I CHANCED UPON A TATTERED COPY OF A RELIC - A COPY OF NUNKALAI - AN ART MAGAZINE OF TAMILNADU.
TO MY JOY AND SURPRISE IT CONTAINED AN ARTICLE ON MY GRAND GURU - MY MENTOR KALASAGARAM RAJAGOPAL'S GURU - SHRI DEVI PRASAD ROY CHOUDHURY, SCULPTOR AND THE FIRST PRINCIPAL OF GOVERNMENT COLLEGE OF ARTS AND CRAFTS.
GIVEN HERE IS A COPY TYPED OUT FROM THE MAGAZINE ALONG WITH THE INTRODUCTION ETC. I INTEND TO FIND AND POST THE PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES MENTIONED OVER TIME AS I DONT HAVE IMAGES OF GOOD RESOLUTION NOW.
NUNKALAI – DECEMBER 1981
VOL 1 NO 1
Editorial
Art is the manifestation of the finest and truest of human
emotions. The beauty and perfection of art lies in transmitting these emotions
to the viewer, so that he could live and relive the entire spectrum of feelings
the artist underwent in the process of his creation. This we would call a close
encounter.
Through this journal we desire as close an encounter as
possible between the artist and the art lover. We wish to fill the void that
separates the artist and the common man, arrest the process of aesthetic
desensitization and rekindle the interest in traditional as well as
contemporary art.
We believe a dialogue could begin through this journal
between different schools, traditions and masters. This dialogue could
culminate not only in enthusing and inspiring the younger generation of artists
but also lending a greater momentum to Art Movement in general. We realize our
limitations in achieving these aims, yet we are overcome by the discovery of
enormous talent and unexploited resources in this country.
Nunkalai, no doubt, would represent the best in Tamil as
well as South Indian traditions. But it would essentially be an open forum with
no bounds of time, place and concept, emphasising the universal aspect of
art.to achieve our objective, we invoke the blessings of Goddess Saraswathi.
Mrs. C K Gariyali
I.A.S
Chief Editor
Mrs Anjali Sircar – Editor for English section
Mr. N Muthuswamy – Editor for Tamil section
Contents
1.
Leaders of Contemporary Art in Tamil Nadu
2.
Government College of Arts and Crafts Madras -3.
3.
Therukoothin oppanaiyum udai alamngaaramum
4.
Tanjore Paintings on Glass – a section from the
Madras Museum collection
5.
Evolution of Contemporary Indian Sculpture
6.
Naatuppura Kalaigal – Anrum Inrum
7.
Review
LEADERS OF
CONTEMPORARY ART IN TAMIL NADU – 1
DEVI PRASAD ROY CHOUDHURY
ANJALI SIRCAR
During the closing years of the nineteenth century, it was
evident that the attempt of the British to introduce their own art system in
India through the art schools in the different provinces had failed. Not only
that, a movement was already taking shape to stem the tide from decadence,
reaction and imitation in Indian painting. Spearheading this revivalist
movement was Abanindranath Tagore who, inspired by E B Havell, English art
teacher and critic, established within the short span of less than a decade an
indigenous art system reflecting an all-India character based on the previous
traditions taken from all parts of the country. Known as the ‘Bengal School’,
this revivalist movement was the beginning of modern Indian art.
Abanindranath’s art was one of assimilation – a harmonious synthesis
of what was best in the arts of India, Persia, Japan and China, and he gathered
around him a brilliant group of pupils whom he trained in the traditional
methods and techniques of the East. Among them were Nandalal Bose, K
Venkatappa, Hakim Khan, Suren Ganguly, Samarendranath Gupta, Asit Kumar Haldar,
Sarada Ukil, Kshitindranath Majumdar, Abdul Rahman Chugtai, Pulinbihari Dutt
and Mukul Dey. The last to go to Abanindranath was the romantic, young Devi
Prasad Roy Choudhury, looking like a sculpture of Michelangelo turned to life,
who not only held aloft the sacred torch of art entrusted to him, but surpassed
all the other inheritors of Abanindranath by founding a new school of art – The
Madras School. In creating a virile art that worked as a corrective to the weak
and effeminate character that was slowly creeping intomodern painting in the
name of idealised form and subjective art, Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury appeared
on the Indian art scene as an art reformer – “the classic of the new generation
of Indian artists”.
Two factors combined to bring Roy Chowdhury to Madras in his
capacity as a Principal of the School of Arts. During his stay in Calcutta, he
had been disowned by his aristocratic kinsmen for turning a professional
artist. Having rejected in sheer pride the family allowance given
condescendingly to him, he was almost at the point of poverty, and at one stage
had to carry framed pictures on his back and hawk them in the streets to make a
living. Also, he was in love with Charulatha Banerjee and needed a secure job
before he could marry her.
While on the quest for fresh fields for his artistic
adventures, he received an invitation from the Madras Government under Viscount
Goschen to take charge of the Madras School of Arts. The Madras School was
limited in those days to producing drawing teachers and craft oriented items
for the use of the Britishers. The Viscountess being a painter, Viscount
Goschen desired that Roy Choudhury should reintroduce Fine Arts in the School.
And inspite of a certain amount of local opposition, Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury
joined the Madras School of Arts in the year 1928. One major point in his
favour was that he proved himself capable of experimenting in many styles and
it was felt by his patrons that he would not be indifferent to the atmosphere
of South India.
The three decades which Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury spent in
Madras were the most fruitful period of his life as painter and sculptor. Early
in his professional life, he had the courage to break away in a spell of
rebellious discontent, from the stereotyped patterns and impulses of the Bengal
School and seek out the approach of the Western masters. Driven by an
inordinate ambition to found a new school as also by his own dynamic physical
energy some of which he wanted to impart to his own works, he voyaged back to grasp
the Indian traditional concepts of aesthetic beauty and the symbolic poses,
colour and decorative ornaments expressive of that beauty in various moods and
situations. Then, in a daring experiment that called for exceptional art
knowledge and culture, he grafted the Indian idealism and refining technique on
the three-dimensional naturalism of the Western classical romantic tradition,
evolving thus a suitable realistic synthesis of his own that fell in line with
his idea of initiating the new ‘Madras School’. This individual style, with
slight variations, became the vehicle of his aesthetic experiences.
In his major study of Roy Choudhury in ‘Choudhury and His
Art’, P R Ramachandra Rao says, “A lesser man than Choudhury might have
degraded the Western technique and the Indian idealism and conceived a hybrid
monstrosity. He developed a singularly felicitous and individual style,
adapting Western art science to Indian conceptions. He, however, suffered from
no Western phobia. He adopted the Western science as the basic foundation of
his artistic achievement. His themes, totally Indian, are executed in the most
faultless style that is fundamentally Western, yet no Western artist can
attempt to paint his pictures. There is no casteless, Anglo-Indian atmosphere
about it.”
Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury was a wizard of water colour, and
his mastery of the medium is unequalled in this country. He always preferred
water colours to oils, being able to impart the depth and solidity of oils to
the water colours without the heaviness of the former. In this treatment he
appears to have been influenced by Rembrandt, particularly in his emphasis on
chiaroscuro. His tendency in later years was for a more realistic yet highly
creative form of art and this resulted in a series of magnificent landscapes
and studies of Nature. At the same time, he remained the supreme artist in
delightful decorative studies of Indian women after the Oriental manner. Among
the important works he did in Madras are ‘Green and Gold’ (tempera), ‘After the
Storm’ (water colour), ‘Nirvana’ (oil), ‘Bridge’ (pastel), ‘The Palace Doll’
(water colur), ‘Durga Puja’ (oil), ‘Abhisarika’ (water colour) and ‘Pujarini’
(oil). While a few of these early paintings show the influence of Abanindranath
in both style and technique, the others are perfect examples of his pictorial
art – intriguing and uniquely his own.
No less gifted was he as a portraitist. His portraits are
magnificent pictures in the best English, Dutch, Italian and French traditions.
They are historical records. In his portraits, he recreates the whole man with
a rare mastery of the physical dimension, but the mere man steps out transmuted
by the artist’s touch and stands forth into time. Among his outstanding
portraits are ones of Rabindranath Tagore, a unique cubistic work with a rare
sculpturesque quality, ‘Musafir’, a bearded wayfarer standing out as a triumph
with characterization, ‘Perilous Paths’ depicting the arduous march of
humanity, ‘Road Makers’, the forgers of man’s empire – a composition of faultless
drawing vibrating with superhuman strength. Roy Choudhury in his mature life,
was drawn towards the common man and the poor. He closely observed men and
women who roamed the streets and slept under the canopy of the sky, and began
drawing from life rather than from models. As a result his striking portrayal
of man is at once a challenge and an appeal. Man is stripped of the accident of
social calling and presented in his native majesty. Roy Choudhury was already a
master of anatomy and his works, both in water colour and oil, were marked by a
direct and representational treatment. However, it is as a sculptor that Roy
Choudhury excelled, is known and venerated today. His sculptured portraits are
a brilliant galaxy – The Maharaja of Travancore, Dr Annie Besant, Sir Ashutosh
Mukherjee, Sir J C Bose, Sir C V Raman, Sir C P Ramaswami Iyer, Sir C R Reddi,
Hon’ble Mr Kumaraswami Shasthri, Lord Erskine, Sir Archibald Campell and the
Maharaja of Jeypore. Among the large sculptures he made, those of Sir Surendranath
Banerjee, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Motilal Nehru are outstanding. Each of
these is a rare monument of plastic vision and dignity, impressed in broad and
simple plans, until the subjects stand out massive, compelling and alive.
Choudhury puts into effect the lessons of Rodin, combining them with the Indian
sculptural archetypes.
Some of his compositions are powerful examples of outdoor
sculpture, embodying the sculptor’s conception of form in relation to space.
Important works in the series are ‘God of Destruction’ (plaster of paris),
‘Travancore Temple entry Proclamation’, ‘Rhythm’, ‘After the Bath’, ‘When
Winter comes’, ‘The Last Stroke’, ‘The Victims of Hunger’, ‘Triumph of Labour’,
and ‘Martyr’s Memorial’ – all in bronze. The ‘Martyr’s Memorial’ was claimed by
the sculptor as the biggest group composition of its kind in the world
including as many as eleven figures, some four meters high, occupying about 29
metre horizontal space.
For originality, individuality, strength and expressiveness,
his sculptural works are easily the best in this country. Even the Rodinesque
touch which characterised some of his earlier studies, is perhaps superficial.
Roy Choudhury’s art is definitely and distinctly his own. He remains a pioneer
sculptor insofar as he gave value to the concept of a monument, to high skill
and craftsmanship, as well as to the achievement of some kind of truth in his
realistic art.
Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury (1899- 1975) has been criticised
by art historians and critics for the reason that his work was very much in the
nature of illustration and had very little spiritual content. Sure enough, Roy
Choudhury was neither spiritual, nor high-browed, nor an intellectual. He ws a
down-to-earth man, elemental and rugged inspired by life and capturing its
essence in his work. He went through life with a native aristocratic
nonchalance and whatever he took from life, he gave back in the form of art.
Whileall art forms are known to develop and flourish only in
a congenial atmosphere, in the case of Roy Choudhury it was a classic example
of a flowering in adversity. From the beginning to the end, he went through
life’s battle alone drawing sustenance from his innermost being. His was a case
of the lone intellect involved in creativity without the facility of checking,
comparing or even disagreeing, for in his surrounding he was a stalwart without
an equal. An outstanding rebel in art, he took nothing from them, nor improved
upon them.
His significance, however, is not merely in the fusion of
the Eastern and Western outlooks and techniques, but in motivating brilliant
efflorescence of artistic endeavour among his own students who fortified the
Madras School by a fascinating breadth of vision and technical assurance
sustained by the formative impulses of Dravidian art.
Of his talented students Sushil Kumar Mukherjee, Prodosh Das
Gupta and Gopal Ghosh migrated from South India but his message of a bold new
art as part of contemporary graphic expression was carried forward by G D Paul
Raj. K C S Paniker and S Dhanapal.
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