Art: M Reddeppa Naidu ~ The magic of the Mahabharata

(1932- 1999)

(Note: I interviewed Reddeppa Naidu twice ~ once for Indian Express in 1985, then for The Independent in Mumbai in 1990. This piece is a composite of the two sessions.  I haven't been able to source visuals from his Mahabharata series so far, but promise to share them with this piece as soon as they come my way. )

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        THE MAHABHARATA is open to interpretation by each individual Indian. What does it mean to you? An ageless epic? Classic rock sculptures in ancient caves? A popular television serial? A much-discussed, internationally-cast theatrical presentation? A tale related episodically by your grandmother?

        If you were a Madras-based painter named Mopuri Reddeppa Naidu, now 57, the Mahabharata would spell a series of 18 large canvases, one for each parva or canto of the epic, executed between 1972 and 1974. It would also mean a burgeoning friendship with M Deendayal, akin to him in age and social background, who encouraged the series as an admirer, patron and art gallery owner.

       Deendayal first exhibited Reddeppa’s impressive and stylized work at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi in 1974, then at his own Aparna art gallery in Madras in 1983. More recently, he hosted a retrospective of Reddeppa’s work in Madras.

       How did the great epic come to be captured on canvas? Naidu, relaxing at his modest home in Madras, replies, “Around June 1972, Deendayal read me a poem from the Stree parva ~ the Samsara Grahanam ~ which was translated into Telugu from Sanskrit in the 3^rd century AD by Nanayyabhatt. He then requested me to do a painting based on it. I did one, which both he and his wife liked very much. Deendayal then suggested that I might like to do one for each parva.”

      Reddeppa is one of the most respected contemporary painters in south India, a winner of the coveted National Award in 1962, a student of D P Roy Chowdhury and K C S Panicker at the Madras College of Arts and Crafts. He is currently Deputy Director (Design) as the Weaver’s Service Centre (WSC) at Madras (now Chennai).

      Does his work in textiles draw him away from art? “There are no two ways about it. An artist remains an artist. He never goes completely into any other work,” replies Reddeppa, thoughtfully. “But the creative mind is common to both the artist and the textile designer. One complements the other. So, my primary object in taking up this job ~ besides the fact that it helps monetarily ~ is that it doesn’t affect my creative painting. It never distracts me from my canvas.”

      Does the WSC re-connect him with Indian tradition? “If I had not joined the WSC, I would not have known the greatness of our tradition because our art schools are so western-oriented. Re-doing through the mind forms done by past people helps to contact the living mind of the past,” he responds, drawing lines in the air. “Contact with such textiles greatly benefits the creative artist. He is used to free-thinking on a canvas. The same application on paper ~ a bird or a flower or a design ~ is given the same aesthetic expression and gives the same joy. No doubt, in conceiving a complete plan for a saree, an artist cannot design as he likes. He has to think of how it will go on the loom. But after years of working towards this, he can finally bring his personality into the saree ~ in its colour, border, pallav, its totality. Ultimately, he may achieve a simplification of the process, as in a painting.”

       Here are excerpts from an interview with Reddeppa, done in the context of the Mahabharata series:

     How have your techniques and idioms evolved to bring you to this point in your art?

      In the early 1970s, most south Indian painters were going through a romantic phase, greatly influenced by the French school of thought. This was reflected in my first two Mahabharata paintings. Earlier, in the Deity series which I began in the 1960s, I used dull colours, sensitive lines of modern expression and bright patches for emphasis. In their midst, I scripted relevant Sanskrit slokas. These were authenticated by a pundit, Ganesa Sastri, hired by Deendayal.

      After the Samsara Grahanam, Deendayal suggested the Sauptika Parva as the next subject. After the final destructive battle, which nobody really won, Asvatthama watches an owl entering a crow’s nest and destroying all the young ones while the other surviving Kauravas ~ Kripa and Kritavarma ~ were asleep. Inspired by this, Asvatthama steals into the Pandava camp, encounters Shiva and obtains his sword, with which he kills all the sleeping Pandava sons. Then, he accompanies Kripa and Kritavarma to tell Duryodhana of the enemy’s annihilation.

      (Pausing to gather his thoughts) These first two paintings in the series continued in the style of my Deity series. The artist has to find a vocabulary and colours of his own for the characters, and a philosophy for each parva. The question of the entire Mahabharata doesn’t arise. I had to choose an interesting poem from each parva and decide how to depict it.

    In the third painting of the series ~ the Sabha Parva ~ I needed to depict Duryodhana, Arjuna and Bhima pictorially. At this stage, I moved away from my earlier romantic paintings and my colours became brighter. While doing the Sabha Parva, I had to search within for a way of portraying the attempted disrobing of Draupadi. I drew her praying to Krishna, and then a thought came to me. I drew Krishna’s Sri Chakra around her sari to protect her. It’s not very cinematic, but it’s very satisfying to have found such a solution. 

    You’d studied Telugu and Sanskrit when you were young in Andhra Pradesh. Have you always been familiar with the Mahabharata?

    Not really, although I had read it in bits and pieces since my schooldays, seen it on stage and in films. Which edition did I finally use for the paintings? One I borrowed from Deendayal ~ a Telugu translation of the Mahabharata by Sri Mantri Lakshminarayanan Sastri.

    The Mahabharata elevates and takes the mind to great heights. When you read all that philosophy, it is reflected in your lines, your colours. My challenge was to read the epic, yet to be free of the epic. Only then could I do a creative painting.

      Look, I didn’t merely read the Mahabharata. I lived in it. In recreating it in a different medium, I lived through it. Today, I can talk consciously about the line, the colour and composition of the paintings. But, while I was working on them, it was all  unclear in my mind. I was trying to bring the unknown to reality. (Silent for a minute) Normally, one begins a venture with some expectations. The mind always works with a purpose, but I had to set myself free. I wasn’t painting for an award, or even for a customer. I could rise to the creative challenge because my mind was free of all preoccupations.

      Was Deendayal responsible for setting your mind free?

       He gave me absolute freedom. I was totally responsible for giving of my best. For each parva, I chose the incidents or episodes to be depicted. He didn’t interfere, not even to check on the progress of each painting, though I did show him a drawing on paper before I began each canvas.

     After each of the 18 paintings was completed, he’d send a vehicle for it. Then, we’d sit together and discuss it.

     How did you first meet Deendayal, an unusual patron in our competitive world?

      In 1979, Deendayal came to see a mural I had done for the industrialist T. T. Vasu, in Madras. He appreciated it so much that he began to share with me his joy in Tanjore paintings and other art objects from his private collection.  We became friends. His faith in my talent saw me through the Mahabharata series. There was no commercial aspect to this, but total mind-to-mind communication, such as there is when you like a person very much.

    Strangely enough, both Deendayal and I were about 40 when the Mahabharata paintings began in 1972. I feel that was the right age to get to know the great epic. By then, we already have some experience of life. Like me, he holds the conviction that the series should remain intact. He will never give away the series or break it up.

From his 'Musician' series

     What were your first encounters with religion-based paintings?

      The inspiration first came from a Muslim friend, Wazir Rahman, my classmate at the Kakinada High School. He wrote Telugu poetry.  One day in 1962, he said to me, “Look, Reddeppa, Balaji at Thirumala draws millions of devotees every year. I’m surprised that he does not seem to mean a thing to you.”

     I began to paint Lord Venkateswara with the sankhu, chakram and naamam… I realised that there was immense material in Hindu iconography, waiting to be exploited by a serious and responsible artist.

(This piece is included in my 2004 book, 'Articulations: Voices from Contemporary Indian Visual Art, published by Rupa & Co.)

Art: S G Vasudev ~ A celebration of life

Portrait by Mallikarjun Katakol

 (This interview took place in March 1992)

HIS EARLIEST artistic memories are of his mother, who painted cutouts and figures for a family Dussehra in the old-world city of Mysore, where life flows at a timeless pace. Her colours and brushes, amidst the festive bustle, fascinated him. But there were other moments, other icons. The child would watch agog as his uncle worked with his stretched canvases, and he would tune in to tales of how his great-grandfather ~ an ayurvedic doctor ~ had sculpted in stone.

Inevitably, despite parental opposition, the boy defied the family to study art.  The passage of time has  moulded him into an artist named S G Vasudev. A founder-member of the Cholamandal artists’ village, outside Madras, he presents his recent drawings ~ titled The Line ~ at the Pundole Art Gallery in Bombay till March 21, 1992.

What is special about Vasudev’s line drawings? Unrestricted expression imbues their flow and play. Momentary ideas, like stray strands, intertwine, then veer apart. Moods beckon, then disperse, summoning up colours through fluid, circuitous lines.

Thematically, both integration and individualism come to the fore. Man and beast, tree, reptile, earth, sky and fruit, evoke a celebration of life through their inherent contradictions and alliances. In Vasudev’s world, each element is placed within its special orbit, both at ease with itself and with each other. Communing with this imaginary natural universe, the artist is immersed in belonging, never an outsider.

Vasudev’s work has meandered through many themes and media down the years. His mastery of oils, copper reliefs and the line have traversed Fantasies of real and unreal forms, Maithuna or the act of love, the Vriksha series that flowered for years, and the more recent drawings of He and She.

His is a multi-faceted talent. His paintings have been exhibited all over India, in addition to Havana, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Prague, and New York. He was the art director for the award-winning Kannada films Samskara and Vamsa Vriksha. He has designed book jackets for writers like A K Ramanujam, U R Ananthamurthi and Girish Karnad.

How does the world view Vasudev? As one of the most popular and hospitable people at Cholamandal. As a tender and devoted husband to fellow-artist Arnawaz before cancer took her life in 1988. As an individual who cares passionately about art in a technology-centric world. 

In conversation, Vasudev couches his strong views in a gentle voice that seldom rises to a shrill treble of protest or defiance or anger. His spatulate fingers shape nuances in the air as he elaborates on an answer. He seems to be poised in mid-career, all set to take wing.

Here’s a pen portrait of the artist as a gentleman, not yet engulfed by the call of commerce:

Was the painter K C S Paniker, your principal at the Madras Government College of Arts and Crafts, a major influence on you?

When I got a national scholarship for painting in 1964, I joined directly under Paniker. (Wistfully) He never made us feel he was a teacher; he was a friend, philosopher and guide to me. His studio was always open, and I could talk to him about anything. It was good to discuss our work every day with a teacher of his standing. He’d talk about his own painting, and how the arrangement in my painting was helping him with his! It was as if both of us were learning at the same time. He gave us the freedom to work as and when we wanted to.

He gave a very good direction to those who were his best students ~ Viswanadhan, Adimoolam, Bhaskaran, I ~ because he felt we could build a very good centre in Madras. He’d even help us out with personal problems that we could not discuss with our parents. Gradually, that’s how the idea of Cholamandal came about…

Now that Cholamandal is 25 years old, what do you feel has gone wrong between the dream that was and what exists now?

Look, in the 1960s, there was no financial or media support available for us in Madras.  We were in our twenties and willing to work very hard to build up Cholamandal. But as we grew older and as some of us became successful, problems like jealousies and friction were bound to arise. And, in a small place, everything tends to get magnified. (Thoughtfully) But I feel Cholamandal has succeeded in what Paniker set out to do. He felt if 30 to 40 painters, living together, could produce five or six artists of some calibre over the next 20 years, Cholamandal would have served its purpose. It has.

You know, people always think of Cholamandal as a school. They’ve never understood that it is a community in which every artist is an individual.

Did it make a difference to Cholamandal to have a woman artist like Arnawaz in its midst?

If Arnawaz hadn’t been there, Cholamandal would have been totally different. One strong, outspoken woman like that changed the basic attitudes and concepts of people around. Otherwise, most of the other artist’s wives were very timid.

Now, I’m glad a strong person like painter Subha De lives in Cholamandal. I know most of the artists are not very comfortable when Subha talks to them because she has such strong opinions. But it’s good for them. They should argue things out.

Is something major happening in the world of Indian women painters today?

Well, it’s great to see artists like Rekha Rodwittiya, Vasudha Thozhur, Nalini Malani, Arpana Kaur, Arpita Singh and Jayashree Chakravarthy, confident and proud of their work. I admire their strong personalities, their statements, their involvement.

I don’t know how their husbands have taken their success, though. For instance, Arpita’s husband, Paramjit Singh, is a very popular painter. But Arpita is better known than him now…

What childhood experiences shaped you?

My earliest impressions are of my mother in Mysore, where I was born in 1941. She was an amateur painter of realistic, impressionistic subjects, including landscapes and fairly good copies of masterpieces. Most of her work was done before we were born. By then, she had already won some major awards in Mysore. After her marriage, she settled in Bangalore. She probably inherited her talent from her grandfather, an ayurvedic physician, who painted and sculpted in soapstone.

What were your initial yearnings towards art like?

I drew a little when I was very young, but nothing very special. I attended a college in Bangalore to do my B.Sc. because my parents wanted me to, but I never completed the course. In college I often did caricatures and cartoons of political and cricket personalities. I loved the game and drew G S Ramchand, Polly Umrigar, Hazare, Vijay Merchant…

I was influenced by the famous British cartoonist David Low and copied his style. My pen sketches were published in prominent publications of those times, like Samyukta Karnataka, Prajamata and Thainadu.

What brought you to arts college?

The well-known art critic in Bangalore, G Venkatachalam, helped me to go to arts college. He persuaded my parents to send me to the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Madras in 1960 and gave me a letter of introduction to Paniker.

My father used to send me some money, but it wasn’t sufficient. I didn’t want to ask him for more, so I earned extra money by drawing and doing stylized headlines for the Kannada edition of Soviet Land.

I was surprised when the national scholarship for painting was awarded to me. For the next two years, I had to choose someone as my mentor, I chose Paniker. We worked till late at night. We talked for hours. It was Paniker who taught me about the creative removal of colours. He’d say, “You can have any number of colours on a canvas. What is important is how to restrict or remove them…”

When I returned to college after a two-year scholarship, my new class included a young Parsi girl, Arnawaz, whom I later married. 

She and Tree, 61 x 61cm, 2006

Would you be able to trace phases that your work has traversed?

At college and just after, I did a series called Fantasies, which were thick impastos with lines scooped into the surface. I created fantasies from real and unreal human forms, birds, mountains, shells…

Around 1969, I began a series on Maithuna or the act of love. Yes, it is an old theme in painting. Perhaps I started on it because I had met Arnawaz. (Dreamily) To me, maithuna is not just about man and woman, but also about the sun and the moon, the earth and the sky, the stars and the clouds. My world is animistic. In it, bird and reptile, fish and fowl, seed and fruit, man and woman, live together in undulating hills and peaks seething with life.

Once in Dharwar, I came across the Kalpa Vriksha Vrindavana, a work by the modern Kannada poet D R Bendre. The kalpavriksha or Tree of Life soon grew to take centre-stage in my work. It was drawn from Indian myth. Later, at an exhibition in Delhi in the 1970s, someone asked me if I had read Roger Cook’s book, The Tree of Life. When I read it, I realized that all religions and most artists and craftsmen have used the tree as a motif at some time or the other. Take Mondrian, Miro, Klee… In Indian mythology, we have the Bodhi tree.

All these elements went into the making of the series and later copper reliefs, after I learnt repousse from Kuppuswamy, a traditional craftsman who came to stay in Cholamandal after retiring from the art college.

In 1983, when Arnawaz fell very ill, my tree took in the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Though I never consciously thought about it, it grew to become the Tree of life and death. Then, for nearly four years, I didn’t have any exhibitions in India.

But over 1989-90, many things I’d already done over the past 10 to 15 years came back to me. I found I wanted to paint. I wanted to get things out of my system. In some of my recent work, you can find influences of my earlier work.

For instance, I was always fascinated by portraits while in college. In trying to break away from the tree motif some years ago, I brought in a human element. The tree is still there, but the head is now becoming more prominent in my work. The heads grew into two new series of drawings ~ He and She.

In late 1989, I’d designed the sets for B V Karanth’s production of Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana in New Delhi. That set me off on a series of drawings with the same title. Do you remember how the main character in the play sets out in search of a human head?

Theatre of Life, 91 x 91 cm, 2001

Why is it important for a south Indian artist to exhibit in Bombay and Delhi?

If I’d exhibited my work in Bombay or Delhi more often, it would have made a difference to my career. I would have been better known because that’s where one gets maximum publicity and commercial success. Because there’s so much of all-India publicity generated from these cities, it’s not important for a north Indian artist to come south, though.

I felt this when, after three or four successful shows in Bombay between 1967 and 1974, I didn’t exhibit there for a while. When I went back to visit after shifting to Bangalore, I found everything had changed in Bombay ~ attitudes to art as an investment, prices for work by my contemporaries had rocketed…

I’d always fixed my prices according to lifestyles in Madras, and then Bangalore. I realised that artists who’d come five or ten years after me were selling more than I was. It’s not that they were better artists; it’s just that they were in the market. That’s why I want to exhibit in Bombay and Delhi more often.

Given the current worldwide recession and the state of the Indian economy, is the current system of pricing art justified?

In India, Bombay decides the prices. Pricing a painting high in India doesn’t make sense because you’re not really helping work to get into many homes. You’re confining it to industrial houses or the homes of the very rich.

If an artist like Tyeb Mehta does only four or five works a year, I can understand him pricing each very high. But what about others, who paint 20 to 30 works every month? (Excitedly) Why should each of their paintings sell for one lakh? Is it necessary? Will they be able to sustain their prices?

This places an artist like me in a dilemma. I can’t have one price for Bombay, another for Madras. I’d like even the average middle-class person to buy my work. So, where should I place myself?

(The Independent, Bombay/ Mumbai, 1992)

   

Art: K V Haridasan ~ The Tantric Circle

Portrait by KN Raghavendra Rao

 (This interview took place in December 1980)

OVALS WITHIN ovals. Circles within circles. Flame forms. Bull heads. Lotus petals. Negative and positive mask heads. Floral motifs. Vertical lines. Triangles. Rectangles. Is there a correlation between them? Where do they mingle and merge and diverge? The interactions and balances between these diverse forms form the core of K V Haridasan’s paintings and drawings, which combine these elements with a mastery of colour and space. Composition and colour fuse through the artist’s penchant for philosophy.

 To Haridasan, Tantra is much more than the subject of his art. It is, indisputably, the essence of his life.

Born in the Cannanore district of Kerala in 1937, Haridasan graduated with a degree in psychology from Presidency College in Madras before opting for art. He earned a first class diploma in fine arts from the Government College of Arts and Crafts and bagged an Indian Government cultural scholarship from 1965 to 1968.

He was one of ten modern Indian Tantric painters in the Man and his World exhibition in Montreal in 1971.  Besides participating in the Paris Biennale in 1971, and the Second Indian Triennale (1971), Haridasan has held one-man shows in Madras, Calcutta and New Delhi. He has visited France, Switzerland, Germany and the Soviet Union. Awards and critical acclaim have come his way.

Ever since 1979, Haridasan has been editing Artrends, the journal of the Progressive Painters Association. Haridasan recently shifted to Trivandrum to teach at the College of Fine Arts.

When Haridasan speaks, his voice emerges as a whisper. He often pauses to think. The sea breeze at his newly-constructed cottage in the Cholamandal Artists’ Village wafts away some of his words. He seems a little preoccupied the day we meet him, the day of his grihapravesham or house-warming.

His words ebb and flow with transient moods. He laughs easily. A hand occasionally gestures to accentuate his speech. The other hand tames his grey-streaked hair and beard. His conversation, as it emerges, takes on a basic, timeless quality:

What was special about your formative years?

My childhood was not very pleasant. Perhaps circumstances have made me a little more introspective than others. My father was a very religious man, so that may have influenced me. It taught me traditional values. I also read a lot, particularly English literature. There has been a good mixture of east and west in my background.

I have had an interest in art since childhood. I continued sketching and scribbling even during my high school and college days. I used to frequent art exhibitions in Madras. After graduation, I was not really happy about getting into a regular job. I just felt it didn’t seem to serve much purpose. (Laughs) So, I entered the arts college. It’s a question of bent of mind. I was interested in psychology and literature, you know. I think these were complementary interests.

How deep was the impact of your years at the arts college?

For me, it helped a lot. It’s more an atmosphere, a world of its own. It is creative. If you have a certain amount of independence in college, it helps a lot. If someone dominates you a lot, it can be a hindrance.

How modern an Indian artist are you?

We live in modern times and are influenced by modern trends. We are also looking into our Indian roots. It is a combination of both that evolves into a style. In looking towards tradition as a modern artist, it has here become a breaking of convention because we had got used to the style established by the British. It is a contradiction in terms, but we had to do it according to the peculiar circumstances we were in.

In the traditional, codified system, there was little freedom to explore. Norms were laid down by the guru at the ashram. A modern artist is supposed to have a lot of freedom and his expression is individualistic ~ because there is a background of breaking conventions and introducing new elements throughout the history of modern art.

What Indian elements feature in your work?

First, you have to consider whether anything is valid. (Slowly, drawing out the thoughts) I find there are certain attitudes which are relevant to modern times, attitudes which have traditionally been in Indian society. Such as the Tantric approach to life and art that I have brought into my work because it is very characteristic of the Indian approach.

Basically, the Indian philosophical system is mystical and metaphysical. Tantra has the same basis. You can find Tantric ideology in most of our art, culture, manners, rituals, dance, even music…

What was it about Tantra that proved attractive to you?

Partly because of my inclination ~ like choosing to study psychology and literature. If you go deep into any aspect of life, you reach into the metaphysical. So, why not self-decision? It’s almost like coming to terms with abstract art. As you paint, you find objective norms. Then, you reach up to the abstract level. It is much like certain basic elements in the Tantric approach to life. I am doing basically abstract painting. Only, it has been given an orientation the Tantric way.

When you deal with a fundamental form like the square, you come to a certain level after which you can’t go any further. That is the essence of the form. Tantric diagrams seem to have a power of their own because the whole of the cosmic phenomena are created with the very elements fundamental to life. These run through existence itself, though on the undersurface things seem to change.

What’s essentially Indian about Tantra?

As I see it, there is no area of Indian cultural activity where Tantra doesn’t enter. Everything in which ritual is involved is Tantric. The rituals are to create a certain bent of mind in those involved in them. Tantra is a method of yoga. Its purpose is to direct one psychologically towards spiritual attainment.

Tantra is basically a Dravidian concept, which has been taken over and systematised through a method of codification, directed into principles. The intellectual approach must have been partly the contribution of the Aryans.

(Charged with emotion) I personally feel that Tantra has its roots in the phenomenon of possession, and in the folk traditions that we find almost all over India among the lower classes. The result of it has been observation of life, expressed in terms of metaphor. It is very Indian. There is no parallel elsewhere. The various ways in which a goddess is described is basically an expression of what is nature, made into a doctrine. The peculiar aspect of our Hindu system is that a basically intellectual concept is made into idols, then the idols are turned into identification symbols. It is psychologically very complex.

After all, reaching for a god is an attempt to get some of the power of that god. That is something which an average person cannot comprehend. But once you enter into it, the Tantric experience is as real as anything else.

Can you possibly capture the complexities of Tantra in your paintings and drawings?

At the yogic level, Tantra has no limit. But at the visual level, it has certain limitations because it appeals to one sensibility among various sensibilities that people have. You have to understand the medium itself, and put it effectively in terms of visual impact. It is also subjective. It depends upon the person who sees it.

Do you view your art as self-expression?

Sometimes, if the individual artist has anything to express. (Fervently) We haven’t created most things. Colour ~ it is there in nature. We are just trying to crystallize what is in a jumble in all that we come across. I would call it self-realization. We come to a sort of understanding with our surroundings, some kind of harmony. Through an object of art, one can say we are trying to communicate what we have found to be a pattern of life.

The very fact that one decides to become an artist determines one’s age. One tries to remain very vital and active. That’s one great thing that art does to a person. So, I have been cultivating an attitude of search and discovery. That has to be retained. That is the basis of my approach, which is puritanical and direct. I just try to discover the relations of colours, the essentials of form, certain images…

Have other artists influenced you?

I have trained myself to appreciate many of them and I am a product of works of art down the ages. There are quite a number of Tantric artists now. It has almost become a trend. There are some in Delhi. Even in Madras, most artists have been influenced by the Tantric approach.

How do you feel about pricing your works and being judged by others in the context of the exhibition system?

An artist, like anyone else, is a social being. It comes from a natural inclination to show whatever one has achieved and whatever one has come to know to other people.

Prices are generally based on how a work stands on par with other paintings. After all, a work is the property of the individual who creates it. Art is considered invaluable. You cannot really fix a price, though you can put a tag on, according to existing norms of art. After all, any judgement has to be in terms of comparison.

When it comes to exhibitions, one has to compromise. Somebody experienced in the field has to select some works out of hundreds that are submitted for an exhibition, but vested interests and personal attitudes often interfere. For instance, Madras art may have little exposure in Delhi. So, out of sheer unfamiliarity, they think the work is poor. (Laughing) When art is exhibited, it becomes an object of contemplation. But most people are not willing to rise to that level. No training is needed for appreciation. Only one must learn to look.

How would you sum up your life in art?

Tantra, at its best, is a practical approach to a spiritually-oriented vision. This creates an art of pure vision, fields of colour, rhythm and harmony in forms which were not there on the surface levels of nature. They reveal a visionary abstract reality.

Tantra is a whole attitude towards life. How you view life around you, how it has emerged, what direction it is taking. That is why Tantra is still valid today ~ because it is an approach to individual fulfilment.

(Indian Express, Chennai/ Madras, 1980)

Art: The making of Cholamandal artists' village

View of the new Cholamandal gallery from the mezzanine floor

(Note: This piece was originally published in Namaste in 2009) 

THE first settlers at Cholamandal in Chennai tuned in to the universe. They took cues from the infinite music beyond the sea breeze through the swaying casuarinas groves, beyond the butterfly-winged seashells on the Injambakkam beach.

The 30-odd young artists who trudged down the mud track that led to the eight acres of land they acquired for Rs. 40,000 by slow degrees in 1966 were buoyed by a dream. A dream inspired by their guru at the Madras Government College of Arts and Crafts, K C S Paniker. Later, Panicker and the brilliant sculptor P V Janakiram added an acre each to the community. 

'Genesis' by Paniker

 As the college principal from 1957 to 1967, Paniker had watched his young students – including Viswanadhan V and S G Vasudev, P Gopinath and Anila Jacob, D Venkatapathy and Jayapal Panicker, Akittham Narayanan and K V Haridasan, Arnawaz and P S Nandhan – struggle to eke out a living as they sought their individual identities. At times, they had meals of peanuts and tea. At others, they huddled on the steps of the college or in the corridors of the Lalit Kala Akademi, seeking lifelines from dealers, patrons or the media.

How would they resolve these real life dilemmas? An exhibition of their batik work in the 1960s offered a cue when it was sold out. Perhaps a craft-based community that earned enough to support an artist’s life was the solution.

In 1963, 38 of them formed the Artists’ Handicrafts Association (AHA). The government offered them 10 acres of land at Sriperambadur. The artists mulled it over, then declined. They chose not to be saddled with the stipulations that often tied in with such concessions.

To them, originally from Kerala and Mysore, or from villages across the Tamil country, the essence of Chennai (then Madras) was the sea with its eternal tides. Within three years, they scrounged and saved enough to buy those precious eight acres at Injambakkam, along the tourist route to the ancient shore temples of Mahabalipuram. 

A cross-section of the gallery at the inauguration

 

They decided to call it the Cholamandal Artists’ Village, in honour of the arts-loving Chola dynasty of Tamil Nadu. When Paniker retired, he threw in his lot with this bunch of dreamers he had mentored.

Their struggles continued in the years that followed. On occasion, their rudimentary dwellings were blown down by cyclones. They often trudged six km on foot to buy rice, pulses or vegetables. On a lucky day, they hitched rides on a passing lorry.

But they collectively withstood such buffeting to stand strong and true. On February 1, 2009, the inauguration of the 10,500 sq. ft. Cholamandal Gallery of Contemporary Art, surrounded by a sculpture garden, testified to the power of the big dream. Even more, to the building of a community of dissimilar personalities, united by a larger-than-life goal.

 

The complex includes the 3,500 sq. ft. K C S Paniker Museum of the Madras Movement, which includes eminent artists who were not part of Cholamandal, such as Thota Tharani, Achuthan Kudallur, and R M Palaniappan. At its very heart is a rare 1957 oil on board ‘Genesis’ by Paniker. Like the banyan at the entrance to Cholamandal, he nurtured and sheltered his students, while allowing them to grow.

Metal sculpture by Nandagopal

Paniker’s son, the celebrated metal sculptor S Nandagopal recalls his father’s dream of a Madras metaphor in art that would be “Indian in spirit and worldwide contemporary.”

Today, Viswanadhan and Narayanan have a presence in Paris and beyond, while architect-artist M V Devan has set up Malayala Kalagramam at Kannur in Kerala. Vasudev’s canvases are celebrated across India, while Anila Jacob led the way for a generation of Indian women sculptors. Their visions and revisions live on in Cholamandal, a community “for the artists, by the artists, of the artists,’ as Devan couches it.

This synergy of individuals, never a school of art, undoubtedly stemmed from a unique equation. In a 1992 interview, Vasudev notes, “Paniker never made us feel he was a teacher. He was a friend, philosopher and guide to me. His studio was always open, and I could talk to him about anything. It was good to discuss our work every day with a teacher of his standing. He’d talk about his own painting and how the arrangement in my painting was helping him with his! It was as if both of us were learning at the same time.”

That guru-shishya bond equally impacted the late Arnawaz, known for her ink and wash ‘Lines from the Ramayana’ as for her incised, gouged, turned silver or copper crafts. “When Paniker picked out any of our work, it was because of something individual in it, because you had something of your own to say,” she observed in 1980. “Then you stop looking for anything else. You look for the one thing that is yours. That thing that says, ‘This is Arnawaz.’”

Today, well-built homes and artists’ studios, some in the shade of coconut palms or sprawling gulmohurs along the bustling East Coast Road prove that Cholamandal has come of age. Vasudev offers a perspective on its trajectory, “People used to frequently ask Paniker about the future of Cholamandal. He once said that if the village lasted one generation, it would be a great achievement! It has lasted more than that! He added that if six artists achieved something great for themselves, he would be satisfied. At least 15 artists from Cholamandal are considered important in India.”

Alongside them, a new generation seeks its place in the sun. Current Cholamandal president M Senathipathi’s children – M S Geeta, S Hemalatha and Saravanan – have their works in the gallery. So does Richard Jesudoss’s son Jacob Jebaraj.

The pioneering generation kept in focus “an art with which to kill the anxiety and to ‘sense the truly human, in a border sense.’ To them Cholamandal has been a moment of glory, real, impermanent, like a dream,” as Nandagopal recalls it.

Paniker’s vision has been validated today, as have the struggles of his students. Cholamandal, uniquely within the global art world, remains a self-sustaining community, unlike similar enterprises in Cuba and Israel, which are government-sponsored. 

Drawing by Ramanujam

To buttress its independence, the new art complex includes a 1,600 sq. ft. gallery of Cholamandal art, where work is on sale. So are ceramic mugs and plaques embellished with Vasudev’s drawings, and T-shirts that celebrate the community at its fledgling gallery shop. New vibrations flow into the village from two commercial galleries – Indigo and Laburnum – sponsored by art patrons H K Kejriwal and Sanjay Tulsyan. Buoyed by his perspective from Paris, Narayanan sees the complex as “a monument to the achievements of Cholamandal.”

Decades ago, when asked about the future of Cholamandal, Paniker said, “I have not thought about it and nothing moves me to think about it. This place is here because the artists who are here needed such a place. It may be that they will not need it anymore some day. If and when that happens it would be best for this place to die and be as if it had never been. It could be burdensome and pathetically so if this place is not permitted to be no more if and when it turns dead to those who are here.”

The pioneering artists and their village remain vitally alive today. Between the promise and the realization of Cholamandal fell a million shadows. And yet, the will of a generation of dreamers saw it through.

Its original settlers are today respected, admired and feted. That is how the universe responded to their incessant creative rhythms, their paean to life, in a village by the sea called Cholamandal.