South Asia - Subcontinent
India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
Nearly
33,500 years ago, Aryan invaders from Central Asia spread over South Asia
and founded one of the oldest civilizations on earth--India. Today this seventh
largest country with a population of more than 850 million still nurtures
its ancient heritage, one which has been tempered by many hundreds of years
of foreign invasions and influence.
My
painting depicts people from India's three major races. In the north and in
large sections of the Indian peninsula, the Aryan, a Caucasoid race, dominates.
In the mountainous Himalayan region, which extends two thousand miles from
Kashmir in the east to the spice coasts of Malabar, dwell people of the Mongoloid
race, as represented by the three faces from Ladakh in the upper left corner
of the work. In central and southern India, an aboriginal people known as
the Vedda, or Dravidian, reside. From the heartland of India north to the
magnetic charms of Kashmir, Ladakh, and Nepal, and east and south to the mesmerizing
climes of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, I enjoyed the cheerful, relaxed, but hardworking
people of South Asia.
"When humor, especially the luxury of self humor (laughing at one's self), flavors the human drama, something happens that literally frees one's spirit to discover the goodness in others. It's the oil that also opens the mind to trust certain conditions that may exist beyond one's physical and psychological control."
Copyright © 1999, R. Padre Johnson