Page 23 - Studio International - July/August 1967

Correspondence flake and many combinations of all of them. With the itself, there are three omissions that I think par-
development of these paints came the influence of ticularly unfortunate; there is no hint that the book
Criticism of the R.A. Custom Painting on young American artists. Now is limited to Hindu tantra, and that there exists
there seems to be a reverse of that influence, young another, and probably an older Buddhist tantra, and
Dear Sir,
Ian Dunlop's article 'The Royal Academy-What can American and English artists seem to be influencing that where the Hindu seeks spiritual power through
Custom Painting or auto body decoration. union with the active shakti or female aspect of
be done?' [June issue] raises questions Which are
Sincerely, divinity, the Buddhist seeks wisdom through union
constantly in the minds of those responsible for Greg Card
organizing the Summer Exhibition. Granada Hills, Calif., with the passive cosmic mother. Secondly there is
Mr Dunlop says that 'The Academy seems to believe little indication about the history and antecedents of
U.S.A. the tantra: the tantra as an accepted system dates
than an art exhibition should be a kind of treasure
trail with a few good works scattered among the in- from c. 500 A.D., its antecedents go back to at least
300 A.D., one of its great periods of developments was
different, so that the visitor can find them for himself.' Tantrism and Tantric sense
Would the good exist without the indifferent? A The following letter from Dom Sylvester Houédard under the Bengal Pala dynasty 750-1150 A.D.: of the
pearl would have little value if every oyster produced arises out of a review by F. N. Souza of Ajit Mooker- dated plates in this book two are eleventh century;
one. jee's Tantra Art-published by Ravi Kumar, 42 ave. two are twelfth century; one is thirteenth; one is
In recent years, professional criticism has grown du Président-Kennedy, Paris 16e.-and subsequent sixteenth; seventeen are seventeenth century;
incresingly acute towards the Summer Exhibition; correspondence published in the pages of this thirty-nine are eighteenth century; eight are nine-
teenth century; and six are 'contemporary expressions
however, public interest has been generally main- journal.
tained, and actual sales have increased from a pre- of ageless forms': why? What happened to encourage
war average of about 250, to figures between 600 and Dear Sir, the Hindu tantra in the seventeenth and eighteenth
I should very much like to support what Dr Eng has centuries? Thirdly, the surprising and immediately
750. As Mr Dunlop rightly points out, this in no way
said in his letter you published in the April number. acceptable thing about these plates is their relevance
benefits the Academy, but the £30,000 to £40,000
A large number of people have, like him, been to art forms of today, but the details supplied are
which changes hands is a major benefit to practising
interested for the last ten years or more in the Tantric nearly always insufficient to satisfy legitimate curio-
artists, many of whom are dependant on this outlet traditions of India and Tibet-an interest that has sity: what size are they? are they intended for use or
for the exhibition and sale of their work.
seemed a perfectly natural complement to earlier instruction? or are they models to be copied daily,
Mr Dunlop also complains about the 'dreadful over-
concerns With Zen. Having at last been able to borrow and if so what medium? sand or the imagination?
crowding', but it has to be remembered that it is
already much reduced from the scale of the last a copy of Tantra Art perhaps you will let me add a few Obviously I am less appalled that Dr Eng at the views
comments of my own. of Mr Souza, partly because the book itself fails to
century, when well over 2,000 works was the general
The reactions of Mr Souza and Dr Eng are typical of supply material for an art critic of the European tradi-
rule, and further reduction would, undoubtedly, be a
a polarity I find easy to accept and which deserves tion, and partly because we still have this situation
serious deprivation to many artists.
careful study as it reflects certain basic indecisions where an art journal is not the normally accepted
It is quite clear that large mixed exhibitions are out
we now live with concerning the function of art and place to open a discussion on the technicalities of
of favour with the majority of professional critics, who
the extent to which psychology and aesthetics can be contemplation, comparative Tantrism and the authen-
prefer to have the cards dealt to them in separate
considered distinct criteria in evaluating creative ticity of apophatic methods and experience. Yet
suits. It is an obligation on the part of the Academy
worth. If the professor of fine art at Harvard proves to without these, only superficial comparisons can be
that they should play with the full pack. If some of the
have been the last major critic to employ moral in- made between Tantra art and art in the West, whether
top' cards have been witheld, at least some are still in
dignation as an appropriate expression of his be- before or after the decisive change that can be dated
play. wilderment when faced with Tantric art ('dominated
The organization of an Annual Exhibition is one of from the Renaissance and (more significantly) the
by magic-obscene rites-unintelligible spells-with devotio moderna, since this change was decisive
the obligations laid down in the Academy's original vicious doctrine of devotion to the female energy-
Testament of Foundation. It was also laid down that precisely because it initiated the breach between
sorcery and mysticism based on terror and sexualism' Tantra and art that Tantra art is logically unable to
the Exhibition should be 'open to all artists of distin- -The Art and Architecture of India by Benjamin
guished merit'. Time alone will tell who these may be presuppose. If, as the fact would certainly appear to
-meanwhile, the doorsof the Royal Academy are still Rowland, Pelican, 1953) this will be due in part to the be, artists and poets now are more able and willing to
way our knowledge of Tantric spirituality has in- appreciate Tantra art and themselves intuit art as
open in this way. creased since the time of Arthur Avalon (Sir John tantric creativity, criticism and society must also
Yours faithfully, Woodroffe) and Evans-Wentz, as a result of the change, and this I would suggest, must very largely
Tom Monnington, meticulous work of the lama Govinda, Agehananda
President Bharati, Mircea Eliade and Dr Snellgrove, as well as be in directions that Dr Laing has been indicating.
If a date were demanded for the origin of this change,

The Royal Academy, Tucci and Guenther. It will also be due to the fact that aside from the invention of the permanent photo-
•
Burlington House, the West vis-à-vis the East is reaching a point that is graphy, Napoleon III's Salon des Refusés and the
London, W.1
critical for the development of a global (post E-v-W) impacts of Italian primitives and Japanese woodcuts,
culture. I would suggest the collective satori Europe experi-
In spite of the work done by scholars, the percentage enced through the Dadaists. The admission by men of
Custom painting
of Tantric texts translated or even studied is still the principle of nothingness has been fundamental
Dear Sir, minute, fundamental ,problems relevant to Tantric in re-sacralizing the arts of sound, shape and move-
In the comment entitled 'Design as an Attitude' by art in history and psychology have still to be solved, ment-as in the silence pauses gaps of Cage,
Jasia Reichardt [April issue] there seemed to be and practically the entire field of formal Tantric Lamonte Young, Phillips and Tilbury-the zones of
some doubt as to the whereabouts of the beginnings aesthetics remains unexplored aside from the work of pure possibility of Nul, Zero, Nart and DIAS-the
of the decoration of automobile bodies. I would there- Coomaraswamy and Alice Boner (I haven't seen the totalart of Benvautier and Fluxus-the total environ-
fore like to put forth the following information: articles published 1956-61 by P. B. Mukharji on the ment of Mark Boyle-the heatwave art even of total
The fact of the matter is, that the decoration of metaphysics of Form, Sound and Light). There is revolution-as well as the cool McLuhan media in
automobile bodies or 'Custom Painting' as it is called certainly no general familiarity with Tantric back- poetry of eye, ear and Kinkon and Chopin phonetics.
here in the U.S. did indeed begin here. It was started grounds in the English sofabook public or among The inner identity of mantra, yantra and mudra is
in southern California, in the late forties, on motor- intelligent readers whose interest in contemplation recaptured in the borderblur between arts first ob-
cycles by a man named Van Dutch Holland. By the is visual rather than mystical, that is in art rather than served by Kandinsky when he told Petronio at the
early fifties this type of painting found its way to car tantra. Can they even be separated? My impression Bauhaus that no art could be autonomous. If Tantra
bodies, mainly through the efforts of Van Dutch and a is that Mookerjee would have done well to explain is the art of becoming the word mind and body of the
few followers. As the years went by the number of basic things at greater length, and to provide a tattagaha (or realizing one is that in inner space),
custom painters grew so large that I could not begin glossary of technical terms that (like all scholars Tantra art is a machine for achieving that-for becom-
to name all that were involved. Not only did the involved in interpreting East to West) he has realized ing the cosmic mandala-the painting is only the
painters become abundant, but also the styles of must be preserved. brush-the painter is the objet d'art-and this painting
painting. There was also the development of new Apart from the absence of a glossary and the or machine is no less external to and distinct from the
paint formulas, translucent lacquers, pearls, metal- lack of an adequate explanation of the term 'tantra' painter when it is produced mentally.