Chapter 4: Art and Literature

This was probably the hardest chapter for me to read thus far. This chapter deals a lot with asceticism in art and how different cultural circumstances determine that art of a period. For instance, the author makes a point that the state has been integral to Indian history, and this is reflected in the art of the different times.
Before reading this chapter, I thought that Indian art was probably distinctly religious in nature for the most part. It is certainly true that some Indian art does deal with religion—such as the art focused on the god Kali that is mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, but not all Indian art is religious. In fact, I found it interesting that the author made the point that Indian art is neither religious nor sacred. In fact, the religious and the secular are not neatly separated at all.
Of the art that is religious, the artists emphasis is often on the eyes of the deity. They are usually huge in proportion to the rest of the face. What I found most interesting about this is that the artists make the eyes the finishing touch of their piece by “opening” the eyes to awaken the deity.
As far as literature is concerned, the most interesting parts where when the author talked about literary aesthetics. I had not really thought about literary aesthetics before, so it was interesting to think of focusing on sound patterns, rhythm, rhyme, and interplay of different word meanings. I think in a western context we deal much more with what a piece of literature means rather than how it sounds, so I guess this is just a cultural difference of how literature is appreciated.
Although this chapter was hard to get through, I think I did get some useful pieces of information about Indian art and literature.