Visual art that basks in the glory of a celebrated past

Classical Indian arts are rightfully proud of their gharanas and will claim their ancestry however far removed and impossible to trace — like their lineage to Mian Tansen — to the point of desperation. Contemporary visual art suffers from the opposite problem. Artists spend their entire life trying to create styles and techniques that are peculiar to them and have no obvious connection or similarity to any other artist — living or dead. Even bigger is the problem of artists who have successful artists as parents. Odious as they might be, they all have to go through the angst of comparison and influences — vocalised or silent.
So when two of my absolute all-time favourite artists — father and son duo are Jagdish Swaminathan and his son S. Harsha Vardhana go on show within a week of each other albeit in different galleries, it is a matter of personal joy and delight. While Harsha’s ongoing show Ideations: Colour, Form, Dimension and Space is the “result of a sustained visual dialogue with my media. The experience of creation of the works is distinct from that of a beholder,” Swamiji’s show opens later this week.
I suppose it is a given that father and son will have points of convergence — in this case both artists prefer to express themselves in abstract terms. Both gave up regular flourishing careers to do painting full time and achieved success in intellectual and material terms. Articulate and well read both self-taught painters contextualise their art and placed it in self-created niches. Both had the confidence to rebel. But this is exactly where the similarity ends.
“I often tell people — don’t look for the influence, or else you’ll miss the experience! I’m not making representations of my ideas. I am doing the reverse. Seeing a painting should be a long drawn experience where it unfolds to you every time you look at it. I can listen to some music a hundred times and yet the next time I hear it, it still has something new to say to me. For it is me, who is finding that newness in it. If it has one meaning, it must have a hundred meanings. Just putting a few blobs of paint doesn’t make an abstract painting,” says Harsha. There is an air of almost yogic aloofness that marks his personality. Given his remarkable aptitude to assimilate refined, intangible thoughts and ideas at the multi micro-level those are reflected in his multi-layered work. Well-read and knowledgeable, there is a childlike gentleness about him that contradicts the idiosyncratic artist label.
“As the child of a practising artist, I didn’t want to take up painting full time. All my father asked was whether I was sure about it? In fact Mallikarjun Mansur, the musician, was in our house that day and he said: Jaane do isko.
In fact my father and I
were planning to do a joint show but he died before that. That is the only thing I feel bad about, that he didn’t live to see my first solo show,” says Harsha.
I recall with great fondness my long and frequent conversations with Swamiji as we used to call him before he passed away in 94. In fact just a couple of days before his death he had called me. Always supportive, one could always count on him to speak his mind out. Rarely, if ever, would he hide behind anonymity. Easily one of the best-read artists, he could look at himself with the same dispassionate ruthlessness with which he viewed others.
One of the most memorable anecdotes that he often talked about was the crystallisation feather touch moment that marked his dramatic departure from the now defunct Link magazine, “Once in the middle of the afternoon, I got a sudden urge to drink beer. I took an autorickshaw to Connaught Place to buy beer. After having imbibed some of the stuff, I took a taxi to come back. When the taxi stopped outside Link House, I looked at the decrepit office and the thought that flashed in my mind was: Main yahan kya kar raha hoon — What am I doing here? I decided that instant mujhe yahaan kaam nahin karna or this was no place for me. I never went back!”
His living room, which also served as his studio, was always strewn with stacks of wooden mounts and rolls of canvas. The distinct smell of turpentine and paint permeated every nook and cranny, his son S. Harsha Vardhana gave up his job to paint full time and is now one of the most sought after artists. A classic case of history repeating itself.
“I suppose when you grow up in a situation when your father’s studio is an extended drawing room, you assume many things and almost take them as a given. I was into bio-medical engineering in diagnostics with sophisticated laser based technology for 11 years and when microscopic examination of a blood clot started resembling a Jackson Pollock painting, I knew this was the time to give up the rat race and take up painting full-time!” Harsha had said a few years ago.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator
and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com [1]