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Massive arcades
Such is the abundance of granite rock at Hampi that massive projects could easily be envisaged. Like constructing two lengthy arcades for the entranceway to a temple complex. Hundreds of massive pillars, heavy but simple, for a massive project indeed. In contrast, inside the complex, reliefs of love and tenderness that clearly betray how much…
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Stonecutters’ paradise
Elegant camels, mounted horsemen. and of course, as always, the graceful women … it’s as if we can appreciate these scenes from daily life even more when depicted in stone. Maybe it is because we can feel the pleasure the sculptors of Hampi must have had in cutting these reliefs. The non-sculptured walls are impressive…
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Giant boulders galore
“Better on it than under it”, the little bird must have thought when it landed on this massive piece of granite rock. This must be Hampi, yes indeed. It’s not just the old monuments of the historical capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire that enchant us, the boulder-strewn landscape in which they lie scattered is…
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Globed breasts adorned with pearls
Globed breasts adorned with pearls sandal-misted, wide curving hips with girdles strung with bells, precious anklets making music on their lotus feet, lit with happiness deep within women now enhance their beauty. In strophes like this Kālidāsa sings of the feminine ideal in his long poem Ṛtusaṃhāram (The Gathering of the Seasons, translation from the…
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Classmates
So, after last week’s Indian beauty, do we have here another budding Miss World in front of us? Classmates on a school outing to Hampi. They are both lovely girls, each one in her own way, as so many children of this age the world over. The beauty of Indian women. I looked up a…
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Miss World & Mister Universe
Miss World is what she was, Aishwarya Rai, way back in 1994, after which she became one of Bollywood’s superstars. And yes, the person next to her is Mister Universe, Shiva the cosmic dancer, already for quite a while by now. Nice seeing them so innocently side by side, these two emblems of popular Indian…
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Shiva taking a break
They have put him aside under the tree, till further notice, till they need him again for some procession or festival. He looks nice, tall as he is, with all his usual attributes. If he had not been standing there I surely wouldn’t have noticed the really fine and varied foliage of the different trees,…
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Béla Tarr and the seventh art
His last and maybe final film: The Turin Horse (black and white, 146′, 2011). There is inside and outside. Outside: a deafening storm rages over the barren land. The gale blows clouds of sand and dead leaves in the air. A desolate bare tree stands on the hill in front of the farm. Inside: the…
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Art with a wink
The one girl looks intently at the other, and vice versa. Each one utterly intrigued by the sight of the other. I remember I had a funnily-meant little book long ago, called ‘Kunst met een knipoog’ (‘Art with a wink’), with a winking Mona Lisa on the cover. Here it is not the girls that…
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Model backs
Lovely loose hanging hair. An equally lovely loose hanging little dress, revealing a beautiful, delicate back. Don’t turn round angels, you may break the enchantment! A village woman from the hills. Her bare lower back betrays a slender waist and sinuous, strong body. As an animal in the wild. And then, a woman’s back and…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
καιρός remembered 