Art is intertwined with prevailing religion and mythology

[kvchellappa]

Nine Basic Arts
Paul Weiss

Excerpts
The arts of a given society and historic period have much in common with one another, with the prevailing mythology, religion, and philosophy, and with the dominant structure, the characteristic adventures, and the typical activities of the culture and day. None of these may have been consciously noted by the artist; he might even have set himself resolutely to oppose all of them. Yet the prevailing patterns make their presence inescapably felt in the language, the routine life, the omnipresent customs, rules, arid habits which characterize him no less than it does the other embers of the culture and period. Still, a work of art is much more than a function of a given time and place.
A work of art marries habit and originality, stability and exuberance.

[sam]

Sheik Chinna Moulana And His Music Adhered To The Sanatana Ideals Of Southern India

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/sheik-c ... hern-india

[girish_a]

Another lovely article

The Charmer of Chilakaluripeta – Sheik Chinna Moulana

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-cha ... na-moulana

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From Swarajya: V S Ramachandran
“There are two aspects of India that make it unique even among ancient civilisations.
First, it is the only country whose present customs, values and religious practices can claim a direct lineage from what existed four millennia ago.
Second, here in the West, each of the separate strands of music, visual art, mythology, religion is supremely sophisticated but often pursued in isolation from others.
Walk into the Kapaliswara temple whose foundations were laid two thousand years ago. When you enter into the temple precincts, you see a group of teenagers reciting the Vedas in Sanskrit as they have been doing for four thousand years. Inside the inner sanctum are sculptures of Shiva – a deity depicted in Harappan seals (3000 BCE) – surrounded by worshippers chanting hymns in Sanskrit which are older and closer to the root language than Latin and Greek. A hundred yards away a man is dancing to a song about Ganapathi’s brother – the warrior god Skanda. The dance form – Bharatanatya – was invented by sage Bharata in the 3rd century BCE. Unlike the West, all these different aspects of life and culture are in harmonious resonance, and are integrated into one’s daily life routines. As we walk out of the temple we pass through a lane full of vendors selling jasmine and rose garlands and vibhuthi (sacred ash) as they have been doing in that same lane for a millennium.”