THE TAJ OF INDIA
TAJ MAHAL
INTRODUCTION:
“Let the splendor of the diamond, pearl and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow. Only let this one teardrop, the Taj Mahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time…”
If there’s a building which evokes a country- like the Eiffel Tower does for France, the Sydney Opera House for Australia- then it has to be the Taj Mahal for India.
BRIEF BACKGROUND:
North India was ruled by the Mughal’s in the 16th and 17th centuries, a race of Islamic regime from central Asia. In 1627, Shah Jahan became Emperor of the Mughal Empire. His wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died 5 years later whilst giving birth to her 15th child. Importing architects and designers from as far as Persia & Europe and recruiting 20,000 builders & laborers, this took over 20 years to complete. It is not certain that who is the planner and the designer of the Taj but the Indian architect of Persian descent, Ustad Ahmad Lahori, has been often associated in this regard from many sources. In 1630 when the construction commenced masons, craftsmen, sculptors, and calligraphers were brought from Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Europe to work on the masterpiece on the southwest bank of the River Yamuna. The architectural complex consists of five main elements: the Darwaza or main gateway, the Bageecha or garden, the Masjid or mosque, the Naqqar Khana or rest house, and the Rauza or the Taj Mahal mausoleum. The actual Tomb is situated inside the Taj.
REASON:
This most famous Moghul monument was constructed by emperor Shahjahan as a tribute of love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, the ‘lady of the Taj’. It has been described as the most extravagant monument built his beloved wife Mumtaz after her death in 1629 completing their seventeen years of married. She died during childbirth when she was giving birth to her 15th child.
CONSTRUCTERS:
Construction of the Taj commenced in 1632 and was not completed until 1653. Workers were recruited not only from all over India but also from Central Asia and in total 20,000 people worked on the building. Experts were even brought from as far away as Europe- the Frenchman Austin of Bordeaux and the Italian Veroneo of Venice had a hand in its decoration. The main architect was Isa Khan who came from Shiraz in Iran. This monument stands right beside the Yamuna River. It is in a large and geometrically laid out garden. Two similar red sandstone mosques embrace the building when viewed across the river. At the entrance there is a high red sandstone gateway inscribed with verses of the holy book.
The Taj Mahal stands on a raised marble platform with four tall white minarets (40 m high) are around it. Four smaller domes surround the lofty central dome. The tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan are in chambers which are false tombs, a common type. Light is admitted into the central chamber by finely cut marble screens.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ARTWORK, METHODS AND TECHNIQUES USED:
The black and white chessboard patterned marble fine pieces of Islamic architecture. The Quran verses are around the archways which are uniform inspite of their height. The juxtaposition of the letters and the calligraphy are amazingly precise. The tomb and the minarets display an illusionary effect. Semiprecious stones are inlaid into the marble in beautiful patterns and with meticulous craftsmanship. This process is known as pietra dura. The impressive pietra dura artwork incorporates a good variety of geometry, natural elements like plants and flowers which are predominant in Islamic architecture. The artistic sophistication, precision and aesthetic are brought by the 3 cm decorative element which contains more than 50 inlaid gemstones.
These images are crafted on the exterior of the Taj Mahal. These aesthetically pleasing marble carving and inlays portray the golden dawn light. Fine pietra dura is again used here with semi-precious stones which are precisely inlaid into the marble forming beautiful patterns.
The Islamic architecture and artworks are dominated primarily geometric motifs which rendered it a very distinct identity around the world. As the geometric and mathematical themes revolved around the Ancient Greek era but the Islamic art was distinct in the way it was projecting meanings and ideas about the Islamic vision of the entire universe.
As Islam forbided idol worship the representation of their religion was portrayed through other means like the calligraphy and other forms of motifs. Here the letters and the artistic geometrical patterns became prominent means of expressing the spiritual truth and physical world’s dimensions.
The star is one of the prominent and significant icon representations in Islamic vision about a central point that emits equal radiations in all directions.
Another significance of the star is its center circle which symbolizes the religion’s vision of one mighty power. It also emphasizes that the Mecca which is the center of Islam which is to be faced by all the followers during their prayer. The star emits its rays in all directions in the same way as the god’s omnipresence also symbolizing the spread of Islam everywhere.
CONCLUSION:
There is a good composition of fine materials, exquisite geometric forms and patterns, and the symmetry of the structure, with the juxtaposition of the garden and other structures. This monument continues to remain the significant architectural icon of India to the entire of the world which suggests the enriched historical and cultural heritage.
INSPIRED ARTWORK BY THE TAJ MAHAL
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE TAJ OF INDIA
- Saili, Ganesh Taj Mahal New Delhi: lustre press 96
- Head, Raymond The Indian Style London: George Allen & Unwin 86
Rabindranath Tagore- Duniya ka Ajuba Agra mein, West Bengal, Vernacular press, 1872, 256
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Young British Artists
Michael Landy
Michael Landy (born 1963) is a British artist, one of the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece-cum-installation, Breakdown (2001), in which he destroyed all of his possessions.
Landy was born in London. He first studied art in Loughton and Loughborough, then at Goldsmiths College in London. It was while at Goldsmiths that he exhibited in the Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst, the exhibition which brought together most of the YBAs.
Landy’s first major solo piece was Market (1990), an installation made up of empty market stalls. Like much of his later work, it was intended as a comment on consumerism and society.
In 1992, Landy started an association with Karsten Schubert by making Closing Down Sale for his gallery, an installation made up of a number of objects in shopping trolleys labelled “BARGAIN” and recorded announcements encouraging visitors to buy. The work was intended as a comment on the commodification of art, and might be seen as a precursor of sorts to Breakdown, a work which produced no salable objects.
Before Breakdown, Landy’s best known work was Scrapheap Services (1996), which featured a fictitious cleaning company which sought to change society by way of “a minority of people being discarded”. Promotional videos were made for the company and a large number of cut-out men were made from old magazines to be swept up and destroyed.
Breakdown, the work which put him in the public eye, was held in February 2001 at an old branch of the clothes store C&A on Oxford Street in London (C&A had recently ceased trading, and the shop had been emptied). Landy gathered together all his possessions, ranging from postage stamps to his car, and including all his clothes and works of art by himself and others, painstakingly catalogued all of them in detail, and then destroyed them all in public. The process of destruction was done on something resembling an assembly line in a mass production factory, with ten workers reducing each item to its basic materials and then shredding them.
Breakdown, which was a joint commission from The Times newspaper and Artangel, attracted around 45,000 visitors. At the end of the process all that was left was bags of rubbish, none of which were sold or exhibited in any form. Landy made no money as a direct result of Breakdown, and following it had no possessions at all.
Landy made little art in the year following Breakdown before returning with a solo show in late 2002, entitled Nourishment. The exhibition consisted of a series of detailed etchings of weeds, rendered in the traditional style of botanical draughtsmanship. The intricate detailing is reported to have resulted in lasting eye damage for Landy.
In 2003, Landy was selected to chair the judging panel for the Beck’s Futures art prize.
Art pieces
Semi-detached, a major site-specific installation, takes as its focus the artist’s father, a former tunnel miner incapacitated by an industrial accident twenty-five years ago. Through sculpture, video and sound Landy invokes broader questions of value and usefulness, employment and purpose.
In 1993 Landy set about creating a fictitious cleaning company called Scrapheap Services. What started as a six-month project escalated into a large-scale venture spanning over two years. The resulting installation at Chisenhale Gallery had a strong visual impact. Small cut-out figures, made from old cans, fast food wrapping and household waste, were strewn across the floor or swept into piles awaiting collection. Life size mannequins dressed in colors coordinated work wear were the cleaners. Enameled signs depicted an earthly paradise, idealized landscapes free from imperfection and clutter.
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Is a manifesto relevant?
“The First Things First 2000 manifesto, written and launched by Adbusters magazine in 1999, was an updated version of the earlier First Things First manifesto written and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer.
The 2000 manifesto was signed by a group of 33 figures from the international graphic design community, many of them well known, and simultaneously published in Adbusters (Canada),Emigre (Issue 51) [1] and AIGA Journal of Graphic Design (United States), Eye magazine no. 33 vol. 8, Autumn 1999 and Blueprint (Britain) and Items (Netherlands). The manifesto was subsequently published in many other magazines and books around the world, sometimes in translation. Its aim was to generate discussion about the graphic design profession’s priorities in the design press and at design schools. Some designers welcomed this attempt to reopen the debate, while others rejected the manifesto.
The question of value-free design has been continually contested in the graphic design community between those who are concerned about the need for values in design and those who believe it should be value-free.[citation needed] Those who believe that design can be free from values reject the idea that graphic designers should concern themselves with underlying political questions. Those who are concerned about values believe that designers should be critical and take a stand in their choice of work, for instance by not promoting industries and products perceived to be harmful. Examples of projects that might be classified as unacceptable include many forms of advertising and designs for cigarette manufacturers, arms companies and so on. Adbusters has been a significant outlet for these ideas, especially in its commitment to detournement and culture jamming. “
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First_2000_manifesto
“Art is being co-opted by consumerism. From the hijacking of the Hip to sell things to a new audience, to the billboardization of graphics for commercials it’s all around us. This process of adopting yesterday’s avant-garde for today’s commercial tedium is nothing new.”
- http://www.verdant.net/arts.html
Introduction
I would have to totally agree with the above stated. Art is becoming commercialized and so are the artists and the designers. But personally, I completely disagree with the manifesto. Yes the design world is turning into a world in which designers have become what designers do but coming up with such a manifesto is not appropriate at all. We cannot generalize the whole society. If art is something to make yourself happy then leave it to the designer or the artist what choice to make – either do it for the sake of money or just art. Every individual does a specific thing that they feel is right. I personally do art or design for both the purposes. When required I have done work for the commercial need and for my own satisfaction I do what I like.
I would like to approach the topic with giving arguments of my personal opinion as a:
- A designer
- General public
This is for the reason that I personally don’t have a very strong view on either of the sides and it all depends for me on my mood and the situation.
My argument as a Designer would be:
“I am a designer, a creative personal, a hub made for constantly creating new ideas and change the world with what I feel inside.” This is something I would feel when I do my designs for myself for my own satisfaction. I have done a lot of works for my portfolio and most of them are done with the guideline specified by me, what I wanted to show in my work was al decided by me. I have a passion for photography. I really like to do photojournalistic style and capturing normal things. I am not an abstract kind of guy. So my photography generally is very conceptual and tells a story.
For example if you take the example of this picture above. This is one of the pictures I took when I just started our photography and I did for a project and called conflict in which I wanted to show how common man is being involved in conflict and how he is affected, yet there is peace and sanctity on his face. A slight wondering on why is this happening to him and just feeling sorry about himself. Now this thing could have been done in numerous ways and a lot of expressions but instead of that I told him to go in deep thought and give me the most natural pose with no expression. Because if you see something like that happens to you and if u are all alone you would be deep in
Now this picture above was done for a very specified project in which I had to show him like that. This picture is also nice but the thing with this is if you concentrate on the lip he is pulling it his eyes have an expression. Since I had an out line for it I had to make this picture in the convention pose. But I had the freedom of showing the expression. And I pulled off this shot by the post processing techniques.
What my main aim to show these pictures is that we can’t generalize everybody and all the situations by coming up with a manifesto. Now I don’t disagree or agree with the manifesto but I disagree with the whole concept of coming out with a manifesto in first place.
In my case it has happened a lot that I had to do a crappy design just for the sake that the client wanted me to do but then I try and make it as good as I cant within my limits.
So sometime you have to do what designers do and not think but that earns you the bread and butter. When I have enough money to support me I generally don’t take these kind of jobs, but when the necessity calls you have to do what is given to you and shut the brain and just do what the client wants.
But this is not always the case again even we cant generalize the clients. I have come up with some really nice works after being remaining in the guidelines and using my own creativity. One of the studio shoots is did and post processed it. So the image above came in picture which I think is really interesting and has got a very different yet interesting composition to it.
Again if you see the expression on my models he is again giving a very thinking expression in the deep thought mode which is my favorite.
Now again this is not a general thing it depends on me and I have my own choices just like everybody else. I believe coming out with a manifesto is not a solution because people have a god gifted virtue called Freewill and everybody uses that. Manifesto generalizes the public and designers in this case, which I think is a wrong thing to do.
This is one of the works that I did for my studio and I wanted to give a darker look to the image to show the playfulness and the joy in a child’s life well I was at first criticized that dark don’t go with children but as the final piece came out it really gelled with the concept. So I think having prejudice is not always helpful especially in our field where we are creating new thing each n every day.
Media is one of the biggest components of visual culture today. Everyday we are exposed to so many visuals that are done due to the media, from the boring, copy-laden radio commercial to the easily skimmed, forgettable newspaper ad. According to a study a child before even going to kinder garden is exposed to more than a thousand ads. If you take example of Singapore every where you go may it be a bus, mrt, sidewalk, schools, taxies, buildings everywhere you see ads, posters, prints.
Even in the restrooms like one in the Ministry of sound every urinal has a screen in front of them to show the events taking place in that. Those things overtake us. It’s like these things have invaded the earth and made men their slaves. One day I just thought of counting the number of visual messages that I come across in a day my count was 850 because I was not able to count more than that as I was really tired. So 850 is not at all a small amount that in a way means 850 people met me today and each and everybody said a line or two to me. And that seriously is a lot.
If something to write a manifesto I would say I believe in the fact that the media is affecting us in a way it shouldn’t and we as designer and creative people should take good note of the following and not support any such acts or work for these kind of things.
The media has a lot of affect these days on the viewer may it be the print media, advertising, movies or digital games. The message they convey can be a good one or a bad one.
Smoking and alcohol related media (Movies, images, commercials)
Now a days smoking and drinking (alcohol) can be seen on all kind of Medias. They are shown as a cool act and make the viewer want to consume them. They are shown as if the person is sexy and everybody does it. Ads pursue the teenager towards smoking and drinking. People who see a whole lot of liquor or alcohol and cigarette ads are influenced by them and make them to drink and smoke. Studies have shown that the most famous cigarettes amongst teenagers are the ones that are advertised the most. So surely In this case media is playing a bad role in shaping their lives. Some cigarette and alcohol companies leave out the message that says the ill effects of these products purposely due to which when people consume these products they don’t know what they are getting into. And this thing I am talking in context for the whole world not just in Singapore
Violence
From the very beginning at very young ages children learn about violence and this lasts long. Media has a very bad effect on the young age of today about violence. Children tend to be violent against other after their favorite celebrity doing a stunt or a fight in a movie. There are many examples of this. I once read in an Indian newspaper that after watching the superhero flick KRISSH starring Hrithik Roshan a very young boy jumped off the first floor to enact his favorite hero. And this was not only one case many such cases were reported in that period
The passion of Christ (2004)
This movie is directed by Mel Gibson and won couple of academy awards. Now this movie is about the last twelve hours of Jesus Christ. So the whole movie is full of the tortures on Jesus. And there is a lot of and detailed graphic violence. Like I saw this movie couple of years ago and I still cannot forget that scene in which Jesus is tortured and they show flakes of his skin flying away. Out the 120 minutes of the movie 100 minutes were just the various tortures done on Jesus. Now according to me there was no need for doing all this and showing these things on screen. I went to the movie with couple of my female friends and all of them were weeping by the time the movie ended.
Now violence shown in media also makes some people accept the violence of the real world and to some it can make the real world look a shady and violent place. According to me the media should take responsibility for it and come out with a solution.
Bodies and weight issue
Now this is one of the major issues in the western world. The disease I am talking about is anorexia and bulimia which are due to eating disorders. These are prominent in young girls. They see the models in TV and fashion shows and try to be like them. They diet to be skinny and hence become the victim of these diseases ultimately resulting in death. Even Donatella Versace’s daughter was diagnosed with this disease. One of the Calvin Klein’s ad even showed a girl vomiting into a sink and the product named obsession which clearly meant obsession to be skinny. This image you see here is just an example of how bad the body can be affected from this deadly disease
And media and fashion industry is the main cause of this thing.
The fashion show in Spain took a step forward for this problem and set a minimum weight for the models taking part in this event so that this discourages the young models to be skinny.
I strongly believe that rather than the whole issue of the manifesto I would concentrate more on this perspective of the creative world and help make the world a better place rather than just sitting around and wondering what is art.
Reference:
http://it.stlawu.edu/~x2tarel/page%203.html
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4GFRC_enSG209SG209&q=anorexia
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4GFRC_enSG209SG209&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=calvin+klein+ad&spell=1
http://donsmaps.com/images3/lascauxbulls.jpg
http://www.foothilltech.org/9th-grade-action-based-project/mass-media/mass-media.jpg
www.marymount.edu/…/fashion/nowandthen.html
http://yusuf.asgerally.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/image77b27e90-2a82-44d1-b924-3b5ad759e2da.jpg
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