Battle of Ganga and Jamuna by M. F. Husain

The image on the masthead of my blog above is a part of the painting - Battle of Ganga and Jamuna by Husain. It is one of Husain’s most significant works to appear at Christie’s auction.  

Originally in the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, this work is part of a series of 27 paintings he began in 1971 for the 11th Sao Paolo Biennial on the Mahabharata, the Hindu epic detailing the cosmic civil war between forces of right and wrong with the subject mater of morality and duty at its core.  The epic prefaced the founding of ancient India.  Husain was specially invited to the Biennale to exhibit alongside Pablo Picasso.  Though Husain has since revisited the themes from the Mahabharata, the 1971 series was the first time he attempted the subject matter.  Other works from this series are currently housed in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Husain has always felt free to find his images and symbols in the cultural heterogeneity of his native land, and the Mahabharata, unlike its sacred twin, the Ramayana, is essentially a secular epic. It also occupies a unique place in the Indian national consciousness, one that lends itself remarkably well to artistic reinvention. The epic allowed Husain to take characters and images that are laden with epic resonance, and to alter and shape them to paint a contemporary canvas.

Here is what the painting is all about or rather what the artist wants to depict using the elements and principles of Art.

The goddesses, Ganga and Jamuna, are the personifications of the holy rivers originating in the Himalayas and here are depicted as a conjoined being labeled in Sanskrit on both sides of the split.  This treatment of the figure is a highly complex and brilliant conceptualization of the internecine strife between the warring factions of the Kuru lineage; the Pandava and Kaurava cousins, each descended from these River Goddesses. The mass of figures on the right foreshadow the toll of war and pay subtle homage to Picasso, whose Guernica remains a formative influence on Husain.  Also evident in this work are the strong influences of classical Indian painting and sculptural traditions.  The division of space into four distinct colour planes is a feature derived from the narrative style in Rajasthani miniature painting, while the heavily delineated figures are reminiscent of Indian temple sculpture in their dynamic contortions.  The abstract hand serves as a protective mudra and is a motif that appears frequently in Husain’s body or work.  With age-old themes of jealousy and competition that divide females and nations, Husain achieves a remarkable feat as he distills the central feature of the Mahabharata into a single moving image that is monumental in scale and yet very human in scope. 

On 20th March 2008, Husain's ‘Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12’ went under the hammer at Christie’s in New York. The 189.9 x 273.7 cm diptych was valued at US$ 600,000 to US$ 800,000 by the Christie’s. Painted in 1971-72, the painting fetched a whopping US$1.6 million, setting a world record at that time at Christie's Southeast Asia and Contemporary Indian art sale.

Here I would like to quote Shashi Tharoor writing about the Mahabharata series by M. F. Husain, "Looking at the Mahabharata-inspired work, it seems to me that Husain is simultaneously honouring and appropriating the epic. If there is a message to the work, it would be that of the continued relevance of the stories, issues and images he has derived from the Mahabharata. That, in turn, is a twofold message: first, of the need to re-examine the received wisdom of the epic in today's India, to question the certitudes, to acknowledge the weight of the past and face its place in the present; and second, to do so through a reassertion of the epic'sdharma, defined not as religion but as the whole complex of values and standards — some derived from myth and tradition, some derived from our history — by which India and Indians must live. In offering his vision of theMahabharata to India and the world, Husain has paid a fundamental tribute to his own civilisation, one which he has, through his reinvention of the past and his reimagining of the present, immeasurably enriched".

At the age of 96, now in Qatar as part of the Resident Artists Programme, under Qatar Foundation’s Cultural Development Centre, Husain is at work on three major art projects, covering the Arab and Indian civilisations and a history of Indian cinema.

All things Art – Ram Kumar

The focus is almost entirely on the figures and the sense of loneliness is overwhelming. In Ram Kumar's works, the figure is not a specific individual; rather, he or she symbolizes the state of the human condition.

All art forms are expressions of an individual’s feelings and experiences of one’s surroundings. The influences of a city or an event or a personality leave lasting impressions on certain individuals. If that individual is a poet, a soul stirring Ghazal is born. If the individual is an author, a Pulitzer winning prose and if that individual is a painter, we get a glimpse of his or her inner self articulated through a composition of colours, strokes and shapes.

When a painting, acquired during US diplomat Kurt London’s visits to India in 1960s, went under the hammer through Christie’s auction in March 2007, it was estimated to fetch $ 400,000 - $ 600,000. It was Ram Kumar’s Vagabond, a 120 cm x 60 cm, oil on Board, painted in 1956. The painting was sold, fetching twice the estimated price, for $ 1,161,000.

Born in Simla in 1924 Ram Kumar did his Masters in Economics from Delhi University. As a student at the Sarada Ukil School of Art, Delhi, he began to participate in group exhibitions when he was spotted by Syed Haider Raza who became a close friend. Ram Kumar left for Paris by boat and studied painting under Andre Lhote and Fernand Leger in Paris between 1949-52.

At 85, Ram Kumar still manages to express his feelings through his paintings. His canvases are a journey through his interpretations of life around him. Here, I have tried to capture his journey through three of his paintings.

Ram Kumar’s paintings can be seen as man’s journey towards an increasing alienated urban life. The human condition in such adverse circumstances is the main concern of the painter as seen in his early paintings, which depict the alienated individual within the city. In Vagabond, although one individual towers over the others, they appear equally forlorn and isolated and are linked to the cityscape and buildings. The strained posture of their bodies is echoed in the angular jagged shapes of the background that communicate a sense of despair and hopelessness. Ram Kumar has divided the canvas into three components, the young man in the foreground who appears to dominate the work, the cityscape comprised of angular buildings and flat planes, and lastly the two companions leaning heavily on each other for support. All three components are linked to each other with a somber palette magnifying the sense of intense desolation. The focus is almost entirely on the figures and the sense of loneliness is overwhelming. In Ram Kumar's works, the figure is not a specific individual; rather, he or she symbolizes the state of the human condition. In Vagabond Ram Kumar is referring to the youth of India, misdirected and disenchanted, trapped in a spiral of a false system of belief.
As a young artist, Ram Kumar was captivated by, or rather obsessed with, the human face because of the ease and intensity with which it registers the drama of life. The sad, desperate, lonely, hopeless or lost faces, which fill the canvases of his early period, render with pathos his view of the human condition.

The mid 1950's heralded the beginning of Ram Kumar's fascination with the cityscapes of Benares; this work is an important example of the series. After studying in Paris under Fernand Leger in 1950, his style as a figurative painter was imbued with a melancholic realism drawing upon the diverse influences of painters like Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz’s empathy for the less fortunate, expressed most famously through the graphic means, and Gustave Courbet, best known as an innovator in Realism (and credited with coining the term). Upon his visit to Benares he abandoned figurative painting in favor of landscapes. Over the last fifty years, Benares has remained an integral part of his oeuvre, and he has depicted the city in a variety of forms. Ram Kumar's first visit to the holy city was in the middle of winter and the crammed alleyways and dilapidated houses gave him the impression of a ghost town.

Ram Kumar’s Banares 2 is a city without hopes; therefore his palette too is fairly muted, and is in keeping with the artist’s deliberately sordid interpretation of the city. Ram Kumar chooses to focus on the urban nightmare that Banares (Varanasi) city has become. So there are no quaint depictions of ghats in his paintings; nor are there the towering spires of the Vishwanath temple. There are illuminated temple doorways hinting at the hallowed Garbha Griha within. The spires of the holy Vishwanath temple and the presence of its neighbor, the Gyan Vapi mosque are only a shadowy presence.

Banares 1 has stillness in common as is evidenced in this particular work. With a cool palette of aquas, blues, grays and tawny browns, the prime motifs within his oeuvre oscillate between his numerous visitations to this holy city and the open vistas that are in essence painterly mementos of his life's journeys. The empty spectral city by the banks of the Ganges has an architectural formalism that ironically in reality would be chaotically teeming with bathers and pilgrims.

He said in one of his interviews, "Wandering along the ghats in a vast sea of humanity, I saw faces like marks of suffering and pain, similar to the blocks, doors and windows jutting out of dilapidated old houses, palaces, temples, the labyrinth of lanes and bylanes of the old city, hundreds of boats - I almost saw a new world, very strange, yet very familiar, very much my own."

All Things Art - 2

A black, long, rectangular box arrived for me from an MNC. A letter accompanying it said, “ …it has been our constant endeavor to provide our members, privileges and rewards carefully selected to complement their lifestyle. In line with this, it is my pleasure to present to you an exclusive limited edition print of a creation by one of the most celebrated contemporary Indian artists, M. F. Husain.” I could not wait to hold and feel a Husain. With hurried pace I opened a carefully packed serigraph, ‘The Golden Horse’. Unmistakably Husain.

To fully enjoy ‘the privileges and rewards carefully selected to complement your lifestyle’, you need to be able to appreciate art, and to do that, one must have the knowledge of the elements of art. They are the ‘Building Blocks’ of any work of art. Artists manipulate these elements, mix them in with principles of design and compose a work of art.

The principles of design are concepts used to organize or arrange the structural elements of a work of art. Again, the way in which these principles are applied affects the expressive content, or the message of the artwork. They are Movement, Balance, Emphasis, Proportion, Rhythm and Unity.

Movement is a way of combining elements to cause the viewer’s eye to move over the artwork from one point to another. Balance is the concept of visual equilibrium, and relates to our physical sense of balance. It is a reconciliation of opposing forces in a composition that results in visual stability. Successful compositions achieve balance in one of two ways: symmetrically or asymmetrically. Balance in a three dimensional object is easy to understand; if balance isn't achieved, the object tips over. To understand balance in a two dimensional composition, we must use our imaginations to carry this three dimensional analogy forward to the flat surface.

Emphasis is also referred to as point of focus. It marks the locations in a composition, which most strongly draw the viewer’s attention. Usually there is a primary, or main, point of emphasis, with perhaps secondary emphasis in other parts of the composition. The emphasis is usually an interruption in the fundamental movement of the viewer’s eye through the composition, or a break in the rhythm. Proportion refers to the relative size and scale of the various elements in a design. The issue is the relationship between objects, or parts, of a whole. This means that it is necessary to discuss proportion in terms of the context or standard used to determine proportions.

Rhythm can be described as timed movement through space; an easy, connected path along which the eye follows a regular arrangement of shapes on the surface of the work of art. The presence of rhythm creates predictability and order in a composition. The parallels between rhythm in sound/music are very exact to the idea of rhythm in a visual composition. The difference is that the eyes rather than the ears sense the timed “beat”.

Unity is the underlying principle that summarizes all of the principles and elements of design. It refers to the coherence of the whole, the sense that all of the parts are working together to achieve a common result; a harmony of all the parts.

Unity can be achieved through the effective and consistent use of any of the elements, but pattern-- that is, underlying structure-- is the most fundamental element for a strong sense of unity. Consistency of form and color are also powerful tools that can pull a composition together.

Knowledge of the principles of design and elements of art will empower you to understand ‘why’ you like or dislike a work of art.

Horses in motion

Now that I have started this New Year by acquiring (Though as a gift) a Husain, let me tell you more about Maqbool Fida Husain and his series of 21 large canvases, which exploits the elements and principles of art to the fullest.

Husain's line casts into motion his energised pictorial spaces; his brilliant colours envelop the space with symbolic and expressive values; and his distinct human forms transform the narrative on the painting surface into an intimate experience of poetry.

At the age of 93, he is, perhaps, India's best-known painter. During his long career as an artist, he has witnessed history as an active participant and observed the rapid deterioration of human values in all corners of the world. Through a series of 21 oil paintings, he has expressed this decline as a great loss. He terms it 'The Lost Continent'.

Among the 21 paintings featured in this series, 'Empty Bowl at the Last Supper' has broken the sales record for contemporary Indian art at USD 2 million.

Each canvas measures 6 x 7.5 ft and was painted in oil. The works serve as windows into Husain's thoughts about lost human values. Recurring subjects from his earlier work can be found in this series, including the image of a child separated from, or abandoned by, his mother. Husain expressed this in 'A New Born Child Held Gently By a Fallen Leaf' with the red, featureless face of a mother in the background.

Husain's use of horses in motion, that break free from the charioteer's control is depicted in 'Blind Horses' and 'The Blue Charioteer' is like a streak of white lightning consuming and dividing the pictorial space. In 'A Magician Dangles the Fortune Bird in a Cage', the bird in the cage is surrounded by a mosaic of riotous colour. The composition lures viewers into a terrain where play and uncertainty coexist.

The experience of viewing the canvases is like a journey through colour that blurs the specificity of time and place. The works were painted in a rented London apartment over a period of two months in 2005. The creation of these paintings took place 58 years after Husain, along with SH Raza, FN Souza, KH Ara, SK Bakre and HA Gade formed the Progressive Artists' Group in 1947. In this pivotal year, India became independent and committed itself to eliminating British influence on modern Indian art. At that point in his development, Husain broke from the dominant British Academic School and worked to develop a unique style that combined the sensuous female form from the classical period of the Guptas; the strong colours of the Basohli period miniatures; and the motion of the Chinese painter, Xu Beihong (1895-1953), which influenced his use of horses in motion. These elements have come to characterise Husain's signature style.

India Art Summit 2009

Portrait of Young India

Lively! Vivacious? Animated. Pulsating! Energetic. Alive?
No, why am I trying? I don’t think my visit to India Art Summit 2009 can be described in words.

OK, let’s see – effervescent? Does this word describe the feeling I am trying to express?

Yes. That bubbly, bouncy, sparkling and being young, feeling. Young - because a large number of young artists exhibited their works. Young - because the Modern Masters’ works radiated young and vibrant energy. And Young – because this summit was put together by people in their 20s.

Bird’s eye view of stalls at the India Art Summit 2009.
Bottom (foreground) 143 x 78 inch Untitled by Subodh Gupta

It was evident that an entire new generation of artists and art lovers is driving Indian art and pushing its boundaries. India’s economic boom has led to mushrooming of art galleries in the metros and art prices are skyrocketing, making contemporary art as sought after as luxury cars and branded watches among the newly rich.

The four-day India Art Summit held at Delhi showcased collections from 54 galleries from around the world, displaying Rs. 40 to 50 Crores worth of art under one roof. Close to 40,000 visitors experienced the pulsating energy of India’s Modern and Contemporary Art Market and 200 works of art were sold aggregating Rs 26 Crores.

Vast canvases of oil paintings from some of India's most renowned painters shared space with a variety of art forms from younger, more contemporary artists including sculptures, video and digital art installations.

At the entrance was the showpiece - three giant sculptures by one of the country's leading contemporary artists, Subodh Gupta, depicting three monkeys made of bronze, steel and old utensils.

It was an unforgettable experience of actually ‘touching’ the works of SH Raza, FN Souza, Jamini Roy, GR Santosh and MF Husain (On 100” Plasma TV) at the Delhi Art Gallery Stall. Thanks to Bodhi Art, I got the opportunity observe works of contemporary artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodia, Jitish Kalat and Zarina Hashmi.

The art summit also saw some impressive buying and selling. A piece by the British-Indian artist, Anish Kapoor, has sold for half a million pounds, highest price for a work of art at the summit. Sales continued throughout the four-day summit. A well-reputed Mumbai gallery, Sakshi, went on to sell two of three editions of Sunil Gawde’s 2009 sculpture Heart Beat - Beat Heart, a series of red hearts with nails in them, for $32,000 each.

Despite the art market reflecting the global downturn, gallery analysts are predicting a more positive state for Indian art market which is pegged as the fourth most buoyant in the world projecting an annual growth of 30-35%.

As India has become a competitive force in the global marketplace, Indian art has in turn become a global phenomenon. The explosive growth in interest in the arts and the developing art market infrastructure has allowed artists to gain much more exposure and long-awaited attention on a global level.

All in all, India Art Summit was a sight to behold.

Art Appreciation

Today’s Business Leaders drape big canvases in their offices, boardrooms and drawing rooms. They go to the art galleries as a social visit and Invest in art as never before. Through this feature I will try to make you ‘more aware’ and ‘better informed’ about Visual Arts. It is an attempt to eventually, make you enlightened and equipped for more informed discussions on All Thing Art.

Appreciating Visual Arts

Let's start with a simple question. What is art? Art is something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing to our eyes. Art is something that makes us more thoughtful and well-rounded humans. On the other hand, art is such a large part of our everyday lives; we hardly even stop to think about it. Look at the computer or a laptop in front of you, right this minute. Someone designed that. It is art. The shape of your car is art. Your coffee cup is art. Your tie or a well-stitched dress is art. Ask your children the impact that lack of graphics would have on their favorite video game or a TV cartoon character. It is hard to imagine, even for a minute, a world without art!

To appreciate art, one must have the knowledge of the elements of art. They are the ‘Building Blocks’ of any work of art. Artists manipulate these elements, mix them in with principles of design and compose a work of art.

The elements of art are line, shape, form, space, texture, value and colour.

Musicians talk in ‘common language’ about the key of "A," and they all know it means - a pitch relating to 440 oscillations per second of vibration. Similarly, understanding these principals enable us to describe what an artist has done, analyze what is going on in a particular piece and communicate our thoughts and findings using a ‘common language’.

While line isn't something found in nature, it is absolutely essential to depict objects and define shapes. It can define a space, create an outline or pattern, imply movement or texture and allude to mass or volume. A painter makes form and space appear in two-dimensional works through the use of perspective and shading. A sculptor, by default, has to have both elements in a sculpture, because these elements are three-dimensional.

No, I am not going to give any dope on colour but value of the colour is something, which the painters always play with. It is the lightness and darkness of a colour. Artists use them to create dimensions and moods on flat surface.

Next time you see a work or art, see if you can identify which elements of art have been ‘exploited’ to convey a message or to create a mood.

Master of Elements

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first artist to use ‘value’ consistently across colors. This skillful use of light and dark paints to define three-dimensional shape became known as chiaroscuro, a style of shading that dominates tone (brightness) more than colour.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), ca. 1503-06 by Leonardo da Vinci

(Italian, 1452-1519). Oil on poplar wood. 77 x 53 cm

Da Vinci believed that the human body was the outward & visible expression of the soul and it was shaped by its spirit. A painter must reverse the process and by constructing a body, give expression to a spirit. Leonardo considered this the artist’s highest purpose and he himself excelled therein. His portrait of Mona Lisa has always been considered a masterpiece for its expression of an inner life. It is almost certainly the most famous painting in the world and probably the only one that virtually everyone can recognize and name.

Leonardo made the ‘lines’ blend into one another through miniscule brushstrokes, which made for a rather hazy, albeit more realistic, depiction of light and color. Mona Lisa is an early, wonderful example of this technique called sfumato, which lends the mysterious qualities to the painting.

As we now see it, the Mona Lisa is collaboration between art and time, impossible to look at with fresh eyes or to imagine other than it is. Only when we read Georgio Vasari, (the author of Lives of the Artists, written over 400 years ago) who drew a word-picture of Mona Lisa’s lustrous eyes, rosy flesh tones and red lips, do we realize how much her appearance has been modified by age and varnish. Mona Lisa’s smile was described by Vasari as ‘more divine than human’. Vasari tells us that Leonardo employed musicians and jesters to prevent his sitter (model) Madonna Lisa Gioconda (‘Mona’ is simply a contraction of ‘Madonna’) from losing her smile and lapsing into an expression of conventional melancholy. After spending 4 years on it, Leonardo could not part with his work and eventually carried it off with him to France, the reason why it is in the possession of the Louvre today.

While we cannot put a price tag on Mona Lisa, we can certainly invest in art which we like, understand and afford. The big question comes to the mind first is – How much should I pay for a work of art? The best place to start is at an auction. The price that a work of art sells for at auction is generally accepted to be an accurate estimate of fair market value. At auction, art is generally required to sell immediately, with no fanfare or restrictions, to the highest bidders. Another good estimate of fair market value is the price that a retail gallery pays for a work of art before they mark it up. This "dealer price" is considered to be the value of the art, and is generally considered a reasonable indicator of a work of art's fair market value.

In the forthcoming months, I will give you more information on investing in art and make you more aware of All Things Art.