Nirad Das’s nude watercolor portrait of Flora Crewe represents their artistic, cultural, intellectual, and romantic connection—which is also the core subject of Indian Ink. When they start collaborating, Das starts and abandons a conventional oil-on-canvas portrait of Flora writing on her verandah in her blue dress. Flora tells Das that she has a “delicate question” for him, but doesn’t ask it until many days later, when she collapses and he helps her take a bath: will he paint her in the nude? It isn’t the first time she’s modeled nude—Modigliani painted her years ago (and may have infected her with tuberculosis in the process). Das agrees and starts painting, but Flora leaves Jummapur before he can finish—and dies before she can return.
Das and Flora only move forward with the nude portrait because of the intimacy they have built so far: they have discussed England and India, politics and culture, art and love. They have found that, even though they are supposed to be on opposite sides of the colonial world’s sharp division between English and Indian people, they actually see eye-to-eye on most things—including the injustice of British rule in India. As Das paints an Englishwoman and Flora writes poetry about India, their artistic processes become an attempt to fuse visual and literary art, male and female, and English and Indian culture. Eventually, Flora insists that Das paint the nude portrait from his own, distinctly Indian perspective—instead of continuing to imitate English painters. In this sense, the nude represents a true synthesis of Indian and English styles, influences, and identities—the same synthesis that Stoppard puts front and center throughout this play.
The Nude Portrait Quotes in Indian Ink
PIKE “Perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like … Radha?”
MRS SWAN Radha.
PIKE “—the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed—”
MRS SWAN (Interrupting, briskly) Well, the portrait, as it happens, is on canvas and Flora is wearing her cornflower dress.
DAS (Unhesitatingly) The rasa of erotic love is called Shringara. Its god is Vishnu, and its colour is shyama, which is blue-black. Vishvanata in his book on poetics tells us: Shringara requires, naturally, a lover and his loved one, who may be a courtesan if she is sincerely enamoured, and it is aroused by, for example, the moon, the scent of sandalwood, or being in an empty house. Shringara goes harmoniously with all other rasa and their complementary emotions, with the exception of fear, cruelty, disgust and sloth.
FLORA That was the thing I was going to ask you.
DAS When?
FLORA The delicate question … whether you would prefer to paint me nude.
DAS Oh.
LORA I preferred it. I had more what-do-you-call it.
DAS Rasa.
FLORA (Laughs quietly) Yes, rasa.
ANISH My father abandoned this portrait.
MRS SWAN Why?
ANISH He began another one.
MRS SWAN How do you know, Mr Das?
ANISH Because I have it.
He opens his briefcase and withdraws the watercolour which is hardly larger than the page of a book, protected by stiff boards. He shows her the painting which is described in the text.
MRS SWAN Oh heavens! Oh … yes … of course. How like Flora.
ANISH More than a good likeness, Mrs Swan.
MRS SWAN No … I mean, how like Flora!
DAS Oh!—you’re not dying are you?!
FLORA I expect so, but I intend to take years and years about it. You’ll be dead too, one day, so let me be a lesson to you. Learn to take no notice. I said nothing about your painting, if you want to know, because I thought you’d be an Indian artist.
DAS An Indian artist?
FLORA Yes. You are an Indian artist, aren’t you? Stick up for yourself. Why do you like everything English?
DAS I do not like everything English.
FLORA Yes, you do. You’re enthralled. Chelsea, Bloomsbury, Oliver Twist, Gold Flake cigarettes, Winsor and Newton … even painting in oils, that’s not Indian. You’re trying to paint me from my point of view instead of yours—what you think is my point of view. You deserve the bloody Empire!
FLORA If you don’t start learning to take you’ll never be shot of us. Who whom. Nothing else counts. Mr Chamberlain is bosh. Mr Coomaraswami is bosh. It’s your country, and we’ve got it. Everything else is bosh. When I was Modi’s model I might as well have been a table. When he was done, he got rid of me. There was no question who whom. You’d never change his colour on a map. But please light your Gold Flake.
PIKE Do you think he had a relationship with Flora Crewe?
DILIP But of course—a portrait is a relationship.
PIKE No, a relationship.
DILIP I don’t understand you.
PIKE He painted her nude.
DILIP I don’t think so.
PIKE Somebody did.
DILIP In 1930, an Englishwoman, an Indian painter … it is out of the question.
PIKE Not if they had a relationship.
DILIP Oh … a relationship? Is that what you say? (Amused) A relationship!
PIKE This is serious.
DILIP (Laughing) Oh, it’s very serious. What do you say for—well, for “relationship?”
PIKE Buddies. (Dilip almost falls off his chair with merriment.) Please, Dilip …
Codswallop! Your “house within a house,” as anyone can see, is a mosquito net. And the book is Emily Eden, it was in her suitcase. Green with a brown spine. You should read the footnotes!
FLORA There is enough light. Mr Coomaraswami was quite right about the moon. (Flora unwraps the paper.) It’s going to be a drawing, isn’t it? … Oh!
DAS (Nervous, bright) Yes! A good joke, is it not? A Rajput miniature, by Nirad Das!
FLORA (Not heeding him) Oh … it’s the most beautiful thing …
DAS (Brightly) I’m so pleased you like it! A quite witty pastiche—
FLORA (Heeding him now) Are you going to be Indian? Please don’t.
DAS (Heeding her) I … I am Indian.
FLORA An Indian artist.
It’s no go the records of the Theosophical Society, it’s no go the newspaper files partitioned to ashes … All we want is the facts and to tell the truth in our fashion … Her knickers were made of crêpe-de-Chine, her poems were up in Bow Street, her list of friends laid end to end … weren’t in it for the poetry. But it’s no go the watercolour, it’s no go the Modigliani … The glass is falling hour by hour, and we’re back in the mulligatawny … But we will leave no Das unturned. He had a son.
Quite possibly. Or with Captain Durance. Or His Highness the Rajah of Jummapur. Or someone else entirely. It hardly matters, looking back. Men were not really important to Flora. If they had been, they would have been fewer. She used them like batteries. When things went flat, she’d put in a new one … I’ll come to the gate with you. If you decide to tell Mr Pike about the watercolour, I’m sure Flora wouldn’t mind.
“Darling, that’s all from Jummapur, because how I’m packed, portrait and all, and Mr Coomaraswami is coming to take me to the station. I’ll post this in Jaipur as soon as I get there. I’m not going to post it here because I’m not. I feel fit as two lops this morning, and happy, too, because something good happened here which made me feel halfway better about Modi and getting back to Paris too late. That was a sin I’ll carry to my grave, but perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like Radha who was the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed for love in an empty house.”
The Nude Portrait Symbol Timeline in Indian Ink
