Warli – Borderless

By Ratnottama Sengupta

The Gregorian calendar was still showing 1998.

I was in Oxford on a Charles Wallace fellowship to study John Ruskin’s influence on M K Gandhi and R N Tagore. Like any other student I lived in a hostel, walked up to the Ruskin School of Art and Ashmolean Museum, to the High Street and the flea market, to the Bodleian Library, and – of course – the book stores that continue to make that ancient city of academic excellence such a delight for a person like me who started crawling in the midst of books.

What caught my fancy on the book-lined shelves in the hometown of a ‘legal deposit’ library? The screenplays of Quentin Tarantino. Countless books on Elizabeth 1 – perhaps because Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth had just released worldwide. And the volumes on art. The gorgeous reproductions halved the tedium of walking miles of museums and galleries. And the history of art rekindled my love for paintings from our collective past.

But what I didn’t take kindly to was the neglect of – if not bias against — art from my homeland. There were books on Greek, Chinese, Japanese , African, Egyptian, Mayan, Roman art, on Russian Icons and Stained Glass windows, on French Impressionists and German Expressionists, Cubists and Moderns… But Indian art? For crying out loud, where was Ajanta-Ellora? The glass paintings and Miniatures? Pichwai and Patachitra, Nathdwara and Kalighat Pat, Warli and Madhubani, Santiniketan and Baroda?

That’s when I told myself, “Put the journey of Indian paintings between covers.” For, which other country has a continuity that I can boast, of a tradition that has continued unchequered for three thousand years and more?

Once I was back home, my friend Reeta Dutta Gupta approached me to edit an Encyclopedia of Culture for the India Series she was nursing. And Dr Jain of Ratna Sagar entrusted me to author a Notebook that would recount for school-going children the story of Indian art from Bhimbetka to the present millennia. What luck!

Be it the hunters and the hunted of Bhimbetka, the rock art now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage, or Kolam and Alpana and Rangoli, the decorative designs of Kerala and Bengal and Maharashtra. Be it the Buddha of Ajanta Frescoes or the ploughmen and blacksmith of the Haripura Congress panels painted by the Bengal master Nandalal Bose, be it the illuminations in the Jain manuscripts or the Mughal manners immortalised by the kalams: art in India has grown out of everyday life. These art expressions have been an integral part of the people’s existence, regardless of the style or the period in which they were painted. Yes, down centuries Indian art has withstood change of regiments, religions, philosophy, social content, historical setbacks. And, aesthetic excellence has found an outlet in forms and lines, strokes and colours, whether these were obtained by crushing gems or pounded rice.

This has helped India enjoy a continuity that is rare even in the developed societies. From the sketches of Bhimbetka to those of the tribal artists of Warli, from the murals of ancient India to the art of contemporary masters, from the miniaturised figures to the Tantric patterns – art in India has reinvented itself again and again. And each time it has emerged with renewed vigour and vitality. Because, every age has related to art in an intimate way. By painting on the wall. Decorating the floor. Placing it on the altar. Or simply by keeping an account of the times.

Bhimbetka Cave paintings from prehistory

As A Ramachandran – then professor of art at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi – had said to me, “Even when our ancient language that was deemed the language of the gods, fell into oblivion, art transcended centuries because it was communicating through a universal language – the visual language of colours and hues.” The lines defined the form, and also created a unitary area for the use of colour, he had further explained. “No matter what the subject, comprehension was never a problem for the Indian – until he was confronted by the art that was imposed by the colonialists.”

The Western overemphasis on realism played havoc, with the native sensibility that allowed for imagination and stylization, Nair Sir had pointed out. That sensibility had no problem accepting a ten-armed goddess, Dasabhuja Durga, or Dasanan, the ten-headed Ravan. “Lifestyle changes too have led to the dilution of Indian aesthetics that once enveloped our workaday lives. The only living art today is the visual art traditions in the villages, but that too might not last as villagers now want to ‘rise’ to the level of the urbans!” he had lamented.

In such a situation, art becomes doubly significant in the life of a child. When she or he is exposed to it, the child can not only access the history and the continuity of a culture but also nurture it with love that can ensure it lives in the days to come… With this in mind, I will write to focus on the high points of Indian art.

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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For 50 years now Ratnottama Sengupta has seen Haren Thakur adroitly create art from the humdrum of tribal life. And his stylised abstract of the dark-toned humans still makes her sit up and take note.

Haren Thakur with his painting. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

A dark, stick-like outline encompasses a human of the male species. A triangle, an oblong, a rectangle. A white patch in the midst of a sepia-green landscape. A drummer. A mother with a child holding aloft a balloon. Two women bathing in a primitive pond. A quizzical duck. A wriggling worm. Trees hills fish pigs cows fox… And, yes! A train zigzagging its way through a vast expanse of meadows. As we view the watercolours of Haren Thakur from Ranchi, you might think of the rice-white art of the Warli tribals characterised by geometric shapes that depict the rituals of everyday life. I might be inclined to revisit the painted layers on the 100,000-year laterite at the prehistoric rock shelters of Bhimbetka in the foothills of the Vindhyas in Madhya Pradesh. Another viewer might think of the ancient Sauras and the adornment of their walls in their adobe huts in Odisha. The artist himself might have recollections of the animated Santhal pats he saw being created during his student years in Tagore’s Santiniketan. However, none of Haren’s figures are simplistic. They are all stylised. And so adroitly that you are bound to sit up and take note of them no matter how many times you have come across the theme.

Art by Haren Thakur. Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

Form and content come seamlessly together in the paintings that Haren Thakur will exhibit in Delhi’s Habitat Centre from April 15. The artist who mastered Art at Santiniketan — home to Santhals, the native dwellers of Bengal and Odisha — then made his living in Jharkhand, which is home to 32 tribes… Indeed, from his very beginning, the beauty in the dark skin-tone of the men and women going about their chores was the most natural rhythm of life in the bazaars and streets of Bankura Bishnupur, where his family hailed from, or in Purulia, where his father made his home.

Beyond doubt, Rabindranath’s deep affection for the Santhals and the Bauls reinforced this love. Much like Gurudev, Haren finds poetry in their tilling of the earth. In their mono-toned songs and the repetitive steps of their dance. In the fulfilment they find in the primeval life and archetypal love. And when, following in the footsteps of the Universal Poet, Haren finds beauty in a grain of sand, the everyday life ceases to be an essay in deprivation and rises to the level of art.

And his colour palette? That too came off the walls of his hostel in Santiniketan, from the frescoes and murals by Binode Behari Mukherjee. From the brick-toned ‘canvas’ that is the prehistoric rock painting of Bhimbetka. The pigment on Haren’s brush and tubes is never loud then, never grating. It is always muted, always mellow. And the impact is heightened by Haren’s utilisation of rice paper, and Chinese ink, on watercolour.

The Nepali rice paper became his signature in 1974. Prior to that he would work the rice paper in the tempera process that was ‘Master Moshai’ Nandalal Bose’s gharana, school – or Indian shaili, style. But in that process of painting layer by layer, the rice paper would lose its original character and serve merely as a background surface.

Then, in his fourth year, for a scholarship test of the Visva Bharati University, Haren experimented by soaking the rice paper in water. It became so pliant that he could spread it out like a piece of cloth. “And its texture!” It won him the scholarship — and immense appreciation from his teachers, Dinkar Kaushik and Somnath Hore. “They said, ‘Go ahead and explore this medium and this process further. It adds a dimension that has immense possibility.”

Fifty years have gone by since, but Haren has not given it up. Sometimes, when painting on canvas, he does apply acrylic directly on its surface. But at times, even here, he pastes rice paper on the canvas, primes it with watercolour, then inks in the forms. However he adds, “when I paint on rice paper mounted on board, I do not – cannot – use acrylic. It simply doesn’t have the capacity to be absorbed by the rice paper the way watercolour gets absorbed.” So, in such cases Haren uses transparent watercolour.

Clearly the chemistry between rice paper and watercolour is amazing. Unique.

Circling back to the content: Haren’s understated pitch was reinforced by the Zen worldview of a teacher like Somnath Hore. The master minimalist’s use of the white, barely scratched by the red of a wound, spoke volumes — and it made Haren introspect. Once, while exhibiting the Wound series, Somnath Da had said, “I discovered such depth of emotion in the reticence of tones!” This soliloquy got deeply etched in Haren’s unconscious. And eventually it came to express itself in the rusty red of the iron oxide rich Birbhum soil; the roasted brown of Purulia’s rocky earth; the weathered green of the Bauls; the soothing blue of the open sky high above the woolly white of floating clouds.

Flattened figures. Non-realistic features. Do you see a hint of Husain – or perhaps Paul Klee – in the abstraction of the human world? I notice a reflection of the figures encountered on Egyptian papyrus. Or the African world. Haren, on his part, reiterates his original inclination: the attraction towards the lack of artifice in Adivasi life. How else would the tribals go about their daily humdrum with a baby knotted to their back? Or float in an open pool under the sun-kissed sky? To the city-bred mind, this would be unthinkable — until Haren captions it ‘Nature’s Bathtub’!

But, notwithstanding my references, the art traditions of the indigenous people over the world have never influenced Haren. “Their art tradition is so rooted in their environment – be it of Jharkhand or of any other.” Even their pigments, brush, and surface are integral to their life. But he certainly derives inspiration from the lifestyle of the original inhabitants, he affirms.

“I have always admired their direct application, the spontaneity of their form,” Haren further explains. “But I am influenced rather by the uncomplicated lives they lead. Since I was in Santiniketan I have admired the way they connect with nature in everything they do. Their intimacy with animals is incredible – they seem to be in dialogue with the animals they domesticate! This became a part of my visual world, especially when I came to live in Ranchi. The same reality imbues the lives of the natives – Oraon, Munda, Ho, Sabar, Bedia, Lohar… They rest under the tree unconcerned about how the ‘civilised’ world looks at them. They speak with the hills, with clouds in the sky, with cattle and kids, trees and waters, rivers and streams!”

This they do with no inhibition. Because this routine is a reality they have inherited from their ancients. “That is why I believe there is nothing more ‘Contemporary’ than this,” Haren asserts. This innate natural life, and the Santiniketan grooming, combined to forge his vocabulary, his visual language.

So, in the exhibits, you encounter an abundance of water bodies. Pools and ponds. Rivers and waterfalls. Lotus and lily. Big fish. Many small fish in its tummy. Ducks and kingfishers. Hyacinth and hayfield. All this is a natural part of the countryside that has made Haren theirs.

Interestingly there is also this play with size. In one of the frames an elephant walks down the road – and at every footfall he is greeted by a number of… ants?! Look closely and you will decipher that they are dogs!

Haren is giving you a worm’s eye view. And, in addition to the proportion, he is picturing the Hindi proverb Haathi chaley bazar, kutta bhaukey hazaar/ when an elephant walks to the market, a thousand dogs will bark! Political comment? You said it!

Stay tuned to the song of the Adivasi earth, Haren.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International