It is this link between this lyrical book of the Bible, and the mystical experience that underlies much of Bhakti, or devotional poetry in India, that I tried in the following years to explore through a series of paintings on the Song of Songs, understood in the context of Indian love poetry, which has also been interpreted in a mystical sense. Fr. Abraham Mariaselvam, had made a study on “The Song of Songs and Ancient Tamil Love Poems” (Analecta Biblica 118, Editrie Pontificio Istituto Biblico—Roma 1988) I also found fascinating a collection of Tamil love poems, along with an introduction to the underlying symbolism behind these ancient works of the first centuries of the Christian Era, presented by A K. Ramanujan in a small book “The Interior Landscape” O.U.P 1994.
The series of sketches and notes which I made on the Song of Songs in 1988 became the basis for an Art Retreat and series of canvases that I developed between 1990 and 1994. They were eventually published by Fr. J. Ubelmesser in Weltweit, 1996.
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