-007_Introduction.htm

Introduction

The Mother did not give her personal career as an artist a primary importance. Hence it is not commonly known that she was an accomplished artist. It will be evident from the paintings and drawings reproduced in this volume that, in spite of her limited artistic activity in later years, she never lost the power of her observing eye nor the sureness of her hand, nor did she allow her consciousness of beauty and her aesthetic vision to become diminished in the midst of her intensive spiritual endeavours and manifold responsibilities as the head of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

The Mother (Mirra Alfassa, 1878 -1973) loved to draw and paint from her childhood. Though art was only one of her many interests, it occupied a prominent place in her early life. She began to take drawing lessons at the age of eight. Two years later she started to learn oil painting and other painting techniques. By the time she was twelve she was doing portraits. In 1892, when she was fourteen, one of her charcoal drawings was exhibited at the International "Blanc et Noir" Exhibition in Paris.

Having completed her regular schooling at the age of fifteen, she joined an art studio in Paris to study painting. In all likelihood it belonged to the Academic Julian, an organisation with several studios founded by Rodolphe Julian in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In those days women were not admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Three or four of the paintings reproduced here are evidently of models supplied by the studio (pp. 26-27 and perhaps the newly discovered work shown on p. 149). They are good examples of the style of painting taught in the best French art schools of the time. One of these studies (p. 26) is signed and dated 1895, when the Mother was seventeen.

The Mother continued to work in this studio until 1897, when she married the artist Henri Morisset. During the next few years, she participated in the stimulating artistic life of turn-of-the-century Paris and associated with some of the leading artists of the period. She did a fair amount of painting, both in Paris, where she and Morisset had their flat with a studio in the garden, and on trips to the countryside. Six of her works were exhibited in the prestigious Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1903, 1904 and 1905. These works are listed by name in the catalogues of the Salon; one of them was reproduced in the illustrated catalogue of the 1905 exhibition (p. 150).

Only about forty of the Mother’s paintings are available to us today. More than half of these belong to her early years in France (before 1914, when she made her first trip to India), including her visits to Algeria (1906 and 1907). Other early works, which she considered to be among her best, were either sold or presented to friends and are now lost to us. The Mother also did a number of paintings and drawings while she was in Japan, between 1916 and 1920. There she acquired the Japanese technique of water – colour painting, working directly with brush and black India ink. When she returned to India in 1920, she brought with her seven paintings and some drawings which she had done in Japan.

In Pondicherry, the Mother rarely had time to undertake oil paintings. Her spiritual work and practical responsibilities became all absorbing and she preferred to bring out latent artistic faculties in others rather than display her own abilities. But she did quite a few drawings of the highest quality and artistic value. These are mainly portraits. Those who saw her doing these portraits describe how within minutes, with a few rapid strokes, a living face would be completed.

The Mother herself did not attach much importance to what she had produced as an artist. No doubt, she could have done much more if she had chosen to apply her talent, training and spiritual vision to serious painting in her mature years. Her early works,, for all the skill and beauty we may admire in them, are in a style which may be said to belong to the past. The Mother was well aware of this. She spoke of the future of art in her talks, yet she did not herself attempt to realise its highest possibilities as she saw them. She left this for others to attempt. When she was urged to take up painting again, she replied that she had no time for it. Her later drawings were generally a spontaneous expression on the spur of the moment, not a premeditated artistic creation.

It  must  be  remembered  that  even  from  childhood  the  Mother was conscious of a larger mission to which art and all other interests were subordinate. Art was for her a valuable part of life, but not the most important thing. It was a language which came naturally to her, and she used it as a means of expression and communication in the course of her work with people. For her, images could often reveal more than words. She regarded her art study in her early years as a discipline for developing the consciousness, not as a preparation for a brilliant career or a life dedicated to art for art’s sake. Once she had mastered painting to a sufficient degree for her purposes, she moved on to other things. Some remarks on specialisation the Mother made to a group of students are typical of her attitude:

This is something I have heard from my very childhood, and I believe our great-grandparents heard the same thing, and from all time it has been preached that if you want to succeed in something you must do nothing but that. And as for me, I was scolded all the time because I did many different things! And I was always told I would never be good at anything. I studied, I did painting, I did music, and then was busy with still other things. And I was told my music wouldn’t amount to much, my painting wouldn’t be worth while, and my studies would be quite incomplete. Probably it is quite true, but still I have found that this had its advantages—those very advantages I have been speaking about, of giving breadth and suppleness to one’s brain and understanding. It is true that if I had wanted to be a first-class performer and play in concerts, it would have been necessary to do as they said. And as for painting, if I had wanted to be among the great artists of the period, I would have had to do nothing but that. That goes without saying. But still, it is just one point of view. I don’t see any necessity of being the greatest artist, the greatest musician. That has always seemed to me a kind of vanity. [Talk of 10^th February 1954 – translated from the French]

As far as possible, all the Mother’s known works—paintings, miniatures on ivory, charcoal drawings, brush and ink work, pen and ink drawings and pencil sketches- have been included in this volume. A few whose originals are not available are printed here from earlier reproductions. The arrangement is based on aesthetic and technical considerations rather than chronological order. The paintings are numbered as "Plates"; the drawings are separately numbered. A descriptive catalogue at the end of the book gives details concerning all the works.

A number of the paintings, unfortunately, are in a bad condition. In some the colours have cracked or are peeling off. Besides, they have lost their original lusture, having remained for seventy years in Pondicherry’s warm and humid climate. Some have darkened so much that their reproductions in colour are given only for the purpose of record. Where a damaged painting has been restored or the reproduction electronically repaired, a black-and-white reproduction showing its original condition is also given.

The Mother’s drawings have proved as difficult to preserve and reproduce as the paintings, since they were often done on scraps of paper which have mostly turned yellow or brown and become brittle and acidic.

Apart from a few works included mainly for their documentary value, the paintings and drawings presented here will reveal to the discerning eye the Mother’s rare artistic abilities: a mastery of technique achieved through years of rigorous training and practice, a refinement of style, a clarity and depth of vision, and the freedom, power and sureness of expressive touch which her later drawings manifest.