Tenali Paints a Picture

A new court painter had arrived in Vijayanagara, and he was very proud of himself. He painted portraits of the king and queen, and of all the great nobles, and everyone praised him. But he had an odd habit. To show off his skill, he often painted people from the side, with only one eye, one ear and half a face showing.

“Where is the rest of the face?” Tenali asked him once.

“Use your imagination,” said the painter grandly. “Real art leaves something for the viewer to imagine.”

Tenali thought about this. A few weeks later he announced to the court that he, too, had become a painter, and that he had made a picture for the king.

He brought in a large canvas covered with a cloth, set it up on a stand, and pulled away the cloth. The court leaned forward to look.

The canvas was completely blank. There was nothing on it but a few smudges of green near the bottom.

“Tenali,” said the king, “what is this?”

“It is a cow eating grass, Your Majesty.”

The king peered at the canvas. “I don’t see any grass.”

“The cow has eaten it, Your Majesty.”

“Then where is the cow?”

“Well, Your Majesty,” said Tenali reasonably, “once the cow had eaten all the grass, there was nothing left for it to stay for. So it went home.”

For a moment there was silence. Then the court exploded with laughter. The king laughed so hard that he had to hold on to the arms of his throne.

Even the proud painter had to smile. “I suppose,” he said, “you’re telling me that I leave too much to the imagination.”

“Only a little,” said Tenali. “A picture should leave something to the imagination. But it should leave at least half a cow.”

From then on, the painter painted whole faces again, with both eyes and both ears, and the king liked his pictures even better. As for Tenali’s painting, the king hung it in his own room, and whenever a visitor asked about the empty canvas, the king would say, “That is my cow. She has gone home.”