Art Review : West Meets East in Milestone at the Simon : LACMA collaboration mixes the sights and sounds of India and Nepal in ‘A Tale of Three Muses.’

A sad fact of life at the Norton Simon Museum is that many visitors don’t bother to go downstairs after seeing the Old Masters, French Impressionist paintings and Asian artworks on the main floor. Of those who do, few venture beyond the Degas display at the base of the spiral staircase and still fewer wander as far as the final gallery of Southeast Asian art--except to gaze through a window at a stone Buddha in a sunken garden.

But life goes on at the Simon, and facts change. The museum’s last outpost now lures visitors with seductive sights and sounds. Fresh rose-colored paint warms the gallery’s walls, Ravi Shankar’s recorded music fills the air and classical Indian musical instruments sit on a red carpet in front of the window. All this is a backdrop for a new exhibition, “A Tale of Three Muses: Music, Poetry and Art in India and Nepal,” which qualifies as a genuine milestone in the museum’s evolution.

The show is the Simon’s first collaboration with another museum, in this case the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Simon curator Gloria Williams and Pratapaditya Pal, LACMA’s senior curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art, have drawn on the two institutions’ resources to show off little-known treasures and explore a multidisciplinary theme.

“Mr. Simon had a great admiration for the art of India and Nepal,” said Sara Campbell, director of the Simon Museum. “This exhibition is both a tribute to his interest and a chance for Southern California’s two great collections of South Asian art to share their riches.”

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Indeed, Indian and Southeast Asian artworks comprise one of the greatest--though largely unsung--strengths of LACMA’s collection. The Simon Museum is generally celebrated for its European art, but Simon became a passionate collector of Asian art in the 1970s--after his marriage to actress Jennifer Jones, who had studied Eastern philosophy and persuaded him to take his first trip to India.

At the heart of the landmark exhibition is a rare album of 36 paintings from Nepal, purchased in 1979 by Simon. They are accompanied by eight paintings from an addendum to the album, acquired in 1973 by LACMA. As to why, when and where the loose-leaf album was separated, little is known, but the fact that the two parts ended up in Southern California paved the way to reuniting the paintings for the first time since they were divided.

The jewel-like paintings--each measuring about 7 by 5 1/2 inches--come from a genre that flourished during the 17th Century, Williams said. Deriving their name, ragamala, from the Indian term for a garland of melodies, or ragas, the paintings epitomize a tradition of giving music a visual form. Musicians conceived of musical modes as having divine and human forms. Poets interpreted the melodies as verses and artists painted the verses, often including Sanskrit text with their pictures.

That explains the “Three Muses” in the show’s title, but deciphering the paintings can be difficult. The exhibition’s text panels and labels help, but they also reveal unsuspected subtleties.

Visitors learn, for example, that ragas not only have musical and human form, they refer to colors, passions, seasons and times of day. While musical ragas could be used for religious purposes, pictorial ragas were secular and earthy--typically portraying Hindu gods, princes and beautiful women in an eternal cycle of love and longing.

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Each of the paintings in the album presents figures in an architectural framework, with poetry at the top of the sheet. The paintings are displayed in groups of six, with a portrayal of a male figure surrounded by five depictions of women who either await his arrival or greet him in various states of emotion. The women--who sprinkle flower petals on their beds or amuse themselves in gardens--appear to have nothing better to do than prepare for trysts and pout when their lovers are tardy, but their task in these paintings is to evoke erotic moods and amorous situations. They are archetypes rather than personalities.

Although little is known of how ragamala paintings were used, they were produced for Hindu and Muslim noblemen and regarded as prestigious gifts, Williams said. The work owned by the Simon and County museums is thought to have been commissioned by a king who presided over Bhaktapur, in the Kathmandu Valley.

In contrast to the dark, predominantly red Nepali works, several Indian ragamala paintings from LACMA’s collection portray figures and cross-sections of buildings in a varied palette of pastels and bright hues.

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Musically themed stone and metal sculptures from the two museums’ and Jennifer Jones Simon’s collections provide a counterpoint of art-in-the-round. Unlike the paintings, which secret erotic details in tiny spaces, the sculptures flaunt sensuousness.

Muscular gods and voluptuous goddesses play flutes and stringed instruments, while a group of five celestial musicians--some with an ‘imals heads--compose an orches ‘tra along one wall. This sculptural group joined LACMA’s collection more than a year ago, but it is making its Southern California debut at the Simon Museum.

* “A Tale of Three Muses: Music, Poetry and Art in India and Nepal,” Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (818) 449-6840. Thursdasy through Sunday, noon-6 p.m. Adults, $4; students with I.D. and seniors, $2; members and children under 12, free. To July 31.