Chola at The Royal Academy

A civilised Friday evening was spent at the Chola exhibition at The Royal Academy. As the blurb says:

This exhibition of approximately forty bronze sculptures explored the artistic and cultural riches of the Chola dynasty of southern India between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Throughout their rule the Chola were great patrons of the arts and oversaw an extensive programme of temple construction. Portable bronze sculptures, revered as physical manifestations of the Hindu gods, were produced to fulfil public functions and preside over specific festivities. Chola bronzes are widely considered to be among the finest works of Indian sculptural art.

It's at times like this that I have to dredge up what I can remember being told about Hindu deities on my travels out East and I love it. I've been a guest in Hindu temples in lots of places across India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and in England. Some information sticks but most doesn't. Many of the gods are different incarnations or aspects of the same godhead. It is a fascinating exhibition, not many statues but they're of very high quality and covered in delicate details.

A majority of the statues were of Lord Shiv in his various aspects and there was an excellent statue of him as Shiva the Destroyer dancing the world to destruction, dancing in a flaming ring with his dreadlocks flying and the lord in a transcendent, ecstatic state, four arms flailing and legs daintily posed. It would have been about three feet across. I can't find a photo online and I'm too lazy to scan it in from the catalogue so here's a poor photo I took with my phone.

Another favourite was an ornate statue of Kali with lots of fine detail in her clothes and jewelery and, if you look closely, the impression of two fangs overhanging her lower lip. I took Kali's photo once in a temple in Khajuraho in the middle of nowhere in northern India and she sent her bats to chase me out of her temple. Her temple was dark but I could see the outlines of a statue so thought I'd take a photo and the bats objected to the flash. When I eventually got the film developed back home I saw the statue for the first time and it was covered in stains, some of which looked like reasonably fresh blood. I've been more respectful whenever I've met her since then.

The final statue in the exhibition is a lovely dancing Krishna, looking young, confident and ever so slightly sensuous with his full lips and serene face. Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu who appears each time the world is in danger (the Vishnu aspect seems to be symbolised by the crown he wears). Again, the detail in a bronze statue is wonderful and delicate and it's debateable whether the statue is still or in full flow of the dance.

There was also a lovely statue of Lord Ganesha, very poised and still, at rest, his trunk in the palm of one of his four hands. I went back to that statue a few times to look for the mouse, a motif of Ganesha's that artists hid in different places in his images. I couldn't see it though.

I was pleased I saw the exhibition before it closes at the weekend at Christopher's prompting. I'd meant to see it as a birthday treat to myself but didn't make it. As you'd expect, the statues were all very stylised but that's part of their beauty in my eyes. And it was fun to point out details and generally show off to Chris. Since the statues were all in glass cases and you could walk round them, one thing I couldn't help but notice was the prominence of virtally all their bums, buttocks firm and daintily parted and, on the women, incredibly voluptuous breasts (and this was in the days before surgical enhancement).

There were also extracts from devotional poems and hymns written on the walls of the exhibition rooms, written by the Shaivite saints. Here's one by Saint Manikkavachakar:

O Lord Shiva
on that day when you looked at me
you enslaved me
in grace entered me
and out of love melted my mind