The human image
 Most local administrative officers attached to agrarian sector forget
that they have a vast amount of human resources that could be utilized
for the study of culture and aesthetics.
I had the chance to read a different type of book containing eight
chapters written by an administrator cum investigator on the study of
aspects of aesthetics, culture and human image.
The investigator is Wimal Ranatunga who considers that his time spent
in the field has not gone waste as he had been busy collecting material
by way of a scholar researcher.
The compilation of the eight chapters with field references and a
bibliography is titled as 'Saundarya, Manava Rupa Ha Kalawa', which
literally means aesthetic, human image and arts. The intention of the
writer is to observe to what extent the three segments are interlinked.
In the first instance, the writer visualizes as to how the creative
expression known by the primitive people had come to be. As most
researches in the orient as well as the occident denote the human being
had given to a creative expression via his basic skills that had gone in
the day to day struggle to exist.
Unanswerable aesthetics
The weapon in his hand had given way for a better handled utensil
with the lapse of time. In this manner, numerous examples are cited.
Creative arts (nirmanatmaka kala) is the term he uses to underline the
factor. Then in chapter two, he questions as to what aesthetics means.
This is an age old question which remains unanswerable even today.
 As Dr Ananda K Coomaraswamy once pointed out the discernible link
between 'beauty' and 'aesthetics' lie in the attitude of the beholder,
who becomes a sahurda who transcends the were observer cum participant.
The human attitude to his surroundings like the fauna and flora too had
transpired various new beautiful findings which had led the mind to
sensory perception. This he signifies as kama or passion, which as to be
perceived from many standpoints.
The author takes into account the manifold effects on kama as a life
giving force for creativity. He tries to collate his observations to
those of the finds in the occidental context like the Lawrencian
attitude to creativity. He tries in Chapter Three at length to trace the
Grecian, Indian and other context giving examples from natural objects
to those created by the humans, by way of statues, paintings and
evolutionary examples from photography and cinematography.
In many ways, the Chapter Five titled as 'erotic and beauty' is a
synoptic view of the man's findings of passionate expression of human
images down the history. Wherever necessary he gives examples via
illustrations, mostly drawn from Sigiri, Kandariya, Kauratio and some
other places lesser known to our readers. Then he proceeds to present a
study of passionate expression as found in poems, theatre both folk and
classical novels myths and legends. According to Ranatunga,
socio-religious expressions too has played a vital role in the moulding
of the human image down the centuries. He selects Kama Sutra of
Vastsayana as a product of the socio religious attitudes to the human
image. But I am not too sure whether the point in view is quite clear.
Creativity emphasis
All in all, this is an attempt to present various points of view on a
broad subject of the creativity with emphasis on the beauty of the human
image as a life giving force down the centuries. As a reader, I felt
that the jumble of thought streams or the cluster of material embedded
could have been better categorized into segments paving the way for
better interpretations of the visual communicative modes to human image,
as found in many cultures. As aesthetics is a subject area linked in
various other conventional subjects, this attempt could be regarded as a
commendable attempt of rediscovery into the visual communication, from
tradition to modern. |
