Indian Painters: A citadel of creativity!
Dr.Keshav Sathaye
Professor -( Dept.of Mass Media)-Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth,Pune
Drawing and picture painting are two of the oldest arts, but it is rather a peculiar experience that those who visit a drawing and painting exhibition, rarely show any will to understand the exhibits. We are normally unaware that it gives us a special joy, increases our maturity of thinking. The ability to understand the shot began to acquire importance while we see a film or a serial one the screen. But we are still indifferent to drawing and painting literacy. This article is an attempt to make readers a part of this tour de force of the process of the cameraman Nemai Ghosh, who has to his credit the photography of fifty two artists... i tried to unfold this story.
Have you ever visited Jahangir Art Gallery located in Mumbai? If not, do go there. You will surely have a unique art experience. Every Indian artist dreams of arranging his art exhibition at Jahangir. From a budding artist to the professional and celebrated artist everyone seeks to display his/her artistic creations here.
Obviously, every artist does not aim at mere display of his art. It is a business, where he seeks knowledgeable customers, who would buy his art-pieces at good price. Whatever the purpose, one thing is certain. We can learn a lot through these artistic creations. The variety of topics, the different ways of presenting them, the choice of colour combinations, the variety of styles and what not! These artists enrich us from top to toe.
These artists communicate with us from their heart and the medium is a small piece of canvas. The moment they take their pencil, brush and colours in hand, they start unfolding a new world before us. The artist is no miser in pouring out his world of emotions and imagination for us to see, to understand, to feel. We watch it, forgetting ourselves and become his partners in the journey of his art. Of course, this golden experience may not be the lot of every person. I have seen many, who visit the art gallery and leave the place in ten or fifteen minutes, having ‘seen’ the paintings. I don’t blame them for that, because no curriculum at any level of our education includes any study about how to see pictures, paintings, sculptures and how to listen to music and enjoy it, and normally our attitude is that we don’t learn anything unless it is taught to us in schools and colleges. We are not aware of the fact that by doing so we lose a tremendous source of joy in life. There are in this multitude a few who are not happy by watching and enjoying the drawings and paintings displayed at the art gallery. They have an inner urge to see and study the process of the artist’s work and write about it and present a pen picture of the same. One such name is Nemai Ghosh.
A cameraman by profession, he is a man who has the fortune to work under the gifted director Satyajit Ray. One subtle moment, he was inspired by the feeling of posturizing the creative process of some artists and the result is Nemai Ghosh’s book “Faces of Indian Art through the Lens of Nemai Ghosh”. This document, in which Ghosh records the creative process of fifty two artists, has been published by Art Live Gallery. The book edited by Ina Puri has studious comments from Giti Sen, Keshav Malik, R. Shivkumar and Sameer Dasgupta. They help the readers to understand the painter and his drawings and paintings. In addition the book presents a rare and unique style of appreciation of art.
Ghosh has studied, through his camera, this creative process of creation by personally visiting the studios of the painters and sculptors and has brought it to the doorsteps of us. Rarely do we find such meaningful use of steady photography for the education of people. We learn how a painter creates his picture and how he thinks. With the help of his lines and colours a painter creates an art-piece. It’s a journey from the unexpressed to meaningfulness, presented through the lens of Nemai Ghosh. Supporting it,are the expressive comments about the artist and his style made by experts, which provide such a wonderful frame to these photographs. We know that paintings have their own language and grammar. But this 386 page volume makes us keenly aware of the fact that like our languages, there is sharp difference between spoken and written picture-language.
The personality of the artist, the atmosphere around him and culture he lives in determines his picture style and the art of every artist brings to us the different shades of the artist.
Creativity is not something you can learn by preplanning. How art materializes is still an unfathomable mystery, but the way the book brings to our notice how to watch the journey of the artist is really exciting.
The famous Russian film director Tarcovsky has stated in his book “Sculpting in Time”, “The moment the cluster of images in my mind lights up, I become an artist and present my concepts of external world to my spectators and admirers/appreciators. Their responses and reactions are an invaluable and personal treasure for me.”
Ina Puri mentioned this in her book, when she illuminated the purpose of the book. Talking about how she got the idea of this book, she indirectly follows this marvelous inspiration.
Nemai Ghosh started this picturesque journey with the idea of shooting the process of creation of Satyajit Ray. Ray was preparing a documentary titled “Inner Eye” based on the life of Binod-Bihari Mukharji, a blind artist. Nemai’s camera turned automatically to this artist and here started a new phase in the life of the cameraman. Later Nemai Ghosh entered Shantiniketan for some international work and the experiences there, the practice of using the colours derived from leaves of trees mesmerized him. Later he had the opportunity of visiting the area of the tribal people. Here he could capture in his lens the art-creations of these tribal people. The meeting with Tapan Ghosh gave him the idea of exhibiting his photographs. This entire thrilling journey has been thoroughly presented in this picture-book.
Who is missing from the book? It is difficult to answer this question. The activities have been shot in the camera by Nemai Ghosh, right from M. F. Husain and the people you find included are Prabhakar Kolate, Anjoli Menon, Tayyab Mehta, Sudheer Patwardhan, Ram Kumar. A sculptor like Ramakinkar Bajaj comes to meet us in this book as do painters like Manjit Bava, whose style of painting glorifies the book itself. His encouragement has been specially recorded with reverence by the author.
The book opens with an article on Binod-Bihari Mukharji. We read about the rare style of painting of Shantiniketan, known as Khoai and find ourselves lucky to get a rare photograph of Satyajit Ray. His face is concealed by the camera but it is worth noting how his eyes take in things. You simply don’t believe that a painter, who presents such rare pictures, is weak in eyes, when you see the shot he shot. He lost his eyesight completely in 1957 and thirteen years later came the documentary made on him by Satyajit Ray. He is a living example of how a blind man can see everything so clearly. We can’t help saying ‘hats off’ to an artist who can create such a canvas with the help of his fertile imagination and other sensory organs.
The book includes an important artist from the last generation – S. H. Raza. For last 50-55 years he is in France.(he passed away in 2016) He believes that his style and art was shaped by Europe. But the themes and the images he uses in his art are typically Indian.
‘Point’ is an important theme of his art. In his painting, a big black spot is an inevitable aspect. The painting is famous as “Black Sun”.
Black is a symbol of nothingness or total absence. The world was evolved from zero and one believes that Raza projects it as the mastermind of the working of the universe. In fact the meaning of ‘black’ goes closer to not seeing anything than nothingness. These paintings project the possibility of the existence of something beyond human efforts.
In the series of such spot paintings, this black round charioteer stands firmly. Let me try to describe this painting. It displays a gentle white border and then clear, free saffron, again a white border and then a half-circular belt of royal-blue which ultimately translates into the spread out wing of a bird. The other wing of the bird, however, is clean saffron. What message does the painter try to give?
The Sun on the horizon has emerged from a mysterious spot as a newborn human child is born from pains. The role of nature in this process is very important and significant. The saffron half-circle is the half part of our life, but the remaining half wakes us with a shock. It is a serious reminder of the reality of life. When our dreams, our ambitions fly on the wings of the dream bird, the royal blue colour makes us aware of the twists and turns in life. The white colour is symbolic of waking us out of our dreams. It is a window that shakes us to awareness that other things also exist around us and the golden yellow light suggests that all this is so invaluable. Raza does not try to explain the secret of human life to us. He is more interested in learning it himself. 3/4th of this painting is an area which he seeks to wander through and finds himself absorbed in it.
He is not interested in the seamy side of nature. When we look at the stem of a tree, the harsh reality of the life of many rainy seasons flutters before our mind’s eye. He does not provide a continuous picture of the forest. It is interspersed with touches of human life. At times it makes us aware through the rustle of the leaves that it is full of life. Raza does not intend to isolate us from this forest. He does not let us just be a traveller passing through it. Even this painting is in the frame of black, saffron and royal blue colour to suggest that there is no definite route to salvation. The white adds a special brightness to it. It says, ‘if you wish to get out of this experience, you are free to do so. You have the opportunity. But once you leave this road, you are unlikely to return to this solid reality.’
Through this painting Raza provides us with varied experience from the world around us to the thick forest. There is no effort to find any link between human life and natural life, because he does not find it necessary. Without presenting any human face he presents human life through the colour shades. It is a never ending story. The situation, the formation is constantly undergoing changes, taking new shapes. Some are born, some become weak and some others take root. This is a constantly changing picture. How can we expect it to be steady?
The game of colours in Raza’s paintings shocks us by the depth of his knowledge of colours. Have you ever thought how we see the colours? We love some of them and hate some. But when we see them through such paintings, our ideas and images are rocked from the very root. We keenly become aware that colours are not to be seen like that. Every shade of colour has its own personality and the great painter has the magical ability and skill to present it through his brush. Colours are not for decorating any art-piece. They present the inner side of the picture. Each and every moment that a painter loves is presented through these colours and their shades.
These pieces of artistry take us beyond these black, dark black, brown/auburn, grey, blue, violet colours, because each colour has innumerable shades, very minute, very subtle. Only a handful of appreciators can read them.
I will give you one example, so that you will be able to understand what I am trying to say. In a normal motion picture there are twenty-five varied frames in one second. We can see them through animation technique. But there is shooting equipment through which we can see one thousand parts frames in one second shot. Imagine a drop of water falling and we are able to see its sequence of one thousand frames. How miraculous will be that experience, eh? But that is possible. We should be able to read such minute changes in colours to appreciate the real beauty of these paintings.
Prabhakar Kolate is one such artist who presents the magic and miracles of colours and gives us pure joy. When we notice the way he works, we get the feeling that he does not let himself fit into any traditional form or frame, because his intentions are quite different. He speaks with the canvas and we can hear this free and pleasant dialogue. Kolate is an expert artist in installation art – the art of producing an art piece through the arrangement of various articles. A sensitive observer can sense this specialty of his artistry by observing his painting style. Sometimes we see him spreading colour over colour and presenting his thought process through a scattered presentation of these colours. Each single colour not only appears to have its own personality and identity but inculcates the accompanying shades of colours in it. His paintings display a special influence of grey and deep colours on his paintings. The soft colours are comparatively less used. His paintings/pictures can be seen as a bond between the representatives of these two.
There is no haziness in the colour combinations of Kolate. All colours appear thick and full of strong feelings. There is no ambiguousness in it. What we discover is firmness, a conviction in it.
In abstract art there is a rare joy – the joy of appreciating the art as per our ability and nature. In this sense, one picture frame can speak with every appraiser in his language. Someone might find in it a call of nature and other might discern meaninglessness in it. The impact of our association with every colour and its shade is there in trying to gauge the meaning of the painting. However, there is a limit to our emotional world. On seeing and studying a large number of paintings, we become aware that every single shade of colour is an independent thought and if we must be able to absorb it, we must push our boat into the endless ocean and not keep it limited to the shores.
Artist is a self-willed person. He behaves at will as and when he likes. A creative artist expresses himself without thinking what the world will think of and about him. He never tires to check if he is right or logical. The most significant thing for him is that he is out on a journey. Kolate, however, is a rare exception to this tendency. There is a logical presentation of some thought or idea at every stage of his creation. He may not have any preplan, but the expression is spontaneously logical.
Whatever Kolate sees and records at his mental level is presented on the canvas with colours and brush, without tainting it. He brings before us a few pieces of nature and presents them as they appeared to him. It is not a photocopy, but a living thing. He is just a traveller recording and presenting the images that appealed to him.
When we watch Anjoli Menon’s paintings and murals we feel that she presents the tolerant, suffering women. We get a feeling that the painter has purposely shown them full of tolerance. We feel that the women, their families and the working of their minds presented in her paintings are from the people around us. When we notice the shapeliness of the woman with the signs of her suffering on her body and her face displaying fear, we feel that this is something we have seen in painting for the first time. Here is a presentation where the artist remains aloof, uninvolved in her theme but goes very, very close to reality. These paintings are presented with an unbiased way without getting involved in feelings like mercy, compassion and anger against the injustice. Anjoli’s brush displays that rare candidness.
Parrot-green colour dominates the painting where we see a woman bending forward. It underlines her skill of handling her themes gracefully and at the same time scatters many aspects and events in the commotion of life.
A number of pleasant moments in the life of a woman are recorded here. The images of fish, goat, pussycat, snake and trees full of fruit appear in bold way in her paintings. she displays the fickleness, cowardice, astuteness and even her stinging ability, if compelled. The fruit-laden tree is a symbol of her reproductive ability and, at the same time, suggests her alluring state.
A personality is a storehouse of varied emotions and feelings, and one wants to see, like music, presented to be enjoyed with eyes, watch and study the paintings of Anjoli.
In the very frame, we note the wonderful use of faint blue colour to suggest partly open eyes that display, not only the innocence but also a firm faith that the world ought to be good. This mobile picture unexpectedly seems to halt by her face. There it seems to have stopped and this gives a new dimension to this painting. One feels that Anjali Menon is fully engrossed in presenting all aspects of life’s chemistry on one canvas.
In another of her painting she presents a resolute woman with a smooth face. The tall woman with tanned hands is standing in the farm, her neck decorated with a string of tender, white pearls. In the background is the farm with goats and sheep and in front of her is a boy of about 13-14 with a goat tied to a rope. The brocaded garment she wears is a combination of golden and saffron colours. All this belongs to realistic painting, and we get a feeling that these persons are mere puppets controlled by someone else.
At the same time there is something abstract about it. The lamb, though not held close to heart, is a part of the heart, the magic hands that hold him, the belt that makes us feel that the lamb is free and still tethered – all these things unfold in the mind and heart of the people. The woman appears strong but apprehensive within like a lamb, seeking some support, even ready to be enslaved if needed and even the boy make us feel tied down to it.
One should, perceive the swarm of sorrows settled on every aspect of the persons in Anjoli’s paintings. Their movements, their pose all make us see that they are under the impact of awe,. We identify a shade on them. If you want to perceive the result of the wonderful combination of the choice of colours, the strokes of brush and the disturbance in the mind, you ought to seek it in Anjoli’s style of tracing the situation through varied appearances of woman. Appreciation is something which can enrich one. Every art has a basic science of its own, different styles and its own spots of beauty that we ought to be able to perceive and enjoy.
The classical music is an art form which is instilled only in a few elites. Most of us like it but understand nothing of it. This trepidation troubles us. But, in spite of our inability to understand it, we can enjoy it, like it and appreciate it. Our joy is many fold. The solid voice and the ‘taan’ – the fast moving melody of Bheemsen Joshi mesmerize us. The tone of agitation and the involvement of tunes of Kishori take us to the sanctum of a temple. The thoughtfulness in the singing of Kumar Gandharva gratifies us. We may not be able to know whether the singer is singing Darbar, Marva, Bhoop or Bihag, the glory and the joy of the singing give us a joy that we enjoy but do not understand.This absence of knowledge does not become a hindrance of our enjoying it.
But if we study and try to scale the alphabets of various Ragas, we can enjoy the songs with more understanding. The presentation of the Raga, the types of melodies, the ‘alapi’ – melodic improvisation, the skill of attaining sam – synchronizing all these spots of beauty we can appreciate. We can comprehend and enjoy how the singers belonging to different schools of singing look at one Raga from different angles and this is presented by them through their presentation of the Raga. If we hold the same attitude about pictures and paintings, and try to understand the secret of that art, our appreciation of the art becomes more and more meaningful.
When we see the art of Tayyab Mehta, we learn how he tries to speak through different shapes, sizes and structures. The strokes of his brush are his specialty. He appears on the canvas with his style. The tethered bull is his incomparable art-piece, which throws a floodlight on the cruelty and violence in life. The bull, standing on the verge of death, has been presented in shades of golden yellow flanked by purple and black colours against the green background on white canvas. Using the black colour meaningfully, Mehta has presented the strength and wonderful body-shape of the bull, but the typical structure of his neck makes us aware of his helplessness. The lines make us hear his soundless bellowing.
Green is the colour that represents the blossoming and lively nature. Within this abundance some heartless/cruel person has crucified this innocent bull on the white gallows that symbolizes peace. The painting, thus, realistically represents the society which does not hesitate to rob one of his rights to live and believes in the religion of heartless exploitation.
All colours in this painting are full of life, with no touch of dullness about it. When a life is being sacrificed, the funeral pyre is prepared amid band and music and function, but the sensitive mind does not fail to be uneasy. Mehta’s paintings produce this uneasiness.Tayyab’s paintings display the real power of lines. What a man remembers in life is his being dragged in life. Fortune is busy making experiments with man, turning him up, sown and sidewise as she wishes. Nature displays how fickle is a human being that parades such a pride of his talent and power. We meet this collapsed man in his paintings in light blue and saffron colours against the same dark background. Here his hands are not just hands but tools without any particular shape, system and scale. When a tool becomes arm, it forgets its breeding, because it cannot afford the luxury of remaining a tool. Though true, it is a savage truth.The painter, while displaying his sympathy for human beings, does not hide his displeasure against this tendency of retaliation. However, to understand this duel aspect our eyes need regular training.
The language we speak is learned by us through listening and imitating it in our broken, haphazard way. Then we learn the alphabets and the structures. But even with this knowledge we cannot enjoy and appreciate literature. The poems of Rudyard Kipling and the literature of Charles Dickens do contain the same letters and words that we have learned as children but we face the difficulty in following and digesting them. Why? There are thoughts and emotions beyond mere words. These writers think beyond words, use emotive language. They have their own style of expressing themselves. They communicate with us through their metaphors and imagery. We do not try to read between the lines, don’t care to study, think and imagine and we miss the heavenly joys that their words give us.
The language of a painter is also something we have to learn. He / She speaks through lines, their thickness, curves, up and down movements and every painter presents different meaning through them. The circles, solid or hollow or oblong represent various feelings of the painter on the canvas. He presents his argument through colours. When we see these paintings, we get a feeling of fullness and times of emptiness. Your responses to the paintings depend on your life experiences and your concepts. If something like this is born in my mind, I am reading the painting. Once you get used to reading it, the pictures speak to you. We can see what is concealed in their heart. Paintings had a speed, a direction. There can be a feeling of being frozen/congealed. You begin to perceive the punctuation marks in them. We can perceive whether the painting presents the arrogance/intoxication of victory or the bleeding wounds of defeat, burning flames of a feeling of being extinguished. Once you begin to read a painting, a huge storehouse of feelings unfolds for us.
In his very wonderful book “Faces of Indian Art through the Lens of Nemai Ghosh” he has trapped different artists in their meditative mood. In doing so this single-minded photographer has done one more significant thing: he has educated the appreciators and enlarged their ability to read between the lines.Art is a noble thing, that makes us to identify its charm and at the same time it is the sweet fruit of penance, faith, fascination and devotion to it. Why? This world of paintings gives us the answer to such questions.
The small articles in the book about these artists are a great strength of this book. To understand any painting we need to know its reference. This reference pertains to the painter’s style, civilization, the life they led or any other thing. Unless we understand these references, we cannot understand their paintings. All the reviewers/critics of this book have done it wonderfully and well.It is a general feeling that the mind and heart of an Indian is more at ease in literature, music and cinema. He does not seem to get much involved in arts like painting or sculpture, with the same intensity. Nemai Ghosh’s book does earn their involvement in it. Yes, they enjoy these noble arts and their minds are pleased. Their intellect gets something to think about. If we need to enlarge the borders of our joys, reach beyond our personal pond of happiness, we ought to see through the camera of Nemai Ghosh.
How and why this artist, while shooting photographs of Satyajit Ray, turned to the characters chosen by him is a mystery and we have the same experience as a reader. While we watch and enjoy the photographic art of a cameraman, we unknowingly fall in love with this artist. He takes us on a unique journey of paintings, sculptures and colours. As readers we don’t wish that this journey should ever end.This visionary quality of an artist moves us. But they produce their art-pieces very easily and naturally.
I remember a story in this respect. A critic asked a sculptor, “How do you form such a lovely, shapely sculptures out of so huge, rough rock?”The artist replied, “I see the idol in the rock from the beginning. All I do is to remove the unwanted part of that stone and bring out the image.” Can we do this? Can we remove out of us what is unwanted, unnecessary?
Actually we all are caught in a sort of dilemma. We don’t exactly know which part of us is unnecessary, unwanted or don’t have the enthusiasm to remove it out. But those who are touched by this talent, this inspiration and possess faith, concentration and penance, are artists whose creativity is worthy of study. If you can do that ---
YOU WILL BE THE OWNER OF GREAT INFINITE JOY!
Dr. Keshav Sathaye(India)-Email: [email protected]