Research on South Indian Temple Art: A Conversation with French Art Historian Dr Rachel Loizeau
Junmoni Borgohain
Profiles: Rachel Loizeau, Junmoni Borgohain, Pinaki Gayen, Priyadarshi Patnaik
(All images courtesy: Dr. Rachel Loizeau and Wikipedia)
Dr Rachel Loizeau’s book
India had a rich tradition of temple architecture where most of the panels, columns, interiors and exteriors are decorated with relief-sculptures and ornamental design-motifs. Most of the temple sculptures represent the story of Hindu gods and goddesses through horizontal and vertical narratives. The relief-sculptures are engraved not only with artistic skill, but also with mathematical precision so that architectural harmony is maintained and everything is placed in order. Many researchers have been fascinated for centuries trying to explore different aspects related to the Indian temple art using various scientific methodologies.
We are fortunate to have Dr. Rachel Loizeau, one such researcher, with us for a brief conversation. Dr. Rachel is a contemporary art historian who was born and brought up in France. Her research extensively explores the South-Indian temple architectures, specifically the Hoysala temple relief sculptures. Dr. Rachel visited the IIT Kharagpur campus where she discussed about her research on Hoysala temple sculptures.
Junmoni Borgohain a scholar of psychology, visual and music aesthetics at IIT Kharagpur, along with Pinaki Gayen, conducted an interview of Dr. Loizeau which provides rich insight into remarkably interesting aspects of visuals in her research.
Junmoni Borgohain: Where did you grow up? Please tell us about your background, and how did you come to know about Indian Art? We are interested to know about your motivation behind ex ploring art history?
Rachel Loizeau: I grew up in a small village of France. I was really young when I knew about India. I was reading a kids book. It was about Ganesha. I found the book very interesting and later on I got interested in Indian mythology.
In the first year at the University, I chose Art history. It was not my first choice; I never wanted to be an art historian. I wanted to be a journalist, and I wanted to do some documentaries that was my esteem and still my passion. But my parents didn’t want me to do this. They were upset but I had to choose some … which was very difficult, but I had to do it.
I had some interest in visual arts and I decided to do art history. In my first year, there was Indian art in our course and I was very impressed by India art. My family did not know about India and nobody in my family had ever been to India. I was 13 years old when I started planning to go to India. When I started Art History, and found a course that was on Indian art, I picked up the course and started to acquire knowledge about the course in the first semester. Then I did everything in Asian Art and gradually I got my specialization in Indian Art. I have done my studies in Sorbonne University and my PhD was also from the same university.
My supervisors are not really well known. I had a co-supervisor who was from Sri Lanka. He specialized on Indian and South Asian arts; he worked in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. I was one of his students. He was a very good supervisor.
Pinaki Gayen: How did you come to know about South Indian Temples?
RL: Initially I did not ask my supervisor for the specific research area of my PhD. I didn’t want to work on Temple art, but I wanted to work on Ramayana, my only topic for many years.
It was a possibility to travel; you have Ramayana in South East Asia, East Asia. In my first semester I worked on abduction of Sita by Ravana, a comparative study between Indian and Cambodian representations. That was my first topic. In the second semester I worked on first Indian representation of Ramayana in Indian Sculpture, i.e. Terracotta from the Gupta time till the Chanakya (8th Century). In my PhD, I focused on Ramayana. Initially, in the South Indian sculpture in Hoysala temples. This topic was so huge that I had to change the focus only on the representation of narratives of the Ursula temples - Ramayana, Mahabharata, Krishna and any puranic stories depicted with these. I have been working on this field and everyone knows me for my work on Ramayana. I have been therefore invited to conferences on Ramayana in Berkley, Oxford, and in India, because I have published articles / works on this topic.
JB: Did you visit India during your PhD?
RL: Yeah, much earlier than my PhD. It was in 1998, I had my first trip to India. In 1999, I thought to settle in India and thereafter I stayed here for 5 years. Tamil Nadu was my first love. I also had specialization in Chola art. Initially I did not plan to work for my PhD in India, but wanted to settle and discover India. At the end I went into academics, PhD with the French-Indo scholarship, affiliated to Chennai University in the Tamil department. After that, I got an Indian scholarship as well from India.
JB: Is there any specific temple that you work on?
RL: I did my work on a specific group of temples under the Hoysala dynasty. They reigned over Karnataka from 10th to 14th century. But my work is on the medieval time dating from. 13th-14th century. I worked on a group of them, not all of them. These temples have one specific characteristic; they have a raised base and they have huge basements with huge layers like fully engraved with narrative stories, they are based on epic stories, puranic stories, it’s like children’s book. They are small, just about 15 cm, but very detailed made from stone. Three stories Ramayana, Mahabharata and Krishna’s childhood are depicted in all these temples except one temple which had only Krishna stories. In some temples Krishna is located in different locations, not in the basement, but in the railings of the temple.
There was an existing book on the same research area and I extended my colleagues work through my research. Prof. Settar from Karnatake, NIAS (National Institute in Advanced Studies, Bengaluru) did his work on Hoysala temples. For me, it was not about the Hoysala temples, but mostly the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata depicted in the basements of the Hoysala temples. One of my books is Narrative tradition in Karanataka, Epic and puranic stories in Hoysala temples 12th-13th centuries.
PG: What methodology was used in documentation?
RL: Before going to a field trip, I go through research publications on my topic, archaeological surveys and reports. Location mapping and application for funds, either I have people to work with me or I work on my own. I go to the site, take pictures and get trust of the people, concentrate on my observations. I take a lot of pictures, as much as photographic materials I observe. Analyze images of the temples. I have collected on particular episodes. Next is publication of the work. I have a huge archive of images and published 250 photos in my book. For my next book I wish to publish a series of each Hoysala temple artwork. I have been teaching for four years on Ancient Indian art and contemporary Indian art in a university in West France. Also, I teach one course on north Indian Cinema. I worked in Cambodia for 2 years and in Singapore in a museum, hired a research fellow to work on Ramayana for an international exhibition. I worked in some temples in Cambodia based on Ramayana.
JB: We are interested to know about your Current projects.
RL: I have two books in mind, short books. Narrating one of my days when I was staying at the Ballygunge area in Kolkata, describing the daily life of people who are just selling and collecting stuff, not people who cook on the streets, but chabi-wala (key-seller), chai-wala (tea-seller) plastic-bag collectors and bottle collectors. It is basically a description of the daily life. Anecdotes about Kolkata, 5 am to 8 pm. I am writing and sketching on these people. The second one is on interesting aspects of the architectures of Kolkata. I am happy to explore these things.
JB: Thank you very much Dr. Loizeau for sharing your research work on Indian arts. We believe that Muse India readers would be interested to know and explore further about your work.