Experiencing the Aesthetic Relish: Pigmentation of Rasa in Select Indian Canvas

Indian aesthetics has a long tradition than Western aesthetics. Even before the Italian philosopher, Croce, India had many scholars who were particularly interested in aesthetics with a common aim to discover the meaning of beauty. Rasa is the dominant emotional theme in Indian aesthetics which explores the concept of beauty through arts. It was Bharata who introduced theory of rasa in his Natyasastra, an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts. The emotions are expressed through rasa, which creates an aesthetic relish in the audience. The manifestation of rasa is embodied in literature, music and all other forms of visual culture such as dance, drama, sculpture, film and painting. Like in any other art form, the practitioners of Indian painting too attempted to express emotions and create the aesthetic with the strokes of a canvas. Indian painters have used specific colours, patterns and images to create a particular emotion leading the spectators to an aesthetic experience, which is referred to as alaukika or something marvelous. By converging ideas, themes and symbols within a single frame work, paintings covey the moods and emotions to the audience and have been occupying a prominent position in visual culture. The accomplishment of aesthetic appeal through representations is the integral aspect of every painting. Here rasa is expressed through the dominance of certain colours. This paper examines the use of colours in Indian painting, which often represents a particular rasa through some select Indian paintings. These colours are not just odd or arbitrary, but purposeful association, which are capable of arousing the same moods and emotions in the audience