Stillness in Motion

VISUALISE a slow movement of your hand from your lap to your face. Now repeat it faster and faster. What you could not perceive in the slow ...

VISUALISE a slow movement of your hand from your lap to your face. Now repeat it faster and faster. What you could not perceive in the slow movement you notice in the fast ones: a continuous perception of your hand as it moves back and forth. But your hand would have turned into multiple hands, as it were, as you shake your hand about. The next thing to imagine is that any movement of your body, no matter how languid or slow, or that of any solid object, would produce a trail of invisible images. We, of course, cannot see them. But there are things the human eye cannot perceive which the camera can.

Dr Etienne Jules Marey 1830-1904 was the first who sought to investigate this by recording the movements of a horse and transcribing them on to schematic drawings. This was pushed further by Edward Muybridge who experimented on the same concept with a camera. In 1891, Marey showed the sequential movements of a swordsman by using a camera with a rapid shutter action on to a single frame. Thus chronophotography was born and so were the many uses of high-speed multiple-exposure photography. With the development of roll films the cine camera was inevitable and a powerful medium of expression and entertainment came into being.

Several artists like Manray 1890-1977 used this device of multiple movement of a solitary image on a single frame for creative photography in the early decades of the 20th century. Manray8217;s friend, Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968, explored this special way of perceiving in an important but controversial painting called Nude Descending a Staircase. This painting shows the nude in motion as she descends the steps every inch of the way, multiple and overlapping. It was considered a pioneering work as nothing like this had ever been done before and was Duchamp8217;s contribution to Cubism and contemporary art.

Call me a sentimentalist or call me a fool for considering the classical period in India more creatively powerful than our contemporary times will ever be, but I seem to receive proof of this the whole time. Such is my perception of things. In the Chola temple of Darasuram in Tamil Nadu is a magnificent carving of Ravana shaking Mount Kailash. Our ancestors of the 12th century obviously had great insight and a visual perception, which was almost magical. They had understood the fact that multiple images are created whenever a solid object is in motion. They also understood how and when to convert it into art. Here is Ravana who, through his penance and prowess, has acquired the capability of being able to shake Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva. But shaking Shiva8217;s abode requires great energy. Ravana8217;s great vigour is physically and psychologically suggested through the vibration of his arms, the multiplicity created by his two arms in swift motion.

The world knows about Duchamp. It is unfortunate that original creations such as ours remain unnoticed as great art.