Beyond dhyana
A Ramachandran’s art is based on saundarya, Indian aesthetic tradition, set in the discourse of beauty. The accent remains on the beauty of form and colour derived from the interaction of the natural world with the human.
But his human world is not frenetic post colonial, metropolitan world of alienation. Instead there is serenity, continuity, even pastoral splendor in the compositions.
The series of watercolours on display is called Dhyanachitras, that are not only images of contemplation but images arrived through contemplation of the empirical reality. His works actuate the natural world: the trees, birds and butterflies, the landscape of mountains and ponds. But these are mediated through his understanding of the regional and local art forms and life forms, embedded in the history and culture of a temple, a shrine, a lake, or a tree. Thus, his works emerge from mediation on the whole rather than a fragmented reality.
Many of his works are based on the socio-religious sacred and lived landscape of sites in and around Nagda, Ekalingji and the area between Abu and Udaipur. Impelled by the erosion of natural and cultural ecology of India, he documents and re-interprets moments such as the dressing of the bridegroom, the local bhajanmandali of a small temple, and the locals at the village pond.
In each of Ramchandran’s painting, one can see the artist himself as a bird or a snail, often as a sakshi — a witness, and rarely as a participant in the event depicted. The hybrid artist-sakshi is perched on trees, wafting through the air, crawling on earth, becoming one with the elements, while observing the beauty of nature and human forms, as matsyakanyas, bathing damsels, tweeting birds, sunlit hills and distant shrines. In fact, like the Buddhist and the Jaina dhyanachitras, there is a repetition of form, in this case of the artist-bird, creating multiple focal points that merge into one bindu during sadhana. Thankfully, like a true artist, he is able to create moments of whimsy, laughter and true lightness of being through his paintings.
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