Galerie La Mère - art gallery at Lakshmi's House

Galerie La Mère is named after The Mother and was opened in homage to the Divine Artist.

Self-portrait

The Mother once said that She began to draw at the age of eight and started to learn oil painting and other painting techniques when She was ten. She added on another occasion that at twelve She was already doing portraits.

Sri Aurobindo's portrait

The Divine puts on an appearance of humanity, assumes the outward human nature in order to tread the path and show it to human beings, but does not cease to be Divine. It is a manifestation that takes place, a manifestation of a growing divine consciousness, not human turning into divine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even in childhood...Sri Aurobindo

...music and painting....

All aspects of beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just as in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearing - a kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of them - miseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everything - oh, a whole field of studies! And always this Presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organising and systematising everything. The Mother

The Mother's script of the Artist in The Great Secret

The Great Secret - a play written by The Mother.
Synopsis: Six world-famous men find themselves in a life-boat when the ship carrying them to a world Conference on Human Progress sinks in the middle of the ocean. The men are: the Statesman, the Writer, the Scientist, the Artist, the Industrialist, the Athlete and a seventh man - the Unknown Man. As provisions get exhausted and there is no hope of rescue, there is despair and each one narrates the story of his life. The Mother Herself wrote the monologues of the Artist and the Unknown man.

Extract from The Mother's script of the Artist
"I was born in a bourgeois family, quite respectable, where art was considered rather as a pastime than a career and the artists as not very serious people, inclined to debauchery and contemptuous of money, a rather dangerous thing. I felt, perhaps out of a spirit of contradiction, a compelling need to become a painter. My entire consciousness was centered in my eyes and I could express myself more easily through a sketch than through words. I learnt much better by looking at pictures than by reading books; what I saw once - landscapes, human faces or drawings - I never forgot. At the age of thirteen, I had almost mastered, through much effort, the technique of drawing, water colour, pastel and oil painting. I had occasion then to do some paid work for friends and acquaintances of my parents. As I began to earn money, my family too began looking upon my vocation seriously. I took the opportunity to make a through study of the subject. When I attained the required age, I joined the School of Fine Arts and almost immediately stood for the Prix de Rome competition and came out first. I was one of the youngest of the laureates. That gave me the opportunity to acquaint myself thoroughly with Italian art....

I am not satisfied. My conception of genius is quite different. One must create new forms, with new means and processes to express a higher and purer, truer and nobler beauty of a new type. So long as I feel myself tied to humanity I cannot be freed completely from the forces of material Nature."

The discipline of Art....