CUBIST INFLUENCES ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTING

by Ratan Parimoo

CUbism has been the most revolutionary art movement in the twentieth century which brought about fundamental changes in art since its emergence. Xt had far reaching consequences for both painting and sculpture. Strictly speaking Picasso and Braque were its originators, who aimed at purifying painting and purging it from all so called literary elements. Though the ources of cubism were certain Negro carvings and Cezann • s middle phase paintings the style when emerged fully­ fledged was quite far removed from those which served its starting point. CUbism proper is the style of Picazso' sand Braque's paintings done between 1909 and 1914 divided in two phases, 'analytical' and the Isynthet1c'o

Cubism did away with the renaissarce be.lief that painting was part of nature seen through a window fram a fixed angle of Vision. Considering it as a flat surface to b articulated into a spatial complex by mean. of receding and projecting interpenetrating planes where the farthest and the nearest plane mark out the limits of the emerging space. The planes derive from sectionwise an lyses of the volumes of an object as soon simultaneously from various positions of vision creatino a new relationship between volume and space which in the analytical phase b ecome one and the same. While in this phase painting 18 reduced to bare structure, 1n 'synthetic' cubism, space is compressed because planes overlap instead of interpenetrating and where colour once again finds major place.

If this is how classical cubism may be characterised then it is possible to distinguish fram it th~ following. 1. variations practised by artists who had a personal approach to cubism like Juan Gris and Leger, 2. those painters who used it as one of the components merging it with other more personal ingredients of their art language, namely Chagall, Franz Marc, Feininger and Delaunay's abstractions of translucent colour planes, 3. its influences on other movements fundamentally different from it, in particular, Italian FUturism and Vorticism of the English painter, Wyndham Lewis, 4. subsequent movements for which it erved as a take off point, as Supermatist abstraction of the Russian painter Malevitch and the Noo-Plastic abstra ction of Mondr1an of Holland.

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CUbism a180 affected the taste as a result of which utter simplification, reducing form to bare essentials and undisturbed straight line and plain surfaces became the norome of beauty. Dividing the picture surface into flat overlapping planes ana combining mare than one view point in a figure to turn it into a composite imaqe with a hieghtened re~lity - preoccupations of this kind, enabled the discovery of similar elements present in Gothic and Egyptian painting, Rajput and Mughal miniatures in their perspective and even in certain Ind1an 8Cl~lptures like the extremely twisted body flexions whereby the breasts and the backside are simulteneously represented on one plane.

In Europe cubism remained not only the major art movement of the century but it had also posed a challenge to almost every painter. But in India neither was ,it taken as a challenge of this kind nor did there emerge a whole generation of artists at any given period specially devoted to classical cubism. It never happened that a generation had assimilated it whose ache1vements might have served as a 'catalyst for the subsequent generations. Instead for Indian painters cubism was a ready-made language from WhiCh borrowings could be freely made. Thus the question would not be the Indian contribution to cUbism or Indian version of cubism but rather what kind of borrowings were made and what was done with these borrowings. In the brief analyses that follows I am restricting myself to maa1festations in painting only.- Discussion on cubist influences on Iddian sculpture will be found elsewhere.

A critic (Stella Kramr1sch) as early a81922 had raised another question after seeing Gaganedranath Tagorets cubist paintings. She asked how far was the cubist formula suited to Indian expression. For her Indian cubism Was a paradox because ahe felt that "the ever moving flowing life of an Indian work of art was opposite to the essentially crystal­ lised static quality of cubism-. And hence the two were incompatable. It may seem then that for an Indian painter venturing into cubism was hazardous, deemed to failure, only exceptional few having a chance to achieve mean1nglul results. Those who tried and succeeded can be conveniently studied if catagorized.

Gaganendranath Tagore was the first I~d1an painter to be aware of cubism and th,e first to respond to it in his. ink paintings of 19208. He looked at the non-French version of cubism (Futurism and Blaue-Reiter) whereas it will be seen that subsequent Indian painters were influenced by the ______~--~ ____ ~ ______~ __ ------~----.~.~.~3~•• -----~ Pranch cubism. In this regard it is interesting to not that in 1922 an exhibition of original modern paintings was held ill calcutta for the firs't time consist1no mainly of the works of German Bauhaus pain-ters including the cubist examples of Feininger and Myndham Low!s.

Gaganendranath us~ cubist elements to more expressively con truct his dream phantas1a.. He was not interested in the cubist analyses of volume but the way in which space COUld be created by receding and projecting planes. In his paintings the blacks and th whites do not only represent light and shadow but also define the space. It is the mystery of space that he ebhance. which, unlike cubism, is not restricted and closed but open and boundless. He used the dynamic diagonal structure rathe than the static vertical-horizontal one.

Subsequently, there have been efforts at synthesising cubist elements with Indian art li~e George Keyt's in 1940s (cubism and Indian culpture) and in 19508 by Sendre· s (cubism and Indian miniatures). Geor£e Keyt saw the later paintings of Picasso (19308) where he had used thiCk bold outlines and composite delineation of the human figure. Keyt realised the compos! te qu 11 ty of l:ndian sculpturos (in their twists

nd bhangas) I linearised them to approximate Picasso figure but in the event the whole effect haa turned out to be highly decorative. The synthesis that Bendre worked out in 1s p~1nt1ngs of 19508 was in terms of flattening volume and space as found in • synthetic' cubism as well 8S 1n Rajput painting_ But the pattern quality of Indian painting 1a replaced by tension and structure wnile flat colour areas ere activated as planeG. He aC ~1'1vttd an elegance and parity which is both classical and impersonal under the impact of cubist aesthetic.

Ram Kinker's paintings of 19408 are remarkable for having raj cted the current Bengali aesthetic of sentimental lin r decorations. Instead he began to paint nature through cubist eyes transforming landscape or figure compositions of Santhal life into cubist structure. Line, low-keyed colour and plane are contrive

During the post-independence period, in an atmosphere when for India modern art became synonymus with cubism, Jehang1r Sabaval went to Paris to study under Andre Lhoto Who had academ1sed ~1sm. sabavala and Tr110ke Kaul call be classed together WhO have treated Indian scenes through a variation of analytical cubism. But in their works of around 1960 they seem to be too near to ·the prototype having been unable to sufficiently indiv1duallse the method. Tne kind of ind1vidual1sation that '1 mean here s ~e one that can be vbserved in Ram Kumars's Banaras landscapes which may at first glance appear· • analytical , but they contain much more of personal poetry to think of the 'style' of their execution. Probably this 1s how he came to te~s with it after having made use of the cubist distortions of form and space (he too had taken lessons from Andre Lhote) in placj.ng forlom, figures in haunted settings. This sense of the 't~aglc' also has spilled into his landscapes which invest them with the poetry I ment.1on.eO. above. Interest1.ngly enough, Sabavala in recent years has arrived a t a kind of v1sion~ry landscape as a ' homage to the mystery of na ture where the elements get dissolved into a v ast otherial expense achieved by subdued a nd subtle va riations of muted tonalities possible only due to a deep personal .consistent involvement.

Looking at K~G.SUbramanyan·8 entire paintinO activity it is possible to discem the important role cubism has played in bis pictorial approach. I 'think his attitude t ,o space and structure and the picture surface has remained constant whether it be his .sombre and maze-like pattems of still.­ life objects of early 19608 (these are comparable to Braque's later period st,ill-lifes) or his recent paintings (after his trip to the United states) which resemble interiors within which are interwoven cut up human limbs or parts and tr1dently coloured stripes. The two elements exist precariously together in a two dimensional structure planar; edge to edge relationship which eventually qoes back to the cubist aeathectic. The works of Dink$r Kowshik in 1950& 1s also very akin to Subramanyamls but too near to such cubists as Juan Gris, to reveal any significant individuality •

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~~e r lao tnt r. who have used c rt in c~i.t traits bu " in who. work cibl.. does not. foxm the f\lndamen 1 spec of their vi.lon, e.g. 1- U8 in Jld .-;,nantJ. v 1n th 1r ch r. ct r1 t1 ann r of dlatcrting the human figure P d e in hie lana. pee. EVen nto h nd Jyotl tt have their short but d r1v tty. cub18t interlude•• t in hi rl1 r f1gun pa.int1nge Padams.et 8 di tort1C1C' ow lot t.o Pi 0·. 1 t r paint:1nvs Hi,s 9r('1 landscape. It. 0 9h not 11 .1yt 1 in th mlbi.t sena but y t emne, could h V8 b plotori 11aed pee! lly the 9 omQ~rie co tu t1on. of houses - only throuQh e cubist. e. -