I make no bones about my admiration for J. Swaminathan for he was one person who had the vision to put Indian art in the global context. And I had waited with anticipation to see more of Swamiji’s work and glimpses from a period of his life in a show curated by S. Kalidas, his son and arts writer. My greed to see his hitherto not seen work was immense, but it saddened me to see how little was available. It reminded me of a conversation that I had with Swamiji years ago. In melancholic mood, he recounted how artists of that generation had no money to buy new canvases.
“Till as late as the 60s, very few paintings were sold in exhibitions. We would lug them right back and paint on top of them for next year’s show,” he recalled matter-of-factly. As a result, a number of his paintings, which could serve as an important link in his work, have been lost. And now, some of his paintings bought for a couple of hundred rupees, and dumped over the years, have been retrieved and restored for lakhs. The fact that his work has stood the test of time is evident, for whenever his work comes up for sale at auctions, it is immediately lapped up. He had the distinction of having consistently exhibited for 32 years in Delhi, barring a year or so in between.
In the mid-60s Swaminathan’s work explored the colour geometry of space, which was an exact about-turn from what he had been doing earlier. “I started exploring space with a series based on the Pahari miniatures and tried to understand space through them. Leaving out the figurative and narrative aspect, I juxtaposed geometric patterns in relation to colours. Then began the phase which lasted from the late 60s to the early 80s, of playing around with cognisable elements like birds and mountains,” he said. The show is on at Gallery Espace.
The union and inter-personal ties between the male and female genders have been captured by artists over centuries in some memorably and hauntingly lyrical ways. From the very beautiful to the very repulsive and all the rasas in between, have found place in art in a myriad forms. A number of figurative artists tend to shy away from the classical metaphors and take recourse to the more modern versions that are not necessarily aesthetic in their depiction or approach.
So when an artist views human relationships through the prism of beauty, the world of modern art tends to look askance. For it is indeed a sad comment on a culture that once equated its art as a synonym for beauty, is now elbowing it out in the name of contemporary expressions. But today when an artist allows the aesthetic imagery to populate his canvas, it needs to be viewed with both the heart and the mind. Pearl Art Gallery showcases two artists Nityam Singha Roy and Manash Jena in a show Through the Prism of Beauty, which appeals to the soul and spirit and makes for delightful viewing.
Handsome and beautiful — the lasya and the tandava or the yin and yang form the core of Nityam’s present series. The mood is that of Shringar rasa or love. His figures are lyrical in colours that are rooted in the soil, but almost ethereal in their essential mood. Entrenched in the myths and folklore of Indian mythology that he imbibed through the stories recounted by his mother in childhood, led him to create his own fantasy world. He saw himself as the hero and visualised the stories that find place on his canvases till today. Frequently, the human forms in his paintings are Radha, Krishna and Meera — often together in Shringar rasa, or love as the primary mood and timeless in appeal.
Manash Jena, on the other hand, weaves the modern sensibility steeped in tradition, as he cuts across the gender divides in an almost playful manner. His work must be viewed within the backdrop of the classical and stylised sculptures that are an intrinsic part of the sensibilities of the artist from Orissa. The colours that he uses are earthy, as he reaches out to mirror contemporary concerns between genders. The burnt sienna of the temple sculptures of the region when they are bathed in the white-hot light of the sun or even the shadows that the moonlight dapples on the temple sculptures are seamlessly woven in his work.
The route he chooses to view his protagonists through is sometimes singular but in that aloneness is hidden a trace of waiting or intezar. It is not loneliness, but a completeness that wants to reach out to sing a song in unison. Here Manash’s expertise as an artist comes into play. He works with a backdrop of textures that he has perfected to create a framework from where the characters take flight into realms of imagination. The fascinating world that the artist creates for himself and his characters is energetic and youthful. He brings the thoroughness of his considerable training to create works that are rooted in his ancestral heritage.

Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator
and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com