“Blessed are the rich and powerful, blessed are those who are happy, blessed are the good-looking and famous, blessed are the violent.” The seemingly dominant values of our age can feel ultimately shallow, unreal, materialistic, perverse.

But how realistic/true/practical are the words of the Sermon on the Mount? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well, etc., etc.”

The residency ‘The Sermon on the Mount in India Today,’ featuring artists Meghansh Thapa, Manmeet Sandhu, Digbijayee Khatua, Gagan Bihari Mandal Bihari, Nirakar Choudhury, and Stefan Prakash Eicher explored an ‘upside down’ moral vision for human relationships in the context of contemporary issues such as violence against women, disparity between rich and poor, public corruption, etc.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Christ’s Sermon on the Mount fills me with bliss even today. Its sweet verses have even today the power to quench my agony of soul…The Sermon on the Mount left a deep impression on my mind when I read it. I do believe with you that the real meaning of the teachings of Jesus will be delivered from India.”

Manmeet Sandhu

Title :' Rain catcher' (Mixed Media, 18”x6”x6”)

The artwork is an interactive installation which aims to highlight the importance of sharing, cooperation and persistent joint effort for a sustainable development. The work propagates the concept by acting as a rainwater collector and dispensing it through the built-in sprinkler on to a bed of seeds. But in case of no rain the work demands viewer's participation to live and thrive, i.e if not watered by the viewer the bed of seeds will turn into a bed of nails.

Gagan Bihari Mandal

Title: ‘Choice is Yours’ (Acrylic on Canvas, 10’x3’)

My painting title “Choice is yours” speaks in a metaphor with the meanings of the “The Sermon on the Mount”. This large format work on canvas presents a world that is both Bible and old ancient Indian treatise “Natyashasthra” by Bharatmuni and my own experience. 

Christ had given the moral view and teachings to the general people on the mount. That is called “The Sermon on the Mount”. Since my childhood, I have seen that kind of moral teachings in the wall of school, club and so on through written text. “The Sermon on the Mount” is a moral teaching, so I connected all of things in my painting through a sentence “Choice is yours”. I have shown here different kinds of glasses and brass water pots to symbolise upper and lower classes and saints. Nowadays we give a high value—as like God—to saints and holy men, but we don’t know what they really are? But my main idea is looking at this in a metaphoric way. Here all the glasses and water pots symbolise the human mind and the 9 colours of water are like the 9 emotions (Navarasa). This was explained by Bharatmuni in Natyashasthra. The Navarasa is compared to colours. One example: If we put milk in a glass, then we call it a glass of milk. If we put poison in a glass, then we called a glass of poison. By this way which emotion we put in our mind, that will be reflected through by us. Nowadays it is very difficult to go through the Beattitudes. But it is not impossible also. If we will carry those things in our mind, then we can do it.

Nirakar Chowdhury

Title: The Beatitudes of Love (Acrylic on Canvas, 4’x4’)

This painting is about love and the connection between God and his bhakts, his devotees. God is the tree on the hill: free, large, all-knowing, without wrong, without shape. Below, we his bhakts, human, limited, defined, knowing some things, not much. The Sermon on the Mount is a set of lessons to be studied, on how to live, how to love. It is about a relationship, a connection, between God and human beings.

Stefan Prakash Eicher

Title: ‘Blessed are Those who Run Out of Gas’ (Watercolour & Charcoal on Rice paper, 6”x6”)

The first beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’, communicates that we are blessed when we recognize just how spiritually bankrupt we all actually are, no matter our religious position in life, or any amount of self-righteousness or spiritual merit we think we have earned. That moment we realize our fuel-tank is empty—both literally and metaphorically—is a blessed moment. It is the opportunity to see the reality of our bankruptcy. And it is also the moment we can allow ourselves to be filled by God himself, the Kingdom of Heaven.

Title: ‘Blessed are Those whose House gets Bulldozed’ (Watercolour & Charcoal on Rice paper, 6”x6”)

The fact of slum demolition is real, the loss of decades of a poor family’s investments, destroyed in a few minutes by a government that callously ignores its mandate to build low-income housing, and labeling the poor ‘illegal’ hands over land to the rich and powerful. Yet ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ This points to a larger reality, a promise of ultimate justice, but this also a picture of an individual coming to the end of himself. When we have lost all, all is not lost. The empty hand, held open, is filled.

Digbijayee Khatua

Titles: ‘Journey in our Life’ (Acrylic on Canvas, 3’x4’), ‘Village and Town 0 km’ (Acrylic on Canvas, 2’x3’)

My painting titled “Journey in our Life” explores the meanings of the topic ‘Sermon on the Mount’. I normally show kaleidoscope of bright vibrant, joyous colours with miniature-like detailing to show the conventional beauty of particular man-made objects so the viewers can easily associate with the painting. My work “Journey in our Life” represents the beattitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” My creations effectively explore several of the most fundamental dichotomies inherent to individual and societal psyche, e.g. painting urban against rural, nature and culture, and stylisation of city and roads and so on—the divisions that have no plausible explanation and carry no easy solutions.

My work uses house interiors and I compare the world to a road. The road shows the journey of life, typically a picture of busy city traffic, the rat-race, marked by monuments of what or whom society deeps important—typically statues of politicians. But “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” and thus in this work my statues are of the small and the poor, the farmer, the labourer, the woman.

Our thinking is the city is very important and the village is not importent. In my painting I see the village and the city as both important in our life.