other to sage Nārāyaṇa. In these legends however is hidden some basic truth which also should be interpreted as the correct origin of painting. In either legend the origin of the art of painting is seen in the outlining of a human figure for the purpose of creating living human form. Prof. Kramrisch calls this reconstructed origin "magic and non-aesthetic." But nevertheless in these accounts are hidden the elements of observation-cum-imitation and imagination going to the very roots of the origin of painting and according to the V.D.there is yet another very powerful element that forms the fundamental fact in elucidating the origin of painting. "But not only the two-fold origin of painting in observation and imagination was theoritically known to the authors of the various treatises; the Viṣṇudharmottara, moreover, introduces its chapters on painting with a discourse, where Mārkaṇḍeya instructs king Vajra, that without a knowledge of the science of dancing the rules of painting can scarcely be understood. In another passage, the observation of nature and of the rules of dancing are indicated as the ultimate resources of the painter. This does not mean that the positions of dancers have to be painted. None of the nine positions of the treatise on painting in the Viṣṇudharmottara coincides, with any of the 101 positions explicitly described in Bharata's Nāṭya-śāstra. What is meant by the derivation of painting from dancing is the movement in common to both these expressive forms; it asserts itself in purity through dancing, it guides the hand of the artist, who knows how to paint figures, as if breathing, the wind as blowing, the fire as blazing, and the streamers as fluttering. The moving force, the vital breath, the life movement (cetanā), that is expected to be seen in the work of a painter, to make it alive with rhythm and expression. Imagination, observation and the expressive force of rhythm are meant by the legends of the origin of painting, to be its essential features”—Kramrisch.