Design Language-II Notes

Part 1
WEEK 1-3
Chapter No. 1: Introduction to the Concept of ‘Kalaa’ in Indian Context

Chapter No. 2: Evolution of Design

Chapter No. 3: Design Parameters in Indian Context: Auchitya (appropriate to purpose) and Maryada
(exercising discretion)

What is the concept of kalaa?

• The traditional design thinking is rooted in a concept of kalaa, which suggests a unity among all
human arts, skills, sciences, and techniques.

Kalaa could be considered as the closest equivalent word to “Art” in the Indian context. Sometimes, it
is even equated to “design”.

• It is known that the last of the four Vedas, the Atharva, has as its more worldly, even scientific,
appendage a treatise on sthapatya, meaning the science of construction.
• The treatise discusses developments of objects, built spaces, and images using different
materials and methods. This is the very first and obvious source for kalaa.
• This concept of kalaa, with its sense of universality and integration, lasted until the European
concepts of art and craft as two separate entities were brought to India when the British set up
their arts and crafts schools complete with the ongoing debate on the “fine” arts and crafts, and
the craft object vis-à-vis the machine-made object.
• All this diminished the original meaning of kalaa, since most people now use it to mean only
plastic arts.

Please refer to the reading in the folder for a longer note.

Plastic arts:

• The word "plastic art", derived from the term 'plasticize" meaning "to mold", essentially is
meant to describe any art form that involves the activity of modelling or molding into three
dimensions.
• The most common example of plastic art is sculpture itself. This is because sculptors' carve,
shape, or module a range of traditional material like marble, granite, sandstone, bone, ivory, or
wood.

Define each of the following words with a diagram:

• Srishti
• Samrithi
• Sthithi
The Indian perception of the universe and universal processes are directly based on the cyclical nature
of time. Each new spatial universe like the previous one passes through three distinct stages in the cycle
of time, aptly known as kaalachakra, from the stages of creation (srishti), to the steady state (sthithi) to
dissolution (samhriti) and back to the creation stage, in an unending cycle. (see figure)

Other important Sankskrit terms:

• Auchitya: It is the understanding of what is appropriate and what is not. The flow of
movements and ideation must have sense and sensibility according to auchitya.
• Marayada: is the decorum or the state of aesthetics in an artwork.

Concept of History in India

• Histography: science of recording history
• Archaeology: science of digging up the past
• Museology: science of preserving the past objects
• History in India is linked with mythology (according to Europeans)
• Archaeology and museology were unknown in India until the arrival of the British in the 18th
century

What is itihaas?

• The two epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are called itihaas or part of Indian histories. It would
be wrong to dismiss them as mere mythology.
• History in the form of itihasa is a creative use of past events for the present and the future.

What is dharma?
• Dharma means life order.
• Dharma has been practiced in itihasa by many individuals and communities.

The French Academy or the Academie des Beaux Arts

•
Image: Ecole des beaux arts

In 1563, there began in Florence an institute which represented the first sign of the departure from this
age-old tradition. Founded by one of the Medici it was named Academia del Disegno. The instruction
method and work environment at this academy were still those of the master's studios except that there
were several of these 'under one roof'.

It was only in 1648 when the famous Academie des Beaux Arts was founded in Paris that the first formal
institution with a clear objective of full-time and separate training for artists and architects came into
being. This was indeed a historical event with far-reaching implications, four of which are of the utmost
importance for us:

1. For the first time in history the training of artists and architects became 'academic' and the
Academie des Beaux Arts became its citadel. It also mooted the notion of 'academic' painting.

2. This resulted in a physical separation between architecture and the plastic arts and between
architecture and crafts. Departments were eventually created to impart 'formal' instruction in these
subjects (that is, painting, sculpture and architecture) with a strong theoretical basis.

3. The arts of painting and sculpture were for the first time required to be preceded by the adjective
'beau' (fine) which amounted to their being put on a pedestal. This resulted in crafts being not only
identified as separate from the rest but also relegated to a much lower status.
4. During the same period canvas was discovered as the legitimate surface for painting which made
painting to be treated as an object instead of an integral part of a built space; a portable object to be
kept in galleries and personal collections. This had a latter-day implication of great import because we
know that today art has become one of the most powerful means for financial investment and
speculation.

The syndrome of pure-versus-lesser arts * Context only

• The separation of the plastic arts from crafts combined with their elevation as fine arts naturally
had an adverse effect on the status of crafts.
• The situation became even worse because of the thinking prevalent among contemporary
European philosophers and art critics.
• The theory of aesthetics in Europe had remained almost unchanged since the time of Aristotle.
Approximately during the same period as the French Academy, new ideas were being put
forward by the aesthetes.
• Prominent amongst these was the German philosopher Immanual Kant who suggested a
distinction between what he called the PURE BEAUTY and the PURPOSEFUL BEAUTY.
• To support the distinction, he gave an example of the flower and the flower vase. A flower being
a natural object, was for him, pure in its beauty while the flower vase which is a man-made
object was classified as the possessor of purposeful beauty. Even though Kant never aimed at
considering the purposeful beauty of a man-made object any less than the "pure beauty" of a
natural object, his distinction was misinterpreted by the aesthetes of the eighteenth-century
Europe. The real damage was done when the same argument was later employed to identify
painting and sculpture as fine, hence pure, arts and all handmade objects of use as useful, and
therefore, lesser arts.
• There was another factor which contributed to the further lowering of the status of craft in the
period that followed the Industrial Revolution i.e. the first half of the nineteenth century. This
was the time when mechanization of hand production processes started.