203
■Research Note■
E.B.
Havell
and
the Metamorphosis
of Indian
Crafts
●
Osamu Note
Introduction
The last decade has witnessed some noteworthy attempts to interpret
discourse on Indian arts as a topical issue in social history. Here by
"discourse" I mean a body of works by E .B. Havell (1861-1938) and
A.K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947).1) The reason their discussions on
Indian art still demand analysis stems from the persistent importance of their contributions to the making of Indian culture. Related to the defi-nition of Indian aesthetics and its constitutive components, the works by Havell and Coomaraswamy have ceased to be a mere abstraction of con-ceptual categories. As they came to be mobilized to generate an alterna-tive form of aesthetics [Kapur 1984], a type of paradigm shift in percep-tion was effected. Their works are safely seen as a form of historical
event with a highly formative implication to the subsequent period.2)
Depicting the social history of modem art in India, Mitter [1994] and
Guha-Thakurta [1992] have recently amplified the issue. The two
ana-lysts focus on the early theorists with particular reference to their influ-ence on modem painting. While the purpose in doing so lies not so much in critical assessment of their discourses as in articulation of their cul-tural impact in sociological terms, Mitter and Guha-Thakurta
neverthe-less give us significant alternatives to the conventional treatment of their
野手 修 Osamu Note, Fuji Women's College. Subject: Anthropology.
Article: A Study of Commodity Aesthetics in Tami Nadu, South India (Ph.D. thesis at the University of Chicago, 1995)
works. As a result, the arcane metaphysical writings have become subject to historical analysis.
Following the example set by those two analysts, this article attempts to expand the notion 'Indian art' so as to include crafts for daily use and to discuss issues related to the social influence of the discourse by one of the thinkers referred to above. The scope suggested seems to be justified in the light of the comprehensive spectrum that Havell and Coomaraswamy assumed. Both of them paid attention to crafts. Their work concerned
not only paintings, statues, and buildings from the pre-colonial past, but
also clothing and other objects of daily use. Because of their coverage of
such heterogeneous genres, it is reasonable to see their influence
diver-sify into various facets of social life.3) Dealing with the transformation of
crafts at the turn of the 19th century, the article attempts to elucidate
part of their social impact through a focus on the historical change in material culture.
In so doing, the discussion in the article provokes a set of problems.
They concern the placement of the early thinkers in the intellectual
history of colonial India. To articulate why this point demands atten-tion, it is first necessary to refer to the fact that there is no definitive agreement as to the conceptual foundation of their discussions. The point
is especially important to locate crafts in their arguments. While Mitter
and Guha-Thakurta concur on the important place held by crafts in the
theories of early thinkers, the analysts actually designate two different locales to crafts. Since this difference relates to the respective interpreta-tions of the thinker and his position under question (namely Havell), the difference indicates the inherent significance that crafts may assume.
It was not until recently that official recognition was given to Hindu cultures "discovered" and resuscitated by revivalist movements in the colonial period. In practice, differential treatment seems to be common in official valorizations of "traditional cultures" .4) This makes it difficult to discuss the social impact of colonial thought on Indian arts in a singu-lar term, but due to their ambiguous status in current academic discus-sions, an attempt is called for to re-examine them as a preliminary step. To substantiate this methodological concern as the second reason for the suggested scope of this article, the following discussion will review the characterizations of E. B. Havell by Mitter and Guha-Thakurta. The discussion here concerns their difference in their respective treatments
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 205 of Havell and his theory in order to suggest a historic background not fully dealt with by the two analysts.
In a nutshell, what is meant by the "historic background" is the Great Famines at the end of the 19th century and their aftermath. By placing Havell in the official reaction to this event, the discussion attempts to illuminate the connection between his early encounter with Indian crafts and his later theorization. Prior to this procedure, brief comments on the Western perception of Indian arts in the late 19th century are in order.
1. The Problem of Interpretation
1.1 Indian Crafts in 19th Century
After the Crystal Palace Exhibition held in England in 1851,5) increas-ing attention was paid to Indian arts and crafts in Europe. While design-ers turned to decorative motifs sent from the "Orient" for rich Victorian
ornaments [Sweetmen 1988], colonial governments were busily engaged
in the collection of arts and crafts in localities within India.6) Collected objects were sent to fairs and exhibitions for display. Guide books and
pamphlets published on such occasions invariably indicate that the
in-terest shown to Indian objects proceeded on an ecumenical scale, pre-vailing well into the beginning of the next century.
Yet from a cursory look at the contemporary literature, especially
those "guide books" written by colonial officials, it is clear that the ac-ceptance of Indian culture itself was a temporal event colored by the 19th century colonial notion of the other. For one thing, the West had not arrived at a stage where there was a comparable framework of inter-pretation with sufficient conceptual power to deal with non-Western arts as in the early 20th century. This implied a lop-sided emphasis on prac-tical crafts as opposed to pictorial representations and figurative works from India. To explicate this point from a different angle, reference is made to two main historic factors.
The first is the presence of theorists on Indian architecture, who solidified the contemporary trend based on their insistence on the classi-cal Greek style as the ultimate aesthetic standard. Fergusson for instance considered the Buddhist works found in the north-western part of India to be the zenith of Indian art. Regarding the classical influence on those works as the ultimate criterion of excellence, he characterized the
subse-quent transformation in India as a decline and generated a peculiarly ethnocentric view on her arts.7) It is possible that knowledge of their works was limited to narrow circles of specialists, but among those were nonetheless included Birdwood and Smith, and other colonial officials who played a significant role in promulgating Indian crafts through world fairs and exhibitions.8)
Another factor is the institutionalization of this Western bias in India.
In the middle of the 19th century, governments in India opened art
schools and began to extend the knowledge of Western art to Indian
subjects. The period saw schools in Calcutta (1854), Bombay (1857), Madras (1851), and Lahore (1875). In those places students were taught
the standardized techniques of Western-style paintings or designs of
Indian crafts, but there was no instruction on Indian theories of figurative
representation. While in Madras and Lahore attention was indeed paid
to crafts, this did not go beyond the limit set by the current Orientalist
framework. This was evident in the conspicuous lack of interest in
In-dian paintings and figurative representations in the syllabi.9) The
selec-tive acceptance of crafts in this period thus betrayed the deep-seated
Western prejudice against the non-realist figures of Hindu gods and
other pictorial representations.
But the situation changed in the 20th century. The beginning of the century saw the rise of new Indian aesthetic theories. This led to a new
recognition of Indian arts as a unique cultural expression of religious
value. Scholastic contributions were made to articulate historic specificity
of art forms in respective times and spaces. Hindu objects and
represen-tations which had been thitherto seen as manifesrepresen-tations of cultural
idio-syncrasy external to Western understanding came to be endowed with
authentic cultural value.
The change in question should be ascribed to several thinkers who
emerged in Calcutta and other major cities in India, but E.B. Havell,
one of such early theorists, was particularly instrumental. Before
Coomarasway settled in the United States to be a curator in the Boston
Museum of Arts,10) Havell had begun to criticize contemporary art
edu-cation in India. He repeatedly argued that India had her own unique
system of beauty and insisted on the importance of acknowledging its
presence. Concerning Fergusson (referred to above), Havell said,
"Fergusson
E. B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 207
mistake of assigning the zenith of Indian Sculpture at the time of the
later Amaravati reliefs, or about the third century AD, and this cardinal
error has not only led astray nearly all European writers in Indian art
ever since, but has formed the basis on which Indian art has been
pre-sented to the art-student by the national museum of Great Britain"
[1911: 131]. Prior to this statement, Havell had transformed the syllabi
at the School of Art in Calcutta. He dramatically changed the content of
teaching and began to make substantial inroads in the thitherto
institu-tionalized order of colonial aesthetics. In 1910 he made a speech in
London, leaving a lasting impression on Fry [1990], one of the principal figures in the art world of Britain and America.")
While opinions differ as to the exact relationship that his thought
might have had with contemporary theories, Havell's influence was felt
in derivative writings by Indian subjects. After his "discovery", Indian
paintings and statues were seen in a new visual framework. A series of discoveries of Indian arts emerged from various parts in India.12) When articles on Indian arts began to appear in Modern Review, it became common to deplore the lack of interest in Indian things in popular cul-ture. In generating such derivative discourses, intellectual activities by
Havell and Coomarasway were not confined to the intellectual milieu of
colonial India. They indeed call for a comprehensive reappraisal from a
sociological point of view.
There has been, however, a question about the historic background against which they came to formulate their own theories on Indian arts. Even from a cursory reading of Havell's writings, it is not very difficult to see that his notion of Indian aesthetics was based on a qualitatively different theoretical perspective from that of the 19th century. How was it possible for them to arrive at such new visions of Indian arts? Havell is known for his heroic deed of terminating Western bias in the School of Art in Calcutta, but as to the intellectual source from which he might have deduced his position, there are two different opinions.
1.2 The Conceptual Foundation of Havell
Havell is widely known as the precursor of the Bengali Renaissance.13) While much has been written about him, the argument put forward by
Guha-Thakurta [1992] deserves attention because of her judicious
aspects, Guha-Thakurta depicts him as a colonial educator who mani-fested contradiction for his practical orientation in crafts on one hand and his engagement in "high" Indian arts on the other. According to her, Havell was fundamentally a colonial product, who did not deviate, albeit his contribution to Indian arts and aesthetics, from the officially sanc-tioned ideology. This was evident in his training in Britain where he had been exposed to the influence of William Morris and the arts and crafts movement.14) Though he did arrive at a new, sensitive view on Indian arts, for this second aspect as a theorist of Indian art, he owed much to his Indian associates in Calcutta. Gaining knowledge of Indian culture from them, he certainly managed to arrive at a "new" theory of Indian arts, but he was not able to transcend the dichotomy between his theo-retical attachment to conceptual aesthetics and practical orientation. Thus, in Havell the conflict of those two aspects remained unresolved.
Mitter [1994: 246-251] on the other hand locates Havell in a broader change in Western aesthetics. Havell is normally seen as a staunch critic of art vs. craft dichotomy, who made various efforts to rectify the
divi-sive classification prevalent in the 19th century. From Mitter's point of
view, the emphasis on crafts, the denial of dichotomization, and the shift
of focus from verisimilitudes to symbols are the principal components of
Havell's theory. These are invariably seen to reflect contemporary
artis-tic trends, especially those in the modernist arts in Europe. Instead of
separating his early interest in Indian crafts from his later involvement in Indian paintings and architecture, Mitter argues that those two strands
were intimately intertwined. By referring to Havell in the light of the
contemporary paradigm, Mitter presents a contrastive image of Havell
to that by Guha-Thakurta.15)
Since two opposing views coexist among art historians with regards
the theoretical foundation of Havell, it is necessary to summarize briefly their arguments. In the first view, Havell is essentially a product of the imperial order, who tried to define Indian art based on his paternalistic Orientalism. Placing Havell in an extended spectrum of the Orientalist tradition, Guha-Thakurta lists a set of characteristic features: he was a product of the South Kensington School, and in his focus on handicrafts in Calcutta, he also exhibited continuing bias for the decorative art as in
the contemporary British perceptions on Indian art.16) Admittedly this
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 209
seemingly contradictory behavior. Referring to his appointment of
Abanindranath Tagore to the post of Vice-Principal at the School of Art
in Calcutta, Guha-Thakurta rightly notes his persistent emphasis on the
necessity of conventional training as a qualification for the post, whereas in fact Havell "came to push not only an Indian candidate but one who
had none of the required training in teaching art or in technical art
work" [ibid.: 155]. But this contradiction disappears as one follows the
second view. In regarding Havell's position as an isomorphic
manifesta-tion of the contemporary paradigm, Mitter is able to show how the
differential strands in Havell were integrated into an organic whole.
Mitter's argument is synthetic, providing a holistic interpretation of Havell.
He presents a convincing argument on Havell's theoretical foundation
by relating his practice to theory.
A question remains, however, as to exactly how Havell came to
for-mulate his model of Indian aesthetics. Presenting a slightly different
version in an earlier work [1992: 292], Mitter for instance writes: As he [Havell] elaborated in his 1910 lecture in London, during the first quarter century of the history of the art
schools, a logical if unfortunate policy was enunciated and
enforced. Following from Macaulay's famous Minute, all
Indian art was treated as inferior, and educated Indians
were encouraged to borrow all ideas, artistic or otherwise,
from the West.... Havell too started with Indian applied
arts but he was able to make the crucial transition from the
decorative arts to the sculptures and painting of India.
How did he do it? To put it in a nutshell; Havell's rejec-tion of Renaissance naturalism in his own life and his dis-covery of Medieval European art gave him the insight into Indian high art. 17)
Perhaps. But this statement seems to leave some questions unanswered, whereas Havell himself was fairly explicit on the issue. He wrote [1910:
57]: "The facts and inferences on which I ventured to propose an
en-tirely new departure in principle and in practice were based partly on
experience gained by me as Reporter on Arts and Industries to the
Gov-ernment of Madras, and partly on information dug out of old official
records in Bengal." What, then, was the nature of his experience in
these questions, let us briefly examine his early days in Madras.
2. Havell and the Discovery of Indian Taste
E.B. Havell was trained as artist in London. He came to India in 1884 and settled in Madras, where he taught at the School of Art till 1893.18) It is normally rare to discuss Havell and his notion of Indian aesthetics by reverting back to his career in Madras, but the period presents some significant material to locate Havell in colonial history. During this
pe-riod, Havell toured South India, reporting on cities and towns known
for crafts. Since the period saw official interest in crafts in general, it is possible to interpret Haven activity as part of this official concern, but in Madras there was more practical significance attached to crafts than in other areas.
According to Misra [1983], who writes about the historic link between
the Great Famines in the late 19th century and the subsequent colonial
policy on Indian agriculture, measures taken in the northern provinces
such as Bengal go back to the period when the structural weakness of the Indian agrarian system came to pose a serious challenge to the colonial
government. In the Madras Province, numerous measures also stemmed
from the outbreak of the Famines in this period.19)
In the province, signs of famines led farmers to suspend cultivation.
This decreased the income of agricultural labors, while market prices of
food shot up as merchants held their grain.20) From this followed food
shortages, depopulation in villages, and starvation. The government had
responded to the situation by supplying food and short-term
employ-ment to workers, but the severity of the Great Famines made it
neces-sary to engage in long-term projects such as dam or railway
construc-tion. It was also under these conditions that the Indian Government
recognized the need to transform the structure of agrarian society from
within. Following the suggestion made by the Famine Commission that
the agrarian economy be diversified so that the effect of famines could be
minimized,21) the Madras government requested permission to appoint
officers to conduct a survey on arts and industries in the province. In
1884 it appointed Havell to the task.
The report from the first survey came in 1885. During this first tour Havell visited fifty towns in the districts of North Arcot, Salem, Tanjore,
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 211
Trichinopoly and Madurai.22) The second trip was in 1886 to the
dis-tricts of Kistna, Godavari, Vizagapatam, and Ganjam.23) The third to the
districts of Cuddapah, Kurnool, Bellary and Anantapur was in 1887.24)
On the first occasion he left Madras in November but afterwards
to-wards the end of January. For the first two tours he spent about three
months, for the third he spent two. Based on the experience, he
ex-pressed a desire to keep the tours no longer than a month at a time. The
fourth trip was to Coimbatore and Malabare in 1888.25)
Summarizing the situation in Tamil districts, Havell characterized the conditions of the local industries as altogether unsatisfactory: "Hardly one of them can be said to be really flourishing. Many of them seem to be fast dying out." Priority was given to the description of the weaving. The industry was, according to him, the most important "in respect of the numbers employed." Referring to the fact that the industry had recently come under competition with foreign imports, he raised a ques-tion about the actual extent to which the local weaving was affected. The
area in which European goods had most advantage was relatively cheap
cotton garments. The white cotton cloth formerly used only by
Brah-mans and which was now used indiscriminately by the wealthier class of every caste was almost entirely replaced by English cloth. A similar
tendency was found among cheaper varieties of cloth for women. In
spite of the negative consequence of foreign import, many fine varieties were still in popular currency. The change effected by imports was par-ticularly noticeable in the decline of the more sober, "though none the less remarkable" artistic qualities of fine cloth.26)
An artist from late-Victorian Britain, Havell described local crafts in a
positive manner, reflecting contemporary attitudes of the educated
Brit-ish to the pre-industrial, non-commercialized forms of craft products.
His short commentaries on individual arts and crafts suggest that he was
yet to discover the key concept of Indian art that he was later to
estab-lish, but, obviously familiar with the arguments of Morris and Ruskin,
Havell was able skillfully to juxtapose the contemporary revivalist
aes-thetics to the agrarian policy in the colonial south. Attributing the cause
of the decline in Indian taste to the increasing use of the mass-produced
commodity goods from Britain, Havell applied the current revivalist
language to the situation in India. Yet his position was more than a
departure to the north, E. Thurston [1897: 32], then the superintendent
of the Madras Museum, made an exemplary remark and articulated a
new administrative position which he had evidently derived from Havell:
Ample material is available as a guide to the production of suitable design and colour in their relation to cotton fab-rics for native wear; and an earnest effort should, it seems to me, be made by the School of Arts and Industries to check at least the production of the most glaring barba-rism in color-printed fabrics, by the preparation and wide-spread distribution of pattern, carefully selected as regards colour and design with a view to guiding both the design-ers and manufacturdesign-ers into a better path.
Official documents produced in this period rest upon a set of premises about the validity of factual data.27) Normally there was an initial phase of collection whereby knowledge on India was more or less regarded as
synonymous with objects. Knowledge of this official epistemology was
not only portable but easily re-codified in descriptive accounts.
Col-lected information was then compared, analyzed, and put in linear
his-torical perspectives. When he argued that the School of Art should make "earnest efforts" to chan
ge their practices, Thurston was probably aware
that the nature of the problem must now be conceptualized in an
amor-phous, immeasurable, and essentially ephemeral abstraction, "taste." This
was indeed a departure from quantification, measurability, and
objectifi-cation as the established modus operandi of colonial sociology. Yet the
pervasive nature of the consumption of foreign goods took effect on the
increasingly fluid culture of colonial society. Thus posing a qualitatively
different conceptual challenge to the government, the consumption of
imported commodities by Indian subjects became a critical issue for the
maintenance of social and economic stability in the rural area.
In the wake of the general corruption of taste,28) for instance, this
official policy on taste was highly conceptual in nature, but its
imple-mentation was imperative in the light of the socio-economic condition of
the presidency. In this official perception, the economic plight of
weav-ers provided most convincing evidence. According to the report cited by
Thurston [1899: 5], the weavers were accustomed to work in the
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 213
economy of the Madras presidency, the weavers formed the largest seg-
ment of non-agrarian population, who were subject to the slightest
fluctuations of external economic conditions. Thus, when a famine hit
the northern districts of the presidency in 1896, the government spent
about eleven lakhs of rupees to rescue weavers by providing yarn and paying salaries for the products. Nearly 60,000 weavers benefited from
the scheme.29) Concurrent to the increase in the number of destitute
weavers, the incident of 1896 also indicated the typical famine situation observed previously:
From November 1896 onwards, crime in the affected dis-
tricts showed a considerable increase. It is satisfactory to
note, however, that, except in the regency tracts on the
western bank of Godabari, grain-riots and open looting
were exceptional. Horse-breaking, robberies and thefts
increased very remarkably, the object of the offender be-
ing in many cases the seizure of grain,... The first rise
coincided with the early symptoms of distress, while the
latter may be accounted for by the increase in the intensity of the distress resulting from the delay in the establish-
ment of the South-West monsoon of 1897.30)
Needless to say, the government did not prioritize taste as the sole
solution to the problem of the rural economy. It engaged in large-scale water projects, and it also opened new railway branches and prepared for the shortage of food in case of future famine. Given the series of mea-
sures taken by the government, it is incongruous to single out the ques-
tion of taste and over-emphasize its importance. Yet in a critical fashion,
the question of taste symbolized the historical transformation in the self-
perception of the colonial state from the ruler of a feudalistic society to a
modern bureaucratic government. To maintain the internal balance of a
civil society swept by an influx of commodity goods, it was no longer
possible to rule Indian subjects on the basis of simple draconian meth-
ods. As such, Indian society vis-a-vis the government signified the pres-
ence of subjects who, as autonomous agents, began to reveal their capac-
ity to participate in the making of colonial society. The category taste
provided the government with a vista of the historical condition thus
generated by Indian subjects.
made it possible for the government to transform the nature of the origi-nal problem. As a result of the discovery, the taste of Indian subjects was
theoretically linked to the overall socio-economic condition of colonial
India. In generating this shift, the discourse on taste formed a logical foundation for the emergence of uniquely Indian social ethics where the internal lives of individuals are closely tied in with the well-being of an
anonymous collectivity.
Although the influence of this conceptual transformation in cultural history has attracted the attention of numerous analysts, there is no sufficient reference made to the significance of Madras as one, if not the only, possible site for the discovery of Indian aesthetics for Havell. With this in mind, the following discussion starts with a brief summary of his arguments.
4. The Formation of Indian Aesthetics
Havell made various efforts to emphasize the importance of
maintain-ing artistic standards as a social issue in colonial society. Among those
the most significant is his criticism of art education in India. Havell
argued that the understanding of Indian arts by Westerners was based
on erroneous ideas. He presented suggestions to rectify the situation
through alternative art education. He supported his argument by appeal-ing to nationalist sentiments. Accordappeal-ing to his view, there was pragmatic
utility in art for the sustenance of economic development. While art in
the West is shown to be intimately connected with the formation of
modern subjects [Taylor 1989], what is noticeable in Havell's view is the
conception of art as a highly formative cultural element instrumental in
the articulation of collective consciousness [1910: 87-88].
Art, or the science of the beautiful, was to them [the Greek] a second religion; it became the daily bread of their intel-lectual life. To respect art was a national as well as indi-vidual duty, because its influence tends to develop the best moral virtues in a citizen. It teaches reverence, for
admira-tion of the beautiful is the main spring of the aesthetic
faculty. It begets unselfishness, for aesthetic enjoyment is
not obtained, like so many other men's pleasures, at other people's expense, and it is increased when others share in
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 215
it.
According to this view, society as a form of collectivity presupposes
careful cultivation of the artistic sense through the refinement of the
internal faculty. This refinement of individual attributes generates a
so-cially constructive character. A spontaneous exertion of creative energy
is also an expression of moral consciousness that originates from the
good will of disinterested, law-abiding, reverent individuals as ideal
citi-zens of a nation. Good art ensures the formation of this ideal character
because it is the result of honesty and disinterested pursuit of public
good. It enables individuals to transcend their private attachment to
personal greed based upon the admiration of symbols. As such art was to cause the dichotomy between private and public, individual and society to collapse.
Needless to say, the position described heavily depends on the classi-cal notion of art. In elaborating its applicability to India, Havell carefully
delineated Indian arts from Greek counterparts and said:
European art has, as it were, its wings clipped; it knows
only the beauty of earthy things. Indian soaring into the
highest empyrean, is ever trying to bring down to earth
something of the beauty of the things above. Physical beauty
was to the Greeks a divine characteristic, the perfect
hu-man animal received divine honours from them both be-fore and after death. . . The Hindu artist has an entirely different starting point. He believes that the highest type of beauty must be sought after, not in forms, but in the
endeavour to suggest something finer and more suitable
than ordinary physical beauty.31)
The argument is reminiscent of the tripartite division of artistic progress
in terms of symbolic-classic-modern as presented by Hegel [1994].
Indian arts belong to the symbolic phase in this historic scheme, but because of the priority given to the expression of internal consciousness
over and above verisimilitudes, Indian arts as depicted by Havell
pos-sessed some comparable aspects to those of modern art. Through his
critique of realist paintings by artists such as Ravi Varma,32) for example,
Havell successfully generated an environment where symbolic paintings
[1994: 243-244] nonetheless argues that Havell's anti-realism was a
re-sult of his faithful adoption of the contemporary modernist paradigm,
not his own invention. Mitter seems right in that Havell's notion of
Indian aesthetics comes to reveal a parallel structure to that of the
mod-ernist if we turn to some critical features such as its departure from
realism with its emphasis on subjective consciousness.33) It is necessary, however, to emphasize that Havell did not derive his argument from the
contemporary paradigm alone. Its practical orientation was deeply
col-ored by the historic background against which it originated. In this sense,
his theory is not easily amenable to an explanatory framework deduced
from ecumenical standards.
The need of intellectual history with close attention to the historic
condition of the colonial society has been well articulated by Chatterji [1986] and Prakash [1992]. From the preceding discussion, it also seems
clear that analysis of colonial thought, if it relies upon examinations of
discourse, demands certain care. It is because the historicity inherent in
conceptual formations occurring in the peripheries of the West cannot
be easily disclosed. Havell's theory on Indian aesthetics is exemplary .
While it indicates a structural correlation with the contemporary
dis-course on modernist art, it constitutes a system of value quite
indepen-dent of the ecumenical order. As mentioned, his argument was highly
practical, concerned with the sustenance of Indian taste and the agrarian economy.
Apart from this question about the historicity of Havell's argument,
one may note that the process by which Indian subjectivity is formed
through such abstract, metaphysical categories as taste is a
characteristi-cally modern phenomenon. From the preceding discussion, it seems
clear that a discourse on "nationals" could derive from a highly political motive.34) One thing which should be clarified is, however, that a
dis-course on nation has its own historicity, and therefore it cannot be
re-duced to merely accidental operations of conceptual categories. In the
historical background of Havell and his discovery of Indian arts, there
was the outbreak of the Great Famines. His position was later
trans-formed into a body of specialized writings, but the question of taste
continued to manifest itself in various discourses on Indian arts and
crafts. One of the reasons for the recursive manifestations lies in the
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 217
small progress has been made in the plight of peasants/artisans.35) This article does not deny the ideological aspects of Havell, but it
intentionally tries to elucidate historic spheres which tend to be occluded
by the very coherence attained by discourse analysis. It is probably pos-sible to regard his position as a derivative colonial formation by reference to some intellectual paradigm found in the West. But as a result, we run the risk of masking his ideological features. How can we identify those in his discussion? To answer this question, a focus on crafts seems useful.
5. Indian Crafts as an Ideology
In the preceding discussion, an attempt was made to establish that
Havell was concerned not only with the formation of new Indian
aes-thetics for the sake of art. For him, it was also a necessary procedure
prior to the reconstruction of Indian culture. In practical terms, this
implied two basic tasks.
The first is a replacement of the contemporary perception of Indian
art by a proper understanding in its Indian context. Referring to the
attention paid to the decorative aspects of Indian art by Westerners,
Havell argued that this concern with the stylistic elements must be modified; there was much to be understood beyond the surface beauty of decorative details [1910: 2]. This discovery of "Indian aesthetics" then led to a criticism of the historical present. Making comparison with the subjectivist, conceptually oriented schemes described in the textual sources
on Indian architecture, Havell leveled attacks on colonial architectural
designs. To revive the original purity of Indian art, it was necessary to
rely upon indigenous practice uncontaminated by western influence. This
led Havell to the traditional craftsmen who, according to him, were the mainstay of Indian art in its original purity [1910: 99]:
...in the real India, which exists outside the semi-Euro-peanized society we have created, art belongs as much to
the everyday-life of the people as it did in ancient
Greece....In the typical Hindu village every carpenter,
mason, potter, blacksmith, brass-smith, and weaver is an
artist, and the making of cooking-pots is as much as artis-tic and religious works as the building of the village temple.
It is possible to trace this romantic vision of "village India" to revival-ism in Britain, particularly to the version inculcated by Morris and Ruskin, but the basic tenet behind Havell's village India was also based on his
discovery of the text, Silpa-sastra. Because of his recognition that those
who acquired the knowledge handed down by this text and engaged in temple building were often the makers of practical objects in the village, crafts became a culturally authentic element embedded with the liturgi-cal Hindu texts in the formation of his theory on Indian arts. It is true that a focus on his activity in Madras alone is far from sufficient to
discuss his contributions, but his encounter with Indian taste is
some-thing akin to the discovery of an idealized village society. While this eventually was subsumed into his abstract theory, crafts remained to be
a significant component even in the later period in Calcutta.
Transcribed as an ideal, the discovered idea was then disseminated.
Havell's argument was transfigured into derivative discourses by Indian
subjects themselves, and in this process, Indian crafts were given a rela-tively stable position in material culture. They were to symbolize
anti-individualist orientation through repetition as opposed to creativity,
lo-cality to universality, and religiosity to humanism. Indeed, it was not
easy to reproduce such mythological categories in practice, and when
actual products, "village India" through objects, were made available,
they were fundamentally tantamount to the creation of a new artistic
value through the manipulation of signs. While Havell's discourse and
its subsequent derivatives played a significant role in directing the atten-tion of middle class, Western educated Indians to village society as a cultural entity,36) a form of sensitized artistic vision, or taste, was created as a result.
If the characterization presented above is acceptable, it then seems
safe to regard Indian crafts as a cultural symbol to constitute "imagined
communities" [Anderson 1991]. They are comparable to the
psychologi-cal substitute for a loss, a presence to mask the void of the no-longer
existent objects of desire. It is true that Havell "discovered" crafts as
historic reality as opposed to the lost tradition valorized in the romantic
discourse of the Victorian era, but this presence was also underlined by
the impending crisis in the agrarian order. That his conceptualization of
crafts itself was highly artificial is indirectly shown by the cultural after-math of "revitalized" crafts.") Instead of generating an idealized village
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 219 India, they seem to epitomize the contradiction inherent in the conscious reproduction of traditional values in new historical contexts. It is through the emphasis on this artificiality that the peculiar nature of crafts as part of the material culture in Indian society may be articulated.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article has been to elucidate the metamorphosis of
Indian crafts through a focus on one crucial historic event for the
inter-pretation of colonial discourse on Indian arts. As mentioned earlier, the
task here is preliminary, a step prior to empirical research, so the
discus-sion has admittedly been abstract. But the discusdiscus-sion seems to offer a set
of analytical insights worthy of consideration. The main justification for
this claim lies in the persistence of a historic context similar to that of the late 19th century. After Havell, various discussions on crafts were
en-gendered. While these can be seen as near-autonomous reproductions of
social value, they have been also legitimated by local industries on the
verge of extinction. Needless to say, the symbiotic relation between the
discursively maintained social value and the plight of economies with
their tenuous dependence on ephemeral ideas is complex. It is not easily
amenable to textual analysis of discourse alone, and we may not be able
to expect sufficiently substantive evidence to analyze the present day
state of crafts from a textual re-interpretation of Havell. Yet the focus on
his theory and its background seems to deserve attention for a
method-ological reason. As part of a testable hypothesis through empirical
re-search, it may allow us to process data on the local history of crafts in a
circumscribed framework of explanation. To analyze the consequence of
revivalist movements from a social historical point of view and its
rela-tion to taste as a form of value, the historical metamorphosis discussed in
this article provides some useful perspectives. Notes
1) Havell [1910, 1911] and Coomaraswamy [1913, 1918, 1927, 1966].
2) In this process artistic forms found in the localities, such as the classic music of South India and Rajput paintings, had apparently some exemplary significance. Sivaramamurti [1968] worked on fresco paintings in South India and argued that they represent the pictorial tradition of the area. For more general information on the contemporary state of art, see Appasamy [1985: 26-39].
3) In addition, several artists contributed to this process by incorporating folk elements into their own works of art [Appasamy 1985: 5-15].
4) As we can see in reports from the colonial era, handloom weaving normally occupied a prominent place in official assistance, but other than this reference should also be made to classical dance and music. For the revival of classical dance, see Inoue [1994] and Srinivasan [1985]. For classical music, there is the work of Subramanian [1999].
5) While the taste of the British of the period certainly colored their attitudes to India, the Indian arts and crafts at the periphery of social life slowly affected the taste of the "rulers". Mukerji [1983] argues that it was due to imports from India that there was a growth in the general demand for cotton goods, contributing, eventually, to the rise of the Industrial Revolution. In a similar vein, Jenkyns [1980: 300] points out that in late 19th century Britain, the use of natural motifs became rare, but this was certainly related to the use of foreign designs after the exhibition of 1851. For the more general situation after the exhibition, see Breckenridge [1981].
6) In fact the Indian government went as far as engaging in the quality control of crafts to meet the overseas demand. In 1996, the government published its internal pro-ceedings in The Joumal of Indian Art (vol. 1. Oct. 1886, 1.)andappealed to the general public about the importance of quality in export to international markets. 7) For the consequence and other details, see Mitter [1977: 261-270].
8) Birdwood [1988: 125]. For Smith [1889], see Mitter [1977: 268].
9) The School of Art in Madras where Havell taught before he went to Calcutta was built by a private person in 1850. For other information on the schools of art, see Mitter [1992] and Konishi [1985].
10) Coomarasway was born to a Sri Lakan Tamil as father and a British woman as mother. In 1917 he went to Boston and began his scholastic research on Indian art. 11) Roger Fry, one of the early proponents for introducting post-impressionist art and primitivism to Britain, characterized the consequence of the latest work by Havell as the water shed which marked the end of western prejudice against the non-western, and testified to the influence of Havell on the contemporary British. He wrote, "... we can no longer hide behind the English marbles and refuse to look; we have no longer any system of aesthetics which can rule out, a priori,even the most fantastic and unreal artistic forms. They must be judged in themselves and by their own standards" [Gangoly 1935].
12) Of the "discoveries" made in this period, the most important perhaps is the fresco paintings at Lepakshi. The paintings had been known since 1912 when Longhurst
found them. But because he thought they were of little artistic value, they were forgotten for more than twenty years until Sivaramamurti finally re-discovered them [Sivaramarnurti 1968]. For such a shift in meaning, there had to be a dramatic change in the perception of Indian arts.
13) Because of my focus on his activity in Madras, I was not able to cover works on Havell other than those discussed in the article.
14) At the end of the 19th century, various guilds came into being to introduce artists to the general public. About this Arts and Crafts Movement, see Naylor [1971]. 15) Mitter [1994:248] points out that Havell was heavily influenced by Morris and
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 221 Ruskin and was freed from the dichotomous division of arts from crafts.
16) South Kensington was the first officially run art school in Britain. It became the principal institution instrumental in the introduction of non-Western designs into Britain. For art education in the 19th century in Britain, see Macdonald [1970]. 17) While this version seems to differ from his latest explanation, Mitter has not clarified
their relationship.
18) In 1893 Havell submitted a letter of resignation to the government of Madras (The Department of Education, No.746, Nov.10, 1893). There seemed to be an interval before he assumed the post of principal at the School of Art in Calcutta in 1896. 19) Substantive works on this topic seem not to be available due to the lack of records,
but as to the case in Bombay, there is an exemplary study by McAlpin [1983]. 20) Reporting from South India in 1876 a journalist Digby [1878: 6-7] wrote, "Towards
the end of October, no signs of the north-east monsoon being apparent, and the effect of the failure of the south-west rains in the central districts being experienced in increasing measure, it was apprehended that famine was nigh at hand; panic seized the people and grain merchants. Prices rose to double and even treble the ordinary rates, and threats were made of looting grain bazaars. ....The result was that prices sprang at a bound to a point which they have scarcely ever been known to reach before, and from which they have hardly, even now, at all receded. The rise was so extraordinary and the available supply, as compared with well-known re-quirements, apparently so scanty, that merchants and dealers, hopeful of enormous future gains, appeared determined to hold their stocks for some indefinite time and not to part with the article which was becoming of such unwonted value. It was apparent to the Government that the facilities for moving grain by the rail were rapidly raising prices everywhere, and that the activity of apparent importation and of railway transit did not indicate any addition to the food stock of the Presidency, or really afford security from temporary disaster."
21) For details of the proposal made by the Commission, see Part I Famine Relief of the Commission Report. On diversification, the Report in Part II, Chap. VI, Section I says, "A main cause of the disastrous consequence of Indian famines, and one of the greatest difficulties in the way of providing relief in an effectual shape, is to be found in the fact that the great mass of the population directly depend on agriculture, and that there is no other industry from which any considerable part of the community derives its support. The failure of the usual rain thus deprives the labouring class, as a whole, not only of the ordinary supplies of food obtainable at prices within their reach, but also of the sole employment by which they can earn the means of procur-ing it. The complete remedy for this condition of things will be found only in the development of industries other than agriculture and independent of the fluctuations of the seasons."
22) G.O. No. 463, Revenue, dated 24th April 1885. (Government Orders cited herein after are all from the Tamilnadu state archive.) The localities visited by Havell: (the spelling and order are the same as in the original.)
Tirupati, Kalahasti, Chandragiri, Kallur, Suddum, Punganur, Palmaner, Gudiya tam, Chittoor, Vellore, Kulgherry, Walajanagar, Arcot, Arni, Wandiwash, Salem, Razipur, Shendamangalam, Naniakal, Tiruchengod, Dharmapuri,
Tirupatar,Va-niyambadi, Krishriagiri, Hosur, Tanjore, Mannargudi, Negapatam, Nagore, Ayyampet, Kumbakonam, Kuttalarn, Mayavaram, Shiyali, Trichinopoly, Uraiyur, Utatoor, Perambalur, Kurumbalur, Ariyalur, Udayarpalaiyam, Jayankonda, Madura, Sivaganga, Tirupatur, Maria Madura, Permagudi, Pamban, Ramesvaram.
23) G.O., No. 695, Revenue, dated 11th August 1886. The spelling and the order are the same as in the original.
Ayyanvole, Addipallee, Bhattiprolu, Chirala, Vetapalem, Casenapully, Durgi, Guntur, Idugallapalli, Kappaladoddi, Mallavolu, Jaggayapet, Kondapilly, Kondavid, Macherla, Masulipatam, Mylaveram, Narsaraopet, Nusvid, Podana, Polavaram, Razapet, Repalle, Tenali, Vinukonda, Gooanada, Jagannadapuram, Ellore, Senivarapupeta, Gollapalem, Narsapur, Pallacollu, Peddapuram, Pithapuram, Rajahmundry, Tuni, Uppada, Aliipore, Anakapalle, Bobbili, Boddam, Janimee, Nakkapilli, Kotapadu, Kudur near Kotapadu, Pandur, Parvatipur, Pedapenki, Penubaka, Rajam, Sripuram, Srungavarapukota, Visagapatam, Visianagram, Antagudda, Berhampur, Boodethy, Bolugunta, Chikai, Chicacole, Iehapur, Mandasa, Muttoora, Narsipettah, Palsa, Parlakimedi, Tarla.
24) G.O. No. 619, Revenue, dated 29th June 1887. 25) G.O. No. 441, Revenue, dated 20th June 1888. 26) G.O. No. 463, Revenue, dated 24th April, 1885.
27) For a more detailed explication on this point, see, for example, Cohn [1987, n.d.]. 28) Its indication was the prevalent use of chemical dyes. According to a Committee appointed by the Government of Madras, the use was so firmly established that "no measure short of a prohibitive import duty can arrest their employment." While the situation was utterly condemned "from an aesthetic point of view", educating the "native" would bring about practical merits [Thurston 1897: 31].
29) Report of the Famine in the Madras Presidency during 1896 and 1897 vol. I, General Report and Government Order, Madras, Government of Madras, 1898, p. 34. 30) Report of the Famine in the Madras Presidency during 1896 and 1897, Vol. 1, General
Report and Government Order, Madras, 1898, p. 19. 31) Quoted in Banerji [1922].
32) Ravi Varma (1848-1906) was born into a family related to the royal line of Kerala. He learned Western painting on his own and established himself as a portrait painter. Later he began depicting Hindu mythology with a realistic touch and had his works mass-produced by means of lithographic printing. For more of his biographical data see, Venniyoor [1981] and Kapur [1990].
33) In 1910 when Havell made a speech and argued for the presence of Indian aesthetics in Britain, an exhibition of post impressionist paintings was held in London. R. Fry was the principal figure behind this exhibition, which exposed the British to the latest modernism in art.
34) On the relationship between colonial discourse and nationalism, see P. van der Veer [1993].
35) The most convincing example in this respect would be handloom weaving. As we can see from Baliga [1960], the industry had long been expected to achieve some drastic structural transformation, but it was not until recent times that it was actu-ated.
E.B. Havell and the Metamorphosis of Indian Crafts 223 36) Various writings on arts and crafts became available through English media such as
Modern Review. It is possible to see fragments of their influence on contemporary politicians from their autobiographies. Nehru [1982:403] criticized Ravi Varma's realist paintings and praised the culture of traditional village India.
37) Even today the number of successfully revitalized industries seems limited. But there are certain cases where noticeable results have been achieved such as handloom weaving in South India. This raises the question about their cultural consequences.
In this respect one may refer to Yanagisawa [1992] as an example.
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