On Art

"...Experiences that donot have words yet..."

All art perhaps tries to say something that conventional verbal or written language cannot capture, and vice versa. When something verbal can be expressed in art, it then becomes representation, or illustrative. This is the critique of representational art, perhaps. This, art that moves us is affecting us at a level slightly deeper than comprehensible. In the comprehension of that excess is where we push the boundaries of knowledge. The percentage of this excess may be very little, but to push that aspect is precisely the work of the artist. That is perhaps artistic practice, and what accounts to artistic "work". This work is not possible in the domain of representation, or total translation. For instance, if translation has to become art, then translation has to culturally push the limits of original text to become sustainable and critical for the present or future. This also doesn't mean that accurate representation of reality is not art. It doesn't mean that hyperrealism doesn't count as art. Here the context of time and space in which that art gets produced must be taken into account, for the disposition of that representative content on art may be quite different. To reinvent accuracy at different periods in history through the technology of its time, or in conversation with the technology of its time is then the content of art. This kind of churning allows perspectives to become referential and produce a search for relevance.

The Qur'an at Chhota Imambara, Lucknow

This copy of hand written Qur'an is a marvellous example of not just calligraphy, but also the certain probable hierarchies of information. Notice the smaller texts of five types- 

1. on top of the main text, 

2. the one on the bottom of the main text 

3. on the innermost border vertical (big and small)

4. the 45 degree clockwise diagonal in the middle and 

5. the 45 degree anticlockwise diagonal on the outermost edge.

I need to check with a person who can read arabic to understand what form the subscripts and superscripts in this mammoth tome that has been managed purely manually. 

The copy is on display at the Chhota Imambara in Lucknow and I am unsure of how old it must be, but it must be easily been 300 years old. 

Why Not Ask Again? Poster