The Paintings of Ram Kumar
SWASTI RAM KUMAR SMRITI Raza Foundation 1 The Paintings of Ram Kumar Among the Indian painters today Ram Kumar is he strives after in his paintings would influence his perhaps the only one who has no imitators and no method of work. His hours are regular the fresh hours followers, for both his themes and method are simple. of the morning he spends in his studio in Karol Bagh in His themes are everyday subjects we in the cities see; Delhi. There he paints, sketches, thinks his way out of the poor, the oppressed, the destitute, the frustrated problems, always within reach and in the company of lower middle class, not necessarily or typically Indian, the finished work and the tools and implements of his but nevertheless alive and boldly stated in non- craft. This is a very necessary discipline, for the ground theatrical yet dramatic terms. of a great painting is craft, the knowledge of surfaces, textures, the limits there can be no heavenly bread he For all this there is nothing of the grotesque or the knows, too, that the spirit of man that destroys the ugly or the sentimental in his paintings. Subject matter enemy of essentially fragile in its desire for peace and and style are mutually supporting. With the minimum for love. He is content to depict the fragility of life and delineation of the human figure, he strengthens line people. He is a painter of the people, not the people of and perspective, allowing eye to see first things first, a the people of the countryside but of the city.
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