Following her exhibition of Savitri paintings in 1967, Huta felt strongly a need to express some of Sri Aurobindo’s poems and sonnets through the same medium. With the Mother’s blessings she began this work in March of the same year. On the first day the Mother read a passage from Songs to Myrtilla, made a sketch with a few strokes, and explained to her the colour scheme. The Mother was very happy with the painting that Huta rendered that night inspired from that sketch.

“Simply sit in front of the boards”, she told her with a luminous gaze, “and the inspiration will come,” and she caressed her hands. With these words in her heart and under the occasional direct guidance of the Mother, Huta completed 54 paintings by September 1967.

Huta’s book Pictures of Sri Aurobindo’s Poems is a collection of these paintings alongside Sri Aurobindo’s verses that inspired the pictures and some of the Mother’s comments.

In this book one sees how Huta intricately fills her canvas in her own style, embracing her forms with a force of vivid colours and bold textures in some paintings or subtle colours with soft strokes in others to express the nature of the poem. She explores with her brush strokes her own journey and experience of the poems, reflecting their individual voices and subjects.

Painting is an expression of the artist’s personal journey with the Divine. The viewer should try to see beyond the mere appreciation of the picture with the physical eye and feel or experience its subtle vibration and the consciousness that was put into it as demonstrated in some of the examples that follow.

The Dream Boat

Who was it that came to me in a boat made of dream-fire,
       With his flame brow and his sun-gold body?
Melted was the silence into a sweet secret murmur,
       “Do you come now? is the heart’s fire ready?”

In the painting for “The Dream Boat” Huta illustrates a boat of fire with a representation of a divine being as a boy standing on this boat. An aura of light surrounds his head and he basks in soft golden light. The sea has a serene movement and merges with the hues of the sky. Gently-introduced pink tones indicate the sweet secret murmur.

Beyond the Silence

One with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
Drowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
Swan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering
            winged through the universe,
Spirit immortal.

For “Beyond the Silence”, Huta depicts a swan soaring upwards as a symbol of the individual soul turning towards the Divine. She lifts the paint in its wings to create feathers and infuses dream-like soft colours for the spaceless ether, bringing a quietude to the canvas.

     Adwaita

I walked on the high-wayed Seat of Solomon
     Where Shankaracharya’s tiny temple stands
Facing Infinity from Time’s edge, alone
     On the bare ridge ending earth’s vain romance.

A lofty mountain strikes the eye with its bold colours in the painting inspired by “Adwaita”, and in its rendering the upward strokes of the brush carry the eye to the top where one discovers a temple in white. The subtle blue hues of the sky create a sacred atmosphere around the temple.

     Divine Sight

A master-work of colour and design,
     A mighty sweetness borne on grandeur’s wings;
A burdened wonder of significant line
     Reveals itself in even commonest things.

A divine being almost ethereal is shown in the painting for “Divine Sight”. A suggestion of fields, a river, birds, and a mountain peak in the background, rendered in light-filled, happy tones, create an atmosphere of delight and wonder.

In Huta’s paintings one feels a concentration of consciousness that permeates the canvas and a meditative energy flowing out from her work. In this rare book Huta shares with us her exquisite journey with the Mother through her soulful paintings on Sri Aurobindo’s poems.

Gopika