"A complete essay on contemporary Indian painting sltould undol.tbtenly . cover the work of 18 painters·at the very !east and should make reference to- 10 more .... "-So begins GIETh PATEL's original essay on the subjeet, in which he narrows his field of discussion to the five contemporary painters_ whose work has made the greatest impact on his own work, over the years. This essay .was first published in Daedalus, the Journal of the American Acc.demy of Arts and Sciences (Fall '89}, a special issue on Indian ·art and ~ culture. w~ bring you a ·s~rtened version. -,/ -, -~ ~ started in the early ·ros by trying to paint exactly like Akbar Padamsee_ Fortunately for him. I did n<X suc­ I ceed. Few things are more depressing to an artist than having a bad but successful imitator. I did drool over his works · - how could I use red like· that, endlessly burning and smouldering within itself?How paint a human bOdy so ~t it seems almost not to be present and yet has the solic!i:: and .. structure of a firm rock? To this day I have not fathome-::: the secrets of those works. I could at best imitate the man_-;er of the brushstrokes or carefiilly place colours ne:x1: to each O>:her the way I thought he might. The result would almost alv.cys be fatuous. Padamsee's reaction to my paintings, though, w 2.s en­ couraging. In 1962, what CG"..:ld his approval of those ju.-o:nile works have meant? His ev2Tnation would have gone some-:.1ing like this: "It's good that the man is not painting village wG:-:::;en at the-well. Good too he is no 'interpreting Indian reality· by a set of cliched rural or urbc::1 images that have been do=.o: to death and neYer had a true E:e about them any>vay since .b.:ita Sher-Gil died in 1941. He Aants to paint the naked !:-.=-..an body, Gild that is subject II!2.tter for anyone in any age. The work looks well intentioned.. He l112Y even get 0\·er the :=ca­ tive mannerism of it. Though when he paints t.he figure.. l:!e does not take the space arOil!Ild it into account, does n0: see that the 'negatiye' area aroc:::ld the body has shape and -s::Jst­ ance, znrl is Yery much a p2rt Of the painting." In this imagined speech 2SCiibed to Padamsee I haYe er;­ capsulated some of his concerns as a painter, and they p-=.-:oist with him today: No square ..:entimetre of the canvas is .i:ss impartmt than any other; the-painting speaks from its enti-.o::y. Any isdated area must speck its own stncture, just as i::. ~'Ie context of the rest of the p2i::rtjng it i~ itself a structural p2:: of the larger edifice. And the "s-abject matter" (pl2ced in Q:)~ :es because it is tricky, troubbome, and half--correct e\·e.:. i:O .... ._: I Opposite, Head (1980)and above, Metascape (1977) by Padamsee isolate it as such) must carry its own authentic poetry, which naked human -body of no specific race, is nature as lakes, will have nothing to do with the imaging of well-worn common- rivers, mountains of rto specific geographic location and build- places. ing structures that do not correspond to a particular city. Attempting to distill this vision still further, I hazard the view Such a choice has an asceticism about it, a stern turning that it is an aspiration for unity. It is one way of confronting away from the particularities that the eye would almost natural­ fragmentation, personal and social, a malady most of us in ly pick up and the abstracting of them into a unified central today's world carry within us in varying degrees. There is _. essential, therebydenyingthetasteandflavoroflocality. This another way of confronting this problem, and we shall examine asceticism is denied by a great elemental sensuality. Ultimate­ it when we speak of other painters. In the meantime we see ly, this sensuality takes possession and triumphs over all the Akbar Padamsee making a daunting armoury of means and preparatory calculation. The lakes, rivers, mountains are de­ bringing it in:to service for paintings that are simple in their pictions of primal water, earth, air, trembling and shimmering. immediate imagery but complex in their execution. The sun and the moon are great fires. The human body is flesh, Padamsee works with diagrams, grids, colour charts, comprised of these elements. I have said this elsewhere, and it mathematical structures; he digests Paul Klee's tome on paint- bears repeating: Padamsee is a materio,list if you define matter ing _.:__ The Thinking Eye, a quietly revolutionary book demon- as the few irreducible things our life is made of.... · strating that. poetry and philosophy inhere in grammar. He studies Sanskrit. The equivocal grammatical structures of that I n 1968, Nissim Ezekiel, poet and art critic, said to me: _language, devoid of rigid punctuation, stimulate his own un- "Indian reality does not have to be village women at the orthodox reading of traditional verses; and this results in one well. If some have seen it so, does it invalidate a more real whole set of paintings on the sun and the moon as the twin . search for it?" The statement resulted in my taking a close look movers of time. at newspaper photographs, and I discovered that most of them I sometimes nurse an irreverent thought: What kind of depicted statesmen being garlanded, feted, and applauded. paintings would Padamsee produce, had he· allowed himself to The endlessly repeated unction of the ceremony impressed me jettison some of this baggage early in his career? I do not have a a great deal and became subject matter for a set of paintings. view of artists as holy ignorants, spontaneous and unin- I took the photographs and translated them into paintings ..If structed. Great artists are almost always greatly literate. · in the photograph the statesman looked pleased and reassured .· ~ Therefore, ' to .me, · Padamsee's ·extrapainter)y mncerns do · at being congratulated (and he often did); I wanted him pleased - · ~ speak of the high level of his personal culture. But I am now and reassured in the pairiting as well, without extra comment ·-·- ' exploring the ·outer, slightly desperate edge of this culture. He from myself, and without employing caricature. The paintings . has ,himself admitted that after setting up a schema on his became a "double-see" through which the viewer quickly iden- . canvas, obtained .by much structural calculation, he has not , tifies the images with things he is used to seeing repeatedly in .infrequently.contradicted it during the actual working out of the the pa{>ers. He also r_egisters with a slight shock that this time painting. .I suspect that contradiction happens more frequently they are presented to him as paintings, ostensibly works of art · . than he would admit. His "subject-matter" (quotes again) is the meant to lend dignity and gra~~ to the occasiofi: And Y(!t. whil~ - , DEBONl\.IR APRIL 1~ - . - :';..._.- . •· .. ,r I ·I - AboPr,. My Dear Friend (1983- wzftnished)?md belcw, Cabinet witliSbiVa0977) bj KhakJzar ... J • . • - presenting them withou1 an arch wink, weren't the dignity and grace actually being withheld? And something more lethal being hinted at, behind the ceremoniousness? It is in the -, double-take that some of the irony of the message is conveyed. 'In the late '50s and early '60s Bhupen Khakhar, working in Baroda. systematically lift~ images from shrines, middle­ class interiors. popular posters, and salesmen's charts in bazaars. He created a whole new iconography for Indian paint­ ing. These works imply an attitnde that differentiates Khakhar frorr. an earlier generation of post-Independence painters­ this artist -was not going to be oh so serious about it all! The earlier p2~.ers saw themselves as rebel prie.~ts. Khakhzr decided to take no shade of the clergy seriously. He voluntar;Jy stepped down from high concerns of the art of painting and let the middle middle class into his work, the class of his ov.-n i origin. He copied its decor and celebrated its members' Iistle_'S - I lives. Wi!E::.gly and happily, he identified with their bad taste­ 1 !the garish .:-olour schemes in their horr:es, the gewgaws a 1 showcases_ But somewhere along the way the mischievo·..:s l schoolboy c;-uality of the work began to acquire unforesee:1 I depths, sooett 'ng like compassion for tllis life he was descr~j­ j ing. Dra"W-:J cheeks, dark hollows under the eyes contradicterl the sumptuousness of the colours. We begin to see behind it ~ I. the desper:2te struggle to keep afloat that plagues low-income people in t:::.s country. Also, the spiritu2l dessication of urbc· rjtes puz:z!ed by the increasing emptiness they encounter zs traditional h<>.Jiefs are slowly eroded. · ~ Remenner Padamsee's response to fragmentation- bl;; unified abs::actions. After guilt and the prohibition to work. image cf his problematic.al ti::::-le and country. He has use: the how to res;:>ond to fragmentation is the next most importa:::: potent ~sion~ of this stru6.;le to create his images. hurdie the Indian painter faces. I must ner..essarily leave mo:-e Pad2r::.see, "ve said, heels himsetf by deiJ1..anding :Cty. .c specialize<! ;::::-obing into etiology to experts in the field. To mE Khakhc- doe:: :: by indulging ::nultiplicity. The canvases Ccive it seems e:x-.ugh that the country is almost always at the bri:::;; on an 2a:um~:ion of dis~-ate detEi!.