Enduring Epics

Preface

The prospect of inaugurating the 2014 art exhibits at MOSA with such outstanding, accomplished artists as Shobha Broota, Raghupati Bhat, and Poosapati Parameshwar Raju fills me with profound joy.

The inauguration will be attended by our guest of honor His Excellency M.S. Puri, ambassador of India to Belgium and the EU, and art curator Sushma K. Bahl, who has written the texts about all three artists. Moreover, this festive event will be graced by musical performances by celebrated flautist Panditji Hariprasad Chaurasia and renowned sitar player Subrata De. Our exhibition program for Indian and International artists working on spiritual, devotional and sacred art is quite dynamic and our galleries in Belgium (Radhadesh, Durbuy) and Italy (Villa Vrindavan, Florence) will be showcasing many of them in the upcoming years.

MOSA's goal is to bridge the cultural divide between India and Europe and between material and spiritual life. Art is a perfect medium to do so, and we hope that many Europeans will discover the excellent Indian artists who try to convey a spiritual message. We are convinced that MOSA's visitors will come to appreciate and enjoy the currently exhibited work of all three artists.

Raghupati Bhat's exhibit shares gallery space with Parameshwar Raju's. The two complement each other rather nicely. The Ramayana has been told and retold as well as depicted in the arts for millennia, and human society never tires of hearing these wonderful pastimes of the Lord. The Lord is eternal and so are His pastimes. We only inhabit this planet for a short time, and the greatest achievement obtainable by a human being is not wealth, fame, power, beauty, or material intelligence but devotion for the Almighty and making solid progress on the spiritual path.

In the paintings presented in this volume, Raghupati Bhat expertly fuses the traditional with the contemporary and offers a new interpretation of the great Indian classics: the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata Purana. These series are exquisitely composed with touches of calligraphy. Raghupati carries us to other times and plunges us in the bittersweet stories of Lord Rama and Sita Devi, the tragic and heroic pastimes of the Pandavas, and the exploits of the various avatars (incarnations) of Lord Krishna.

Let us reflect on those wonderful pastimes, and let us imbibe the high ethics and morality they contain. Lord Rama and Hanuman; Lord Krishna and Arjuna -the Lord and His dedicated servants will eternally continue to enlighten and inspire human society, no matter how materialistic it becomes. May the artistic renderings of classical texts in this catalog bring out in all onlookers feelings of genuine devotion to the Lord, of brotherhood to other human beings, and of compassion to animals and nature.

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