Earth Day 2024: Six artists to cherish

This Earth Day on April 22nd , in a reaffirmation of the interdependence of man and nature , we look at six artists who continuously celebrate and cherish the beauty of the earth and all that is therein in the Fine Art Sale at Pundole’s Mumbai.

From the landscape of the maestro J Swaminathan, the dulcet study of the fruit seller by B.Prabha , MF Husain’s rare Gurukul, Paramjit Singh’s lush landscape ,Krishen Khanna’s portrait and Ravi Varma’s ageless work Mohini, each one is a delight for the senses.

Swaminathan’s Tree Mountain and bird

The current lot was originally exhibited at Dhoomimal Gallery, New Delhi in 1979. This approximate date corresponds to an important change that is witnessed in the overall compositional structure of many works from the Bird, Tree and Mountain series. This work that hung at the home of Uma Jain and her son Uday Jain is a masterpiece in the beauty of the landscape.The three main elements of the work, the Bird, the Tree and the Mountain, float independently within glowing flat colour planes.

The catalogue states that towards the end of the 1960s, these colour planes are then frequently contained within white borders on two sides, or broad coloured borders that entirely surround the central image. By the late 1970s, however, further divisions become common, and vertical white lines, as seen in the current painting, begin to dissect the picture plane. A secondary element that appears at this time is a flight of stairs or architectural blocks that rise from the base of the work.For Swaminathan the infinite wonder of the universe was what defined man’s existence.

MF Husain’s Gurukul 1978

MF Husain’s indigo toned Gurukul is yet another vintage classic with the beauty of his contours. The traditional ‘guru-shishya’ parampara is set against the banyan tree and each figure has a contribution to the scene.We spot the sage, as well as the five students poised with heads bent dressed in dhotis. Their bald heads – suggest the completion of the Brahmin ritual of the thread ceremony which requires shaving their heads. The sage is given an emblem of the Sun, radiating life- giving energy and perhaps bestowing him with similar powers to disseminate wisdom. At the left of the group is the goddess Saraswati, traditionally associated with knowledge and learning. In her hands she holds the veena, her musical instrument of choice, and at her feet is her vahana or mount, the graceful hamsa or white swan, floating in the water alongside a large lotus flower, which she often stands or sits upon.The work stands like a tapestry of time.

B.Prabha’s Fruit Seller 1973

Autumnal instincts of the setting sun envelop the lissome fruit seller by Prabha who celebrated the common folk on beaches, seashores, hamlets and by lanes of India.Prabha’s penchant for capturing the women of marginalised communities and recreating a narrative for the lot of the humble woman who ekes out her life selling fisher fruits or even carrying clay pots of water on her head all become a case of the signature of one woman caring for another.

This portrait is one of pensive poise, it has an orchestration of Prabha’s love for nature as she places her in a poignant landscape that distills embers of quietude and lonesome lyrics of a woman waiting to sell her ware.The fruit basket is one of depth and fertility and the vitality of vintage thoughts .Prabha was an artist of depth and deep observation.Her images have about them a solitary signature of melancholia that creates a mesmerising mood for the viewer even as she extols the beauty of the sunset.

Paramjit Singh 1989

Paramjit Singh artist and mentor from Jamia Millia Islamia is at heart a landscape lover and artist who has spent 60 years contemplating the landscape.

In a conversation to Baruna Bhattacharya he said: ‘When one is in empathy with Nature, it is only natural to feel a certain oneness with it. Looking at a landscape, it is only natural to feel a certain oneness with it. Looking at a landscape, it is quite possible for one to travel – not physically but spiritually – and reach that space. It becomes a kind of destination.

This involvement of the viewer with the painting imbues it with a human presence unique to it. And because one can never exhaust the mysteries on Nature, such journeys can never end.”

Paramjit’s hand at capturing the vistas and vignettes of paradisal pastorals becomes his leitmotif.The bushes as well as the impressionist idioms of the flowers all become an orchestration of the softness of a scene that must bring to our senses a sensorial captivity.One thinks of poet William Wordsworth and his famous lines, ‘ They flash upon that inward eye ,which is the bliss of solitude.’

Krishen Khanna

Stories for Krishen Khanna the 99 year old artist who is the last of the Progressives , carry a host of multiple meanings and references, they are more than mere symbols, ciphers, ingredients for life’s lessons, continuous conduits for meaning and metaphors; they are little cathedrals of reflection and transform into tales of dreams
that transcend time.

Krishen Khanna’s portrait is best explained by the brilliant author and artist J Swaminathan when he wrote : ’In a phase in Indian painting when there is an epidemic of figuration in the name of humanistic considerations, Krishen’s work has a consistent presence, free of any cult orientation. It is Krishen’s primary commitment to his medium that brings relevance to his subject matter in art and lifts the mundane to the realm of the poignant.’ (Jagdish Swaminathan, Krishen Khanna, exhibition catalogue, Centre for Contemporary Art, New Delhi, 1989, unpaginated)

The current painting, created in the early 1970s, depicts a seated female figure wrapped in magenta robes. With her left leg bent at the knee, and her right leg stretched out in front of her, she is seated on the ground supported by her right hand. Her shrouded face, lit with an ethereal light, is quietly contemplative, tinged with sadness. The work is titled Figure, and as the title suggests, it depicts an unknown person, for she is one of a multitude of anonymous labourers who begin to appear in Krishen Khanna’s canvases at this time. The characters from this broader theme include the exhausted men covered in cement dust as well as a series of faceless mourners sitting in abject desolation in pensive solitude.

Ravi Varma’s Mohini

Raja Ravi Varma’s Mohini is the piece de resistance of this historical sale, it depicts a solitary young lady in a moment of quiet contemplation, relaxing on a swing in a remote rural landscape. According to classical Hindu scriptures, Mohini is the female avatar of Lord Vishnu. She is worshipped throughout India, but is particularly popular in Western India, where she is worshipped as Mahalasa, the consort of Khandoba, a regional avatar of Lord Shiva. She is beauty personified, the goddess of enchantment, who maddens lovers, gods and demons alike.We think of Indian classical traditions of feminine allure, of the beauty of painting a goddess against the landscape of nature as her hair feels the wind surging through her tresses. And we think of great Indian films and music and lyrics that keep us singing in reverie for ever.Indeed all these paintings celebrate the beauty of the earth.

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