I am doing an art project on Ancient Egypt at my school. To receive
a high mark I must include an artist who has been inspired by Egypt
in their work. I love your work very much and I am going to mention
you in my work. I was just wondering why you decided to combine Hindu
imagery and Egyptian wall paintings, as it is an interesting, though
effective, mixture.
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.
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.
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.
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.