Thursday, June 01, 2017

The tell-tale brain

by V.S.Ramachandran Online A review Here. Wikipedia article Here
A minor point. It has this story which seems false: "I will conclude my comments on the aesthetic law of metaphor with Indian art‘s greatest icon: The Dancing Shiva, or Nataraja. In Chennai (Madras), there is bronze gallery in the state museum that houses a magnificent collection of southern Indian bronzes. One of its prize works is a twelfth-century Nataraja (Figure 8.5). One day around the turn of the twentieth century, an elderly firangi (―foreigner‖ or ―white‖ in Hindi) gentleman was observed gazing at the Nataraja in awe. To the amazement of the museum guards and patrons, he went into a sort of trance and proceeded to mimic the dance postures. A crowd gathered around, but the gentleman seemed oblivious until the curator finally showed up to see what was going on. He almost had the poor man arrested until he realized the European was none other than the world-famous sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rodin was moved to tears by The Dancing Shiva. In his writings he referred to it as one of the greatest works of art ever created by the human mind."
More about Rodin's reaction 

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