ENGLISH Answer the Questions [2 MARKS]

The ‘untutored genius’ who created ‘paradise’ was Nek Chand, an 80-year-old creator- director who made the world famous rock garden at Chandigarh. His was an ‘outsider art’ in which he sculpted with stone and recycled materials. He used anything and everything from a tin to a sink to a broken down car to form an artistic piece. One of his famous creations are ‘Women by the Waterfall’.

‘Outsiders art’ refers to those art who have no right to be artists as they have recieved no formal training yet show talent and artistic insight. ‘Art brut’ or ‘raw art’ are the works of art in their raw state as regards cultural and artistic influences.

Shanshui, meaning ‘mountain-water’, refers to a style of Chinese painting that involves natural landscapes, the landscape which is an inner one, a spiritual and conceptual space. It represents the two complementary poles (‘vin’ and ‘young’) reflecting the Daoist view of the universe.

The Chinese paintings are based on imaginative, inner or spiritual approach whereas the European paintings reproduce an actual view, of an external or real object. The paintings of Wu Daozi and later painters of Europe illustrate the difference.

Dutch language is spoken in Flanders which is a region in Belgium.

The Indian culture lays stress on Nature and God. Nature is the ‘Yin’ or female part whereas God-the creator, is the male part. This concept also known as ‘Maya’ or ‘Brahma’. The combination of two creates the whole world, all it’s. objects and also inhabitants.

This phrase explains The Chinese art from where a Chinese painter wants you to enter his mind rather than borrow his eyes. This is a physical as well as a mental participation. It is a landscape created by the artist to travel up and down and back again, through the viewer’s eyes. The landscape is not ‘real’ and can be reached from any point.

This sentence explains the fact that even though an Emperor might rule an entire kingdom and have power over his conquered territory, only an artist would be able to go beyond any material appearance. He knows both the path and the method of the mysterious work of the universe. True meaning of his work can be seen only by means known to him, irrespective of how powerful an emperor is.

The third element in Daoism is the middle void. It is often overlooked. It can be compared with the Yogic practice of ‘pranayama’, i.e., ‘breathe in, retain, breathe out’-the suspension of breath is the Void where meditation occurs.

Wu Daozi was a Chinese painter who lived in the eighth century. Tang Emperor Xuanzopg employed him to decorate a palace wall. The Emperor was very happy with the painting. It had forests, high mountains, waterfalls, clouds floating in the sky, men on hilly paths and birds in flight. Once the painter told the Emperor that in that cave, at the foot of the mountain, there lived a spirit. The painter clapped his hands and the entrance to the cave opened. Inside the cave was splendid beyond any verbal expression. Then the painter entered the cave, but the entrance closed behind him. Before the astonished Emperor could move or utter a word, the painting had vanished from the wall. Neither a trace of Wu Daozi’s brush nor the artist was seen again in this world.

A master blacksmith named Quinten Metsys lived in Antwerp in the fifteenth century. He fell in love with a painter’s daughter. The father would not accept a son-in-law in the profession of blacksmith, so he was not ready to get his daughter married with him. Once Quinten secretly entered the painter’s studio and painted a fly on his latest panel. The fly looked so real that the father tried to swat it away. With this influence, he immediately admitted Quinten as an apprentice into his studio. Later he married the painter’s daughter and went on to become one of the most famous painters of his age.

The European painter wants the viewer to borrow his eyes and look at a particular landscape exactly as he saw it, from a specific angle. While the Chinese painter does not choose a single viewpoint. His landscape is not a ‘real’ one and a viewer can enter it from any point, then travel in it. The Chinese artist creates a path for a viewer’s eyes to travel up and down, then back again, in a leisurely movement. The Chinese painter does not want a viewer to borrow his eyes; he wants a viewer to enter his mind. The landscape is an inner one, a spiritual and conceptual space.

Nek Chand is 80-year-old creator-director. He is now hailed as India’s biggest contributor to outsider art. Years ago he cleaned a little patch of jungle and made himself a garden sculpted with stone and recycled material. Today it is known to the world as the Rock Garden at Chandigarh. He believes that anything and everything from a tin. to a sink to a broken down car could be material for a work of art.