Contemporary Tantric Paintings from Rajasthan

Creativ Visualisation

Tantra Song
This collection of rare, abstract Tantra drawings was conceived when the French poet Franck Andr Jamme stumbled on a small catalogue of Tantric art at a Paris booksellers stall, The volume included writings by Octavio Paz and Henri Michaux, and Jamme became fascinated by the images affinity with modern art and poetry, He read voraciously and even journeyed to India, searching in vain for Tantric practitioners, until a bus accident on the road to Jaipur sent him home to France with serious injuries, When he returned a few years later, he met a soothsayer who proclaimed that Jamme had now paid sufficient tribute to the goddess Shakti and required him to take a vow : he must visit the tantrikas alone or only in the company of a loved one, Since then, Jamme has gained extraordinary access to very private communities of adepts and their intensely beautiful works, These contemporary, anonymous drawings from Rajasthan are unlike the more familiar strands of Tantric artthe geometric yantras, or erotic illustrations of the Kama Sutra, The progeny of seventeenth-century illustrated religious treatises, these drawings have evolved into a distinct visual lexicon designed to awaken heightened states of consciousness and are imbued with specific spiritual meanings (e,g, spirals and arrows for energy, an inverted triangle for Shakti), A revelatory volume on this occluded genre of Indian art, Tantra Song is a convergence of east and west, the spiritual and the aesthetic, the ancient and the modern, Franck Andr Jamme is the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, His translated works (by John Ashbery, Charles Borkuis, David Kelley and others) include New Exercises, Another Silent Attack, The Recitation of Forgetting and Extracts of the Life of a Beetle, He has collaborated on books with a number of artists including Philippe Favier, Suzan Frecon, Acharya Vyakul and Hanns Schimansk, A specialist in Art Brut, Tantric and tribal art of India, he has participated in exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Beaux-Art de Paris and The Drawing Center, among others,

The small, concise, anonymous paintings are made in tempera, Gouache, and watercolor on salvaged paper and were at one time pinned up for use in private meditation. They embody codified images that express specific ideas in tantrism and meditating on them stimulates the eye and mind toward a particular mystical experience.

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (91); Legend: The worlds two poles united; day and night, light and darkness, stillness and movement, Shiva and Shakti; Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 2000; unspecified paint on found paper; 11.75 x 8.75

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (112); Legend: Shakti (Kali) Pursuing Shiva Her Divine Lover; The eternal race of the feminine principle towards its masculine homologue" (1997), anonymous tantric drawing. Jaipur, Rajasthan, 2000; unspecified paint on found paper; 8.75 x 13.75

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (103); Legend: Energys egg; Sanganer, Rajasthan, 2004; unspecified paint on found paper; 8.75 x 13.25

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (119); Legend: Portrait of Kali, the Goddess, the Black One; Jaipur, Rajasthan, 2007; unspecified paint on found paper;13 x 10.125

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (113); Legend:Dance of Energy; Samode, Rajasthan, 2008;unspecified paint on found paper;13.75 x 9

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (116); Legend: The Birth of Speech; near Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 2008; unspecified paint on found paper;11.5 x 9.375

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (118); Legend: In Search of the Center; Udaipur, Rajasthan, 2008; unspecified paint on found paper;12.75 x 9.75

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (1110); Legend: The Monster of Time; Sanganer, Rajasthan, 2009; unspecified paint on found paper; 11 x 9.75

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (1111); Legend: The Paw of Time; Sanganer, Rajasthan, 2009; unspecified paint on found paper; 11 x 10

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (117); Legend: Energys Egg; Chomu, Rajasthan, 2008; unspecified paint on found paper; 9.75 x 12.875

Anonymous, Untitled, 1993. Udapur. Gouache, watercolor, and tempera on paper, 13 3/8 x 8 in. Private collection, Paris. Photo by Cathy Carver.

Anonymous, Untitled, 1990. Bikaner. Gouache, watercolor, and tempera on paper, 10 5/16 x 14 in. Private collection, Paris. Photo by Cathy Carver.

Spot on From left: Franck Andr Jamme says this linga, with its heart-shaped prow, might symbolize an alliance of the Hindu deities Shiva and Vishnu; a work used to train the eye of apprentices.

Jamme says this is a "meditation on the possible and necessary balance of things."

This painting represents the three gunas or conditions of existence, says Jamme. (In medieval Europe, he notes, black white and red were the three fundamental colors in alchemy.) "Here, in the form of small candles, each has its own capacity to illuminate."

Anonymous tantric painting (12-3); Legend: An exercise to identify the precise shade of color; Sanganer, Rajasthan, 2009; unspecified paint on found paper; 10 x 13

Anonymous tantric painting (12-2); Legend: On the four directions; Chmu, Rajasthan, 2007; unspecified paint on found paper; 13.75 x 9.25 each of two

The twenty-eight dazzling tongues of Kali. (In the Vedas, Kali is also the seventh tongue of the god Agni, Fire.) Kali extends her red tongue, its repetition inducing a true intoxication.

Another depiction of the three gunas, this time in their "natural ascension: from darkness to light passing through fire."

The last plate in the book ends with this summation from Jamme: "The purer the consciousness, the bluer and clearer the sky."

Simply the king. The Shiva linga, the original representation of the deity. Sign among signs (in Sanskrit linga means sign). Anonymous, Bikaner, 2002, mixed media on paper, 14 x 10".

Anonymous tantric painting, Shiva Linga, 1999, Udaipur Unspecified paint on found paper 13 x 8.5"

Anonymous tantric painting, Shiva Linga, 1972, Jaipur Unspecified paint on found paper 13.75 x 9.25

Tantra loves such reversals, such inversions. Shiva who had been dark as night has become as pink as a vulva, and she who was pink has reacquired her original colorKali, The Black One.

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (1010); Legend: Divine Love; Japur, Rajasthan, 1990; unspecified paint on found paper; 12.375 x 10.675

Anonymous, Untitled, 1990. Sanganer. Gouache, watercolor, and tempera on paper, 12 1/8 x 11 in. Private collection, Paris. Photo by Cathy Carver.

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (95); Legend: Energy traveling through, and regulating the colors of the world; Udapur, Rajasthan, 1970; unspecified paint on found paper; 12.25 x 9.5

ANONYMOUS: tantric painting (107); Legend: Multiplicite de lengerie; Udapur, Rajasthan, 2004; unspecified paint on found paper; 8.625 x 13.625

Contemporary Tantric Paintings from Rajasthan

Creativ Visualisation