Combining Hindu imagery with Egyptian wall paintings.
In
October 1948 I showed my art school academic work (in a monochromatic
method then taught in art school) to a prominent teacher by the
name of Shree Palsikar who brutally criticized my paintings and
patronizingly advised me to develop my sensibilities towards color,
tone, composition and aesthetics. He advised me either to study
one of the five historical miniature schools not prevalent then
except in some princely states of Rajasthan and central India
or to copy several Basholi art miniature prints which appeared
in books then available in the market. At that time students were
not allowed to use color but had to paint in raw umber and sienna.
They were expected to wait until they had an understanding of
the tonal and structural quality of the models before using color.
So I took up the Basholi miniature painting which had its own
flowering between the 17th and 18th centuries. Having adequate
financial support in the family I just did that for two years.
By 1951 - 1952 I was well versed in Basholi miniatures as well
as having a good understanding of other miniature schools such
as Jain, Kangra Valley, Rajasthani, Deccan and Moghul and a wide
range of folk arts. I managed my own style carefully
modernizing the various elements.
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Indian
miniature from Rajasthan 17th century
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In
1956 I went to Rome with the help of an Italian government scholarship.
I met an Egyptian painter with the same type of scholarship as
mine. He invited me to take a trip to Egypt to meet his family
and friends and we visited almost every historical monument from
3000 BC to the 20th century. I was overwhelmed by their hieroglyphic
wall paintings, their monumental temples and their equally monumental
sculptures which inspired and stimulated me with painterly ideas.
The stimulus that this created in my mind still exists.
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Egyptian
Wall Painting
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Arriving
in New York with the scholarship of Asia Society (Rockefeller Foundation)
in January, 1959, I was amazed at the availability of a vast range
of painterly materials including materials that can be used to texturize
the canvas. I began to combine the ancient Egyptian surfaces and
hierography with the colors and modernized forms of Indian miniature
painting. I was not an archaeologist or a decipher of hieroglyphic
writing; it was the controlled textural aspect which appealed to
me. To retain the pictorial element and to avoid the highly evocative
and instant pleasure principle that follows from using mere texture,
it was easy for me to use the Indian miniature format. It appears
that I am painting Indian miniature forms on a dilapidated Egyptian
wall painting. Within a very short period of time I had several
different ways of painting a picture. Inevitably this developed
into no particular style of painting but remains a continuous experimentation.
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The
visual space that the mind occupies culturally could be as long
and as wide as the 25,000 years old Altamira and Lascaux cave
paintings. From these magnificent, powerfully alive paintings
to the expression of contemporary art in the latest modern media
including video images is an inherited part and parcel of the
psychological makeup of one's mind. If you are involved with artistic
matters, whatever maybe your purpose, it is almost like a violinist
playing very difficult passages covering the three and a half
octave range requiring complete coordination of the mechanism
of the finger tips of both hands as well as his aesthetic sensibilities.
A violin composition written in the 17th century remains very
immediate and alive on its execution.
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Gatha
Vivada #6301.
(Gallery 1)
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