Cultural - Traditional - Artistic Context from Ramayana - Free Essay

Question: Write an essay that examines the cultural, traditional, and artistic context of the text and painting from the Ramayana book. Research and explain at least one cultural reference in either the painting or the text that helps better understand the significance of the story. Compare the content of the painting and the text to explain how the artist interprets the source material in a unique way. Compare the painting and the text to explain how the change in medium affects the way certain key scenes or events from the text are represented. Follow the basic format of a five-paragraph essay, where each of your body paragraphs addresses one of the three main topics mentioned above. Include a conclusion paragraph that re-emphasizes the importance of culture, tradition, and artistic medium in understanding the two works. Answer: Introduction Ramayana is an oral tale. It plays an important role in Hindu literature. It's been carried out in many forms such as reciting in ritual contexts, song, dance and theatre, paintings. Painting was an important part of that period. Paintings depicted their whole life. It gives us a glimpse to understand their political, social and cultural life. Here we will discuss how painting helps us in understanding it more significantly. Even the Ramayana guides us. It depicts the ideal relationship of husband, brother, wife and king. Cultural reference in painting that helps to understand better the significance of the story Dasharastra was the king of Ayodhya. He had three wives but was childless for a long time. After a long time Rama, Lakshman, and Shatrughna was born. Vishnu was chosen to demolish Ravana. The picture depicts that throughout the story Rama and Lakshmana were Vishnu's companion. They both received instruction as well as supernatural weapons to destroy Ravan.Many of the paintings described the entire activity of Rama. The picture shows the birth of the four sons and the celebration, another picture also depicting Bharata asking for Rama's footwear (Ghosh, 2012). The paintings give us the deep history of Ramayana. A painting helps us to know more about the story. Without the contribution of painting, it would not have been possible to know much about the history of that era. Paintings give us a direct impression of knowing the incident. Paintings are of great archaeological sources (Filliozat, 2012). The most famous painting depicting the Battle of Lanka gives us much information about understanding the Ramayana. The painting showed us how attempts were made to rescue Sita from Ravan. The Lanka Bridge was made by building a bridge. Here Hanuman played a great role. Rama and Lakshmana with their allies proceeded towards the shore. The Rama was successful in rescuing Sita. Ravan was killed by Ram. This incident creates an impression on human society that evil can be destroyed. This is the symbol of the power of good over the devil (O'Brien, 2012). On the basis of this the festival Diwali is celebrated throughout the world. Comparison of the content of selected painting and the artist interpretation of the source material in a unique way In art, word, phrase, an image can showcase different meaning to the artist or viewer. It's a human nature that we see things from a different perspective and interpret differently due to our behavior. The photographer Vasantha half French and half Sri Lankan viewed Ramayana as an epic story that changed his life (Saini, 2014). He used the word "A Myth of two Souls '' his project on the ancient Hindu Poem to bind together a personal allegory. In this project, he uses a combination of text and photographs, even original extract from the epic to related the present events with Ramayana. He used paintings as well as many documents for reflecting the importance of the story in the modern world. He used to travel a lot in searching and interpreting Ramayana in different ways. He came to a conclusion that Ramayana has changed irrevocably. He mentioned that the epic tells us many adventures things as well as gave a description on the exile of Rama. It's the story of courage, friendship, loyalty and justice. It has attached deep religious significance (Kumari, 2014). Throughout the centuries, the artist are inspired by the religious importance attached to the epic. Comparison of the selected painting The Ramayana has grown from a fictional account to a religious scripture. It direct us and gives us a lesson that how a person should live with a noble heart. There are some paintings found that gives a better glimpse of inter-linkage of the paintings and text. Many times political-social culture influences writing. In paintings, there is a greater scope to express them. Visual paintings are hard to create. In Ramayana, there are lots of paintings found that narrated the whole event, but the text is not totally supporting it.There is a painting show casting Sita after been kidnaped by Rama (ADHAM, 2012). The perspective of looking at the painting raised many questions on a part of Sita. The portrayal and description were not the same. Instances are been found that the medium of presenting affects the actual presentation of the piece. The painting and text has a different impression on the viewer. Conclusion The paintings are a great source of history. The painting in Ramayana draws our attention to the great epic attaching the religious significance. The paintings are a source of learning. By looking at the painting, many events of Ramayana was depicted beautifully. The paintings are a great source of learning. Reference List Ghosh, S. K. (2012). Ramayana in the North-East India. Filliozat, P. S. (2012). From epos to metaphysics: the fate of ramayana in sanskrit literature. Comptes rendus des seances de l academia des inscriptions belles-lettres, (1), 359-369. O'Brien, K. (2012). Acri, Creese and Griffiths (eds): From Laka Eastwards: The Ramayana in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia. xvi, 259 pp. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011. 29.90. ISBN 978 90 6718 384 0. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 75(03), 606-607. Saini, S. (2014). Crisis and response in Ramayana (Valmiki), shahnama and hiad: a comparative study. Kumari, G. P. (2014). Study of Science Fiction in Modern English Literature. ADHAM, N. (2013). Devils of drought in shahnameh and ramayana: a comparative study.