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ART & CULTURE
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ART REVIEW
Designed grandeur
For long now, Yusuf Arakkal has been known to reach for significant subjects which he approaches with a sense of their grand scheme and of intimate, respectful empathy.
This pervasive duality remains recognisable, whether the painter speaks about destitute people or enchanting women and children at play, about old age and hunger, his impressions of urban architecture or aesthetic inspiration from masters.
Whereas one can fully appreciate his concerns, the emphasis on strong, recurring design and the atmospheric pleasantness of the chiaroscuro that fills it may be somewhat of a let down.
The same situation persists in his exceptionally ambitious painting "Crucifixion and Resurrection" exhibited at the Chitrakala
Parishath. The idea for this vast canvas was formulated by the artist at the close of the last century as a metaphoric evocation of human suffering as well as hope and potency for overcoming it imbedded in the same.
Displayed presently, it is expected to summarise the millennium which just ended and, perhaps, project on the future of the new one. Although painted in a single frame, the 8ft x 8ft square has been composed in terms of a diptych.
Its binary character, however, remains understated allowing, within such mounting, for the different pairs of opposites included in the image to permeate towards the effect of a dramatic balance. Thus, the mutually dependent coexistence of good and ominous aspects of life is brought out. Right along the vertical division can be seen the figure of Christ.
Arakkal has rendered it so as to simultaneously denote crucifixion and resurrection. Immobile and suspended from the cross, his body nevertheless proves to be stirring and powerful.
The hands are still nailed down and, yet appear tensing up to free themselves, while the head is forcefully turning upwards.
The softly highlighted muscularity of the shape alternates with the more shallow and darker areas to convey a feeling of both weakness and strength, death and aliveness, monumentality and immediacy, the humanity of the image and its divine, or at least symbolic, qualities. It was conceived as a sign and as a sensation.
In order to flesh out the content the surrounding field is built at the same time of vertical and horizontal planes.
Their firm presence becomes both accentuated and undermined when some turn onto diagonals. The flatness of the surface is as important as the indications of depth over sharp recesses and mild-throbbing glows.
The matte blacks and browns equal the luminosity of whitened beiges and blues. The smooth-covered regions contrast as well as engage with the ones texturised by gently rough strokes. A similar interaction occurs between the figural statement and the abstract elements of this oil. Whist the spectator is able to read the meaning, the latter cannot not entirely translate itself onto pure emotion.
Despite the fact that the Christ work proves certainly subtler and more subdued than usually, a difficulty arises with the somewhat excessively evident designing of the canvas and because of the still quite pleasant painterliness which goes contrary to the gravity of the theme.
Those traits enhance in the two smaller works on the cross which accompany the main work. The display is on till January 7.
Mood-sensitive
In the paintings of the young D. Narahari being self-taught acts to his advantage. There may not be anything path-breaking there, and the not always equally effective workmanship may be betraying a degree of naivety.
Nonetheless, the same qualities contain and from within them generate an un-spoilt expression of genuine, fresh sensitivity. Its freshness does not imply plain simplicity, since the artist is able to reveal a fine and often complex attunement to things.
What may endear him to the viewer is the fact at whatever he looks at, he remains entirely true to himself. This happens even when he admits to specific inspirations.
The number of seemingly unconnected subject areas and styles related to those, perhaps, proves the same, as each time the character of the form suits the particular theme.
Eventually, one can be convinced that the aesthetic shifts arise from an unselfconscious engrossment in the inner properties of the various topics in which process the latter pass on their nature to the painter's hand, heart and imagination.
The mechanism is visible in the comparatively direct, but intimately and intensely felt, landscapes with lush and vibrant vegetation thickets.
Although referring there to van Gogh, Narahari finds his own rhythms, structures and tensions which connect it all. It is evident as much in the cycle of interiors with people.
The images, teeming with strong, contrasting colour fields, assemble slightly unstable, often diagonally angled grounds and walls. Clear, stylised lines contour those as well as the human figures, while plenty of small, dense decorative markings and distinct motifs punctuate them.
The linear exaggeration engages with the painterly patterning to the impact of a slightly surreal but delicate exuberance and sensuousness.
Again, the Picassoesque quotes here become the starting point for an authentic enjoyment in reaching for currents of the intense and a little strange under the real.
The tendency to layer repeated forms with slight variations as a backdrop for figures can be seen in the pictures of an eerily tender, hybridal unity in men and animals. It helps heighten the mood which is endowed both with humour and a mythical evocativeness.
A similar tendency results in an atmosphere of subtle, contemplative seriousness in the monochromatic paintings which set frail, nude bodies amid vast spaces and deep, corridor-like enclosures to as though cushion them off the world in their loneliness or in the withdrawal of love, also of music-playing. The veil of one hue - extinguished but translucent - counterbalances then and responds to the soft linearity of the dark silhouettes.
The exhibition is on till January 7 at the Chitrakala Parishath.
Craftsmanship charms
Solid training and technical finesse of a traditional Rajasthani miniaturist makes Uma Shankar Sharma an excellent craftsman. During his recent show at the Chitrakala Parishath it was evident in the precision and nuances of the Mughal painting copies and in the vibrantly manneristic sinuosity of the Kishangarh school.
To a different impact, in his own versions of colonial time landscapes with old architecture the indigenous ingredient adds an archaic majesty and tightness.
The artist, however, feels obliged to introduce other elements to those styles.
Attempting to reflect more contemporary sensibilities and topics, those jar, yet, because the connection is achieved through popular and rather sentimental tastes.
And so, when Sharma portrays indigenous types or depicts rustic genre scenes in a half-canonic half-realist idiom, those turn out artificially stylised, forced and sentimental.
Similarly, his mythological pictures must have been meant to imbibe a degree of flesh and blood humanness, but they come close to bazaar kitsch despite the continuing dexterity with the brush and natural pigments.
Indulgent cliches
Without even a little of the skills and practice her predecessor possesses, Nivedita Prasad tries to indulge all undemanding expectations at once. Her display which just concluded at Safina Plaza, had a number of ingratiatingly sugary ethnic beauties, more lady-like than real in their supposedly graceful and innocent sensual allure.
Side by side she placed there also series of old-fashioned images from the Ajanta murals following another convention, if equally facile in its method of modernising the ancient canon.
The range was almost complete in its kind with a cycle of stereotypical western landscape-based oils, indigenous exoticism in the shape of ornately dressed dancers and watered down shadows of Ravi Varma canvases.
Polite illustration
The large exhibition of children's paintings on episodes from the Mahabharata, housed a while ago at the Chitrakala Parishath, was a bit of a disappointment.
The freedom, involvement and intuitive expressiveness of form, so naturally expected from very young artists, were absent except for the few smallest ones. Throughout, the onlooker could suspect that the participants must have been restrained by the guidelines imposed on them.
A great majority of the pictures were illustrative in the same way - with multi-figural, dynamic scenes spread out like a narrative frieze nearly always in a row.
Almost each hero or demon encased by a similar, black contour, their behaviour, stances and gestures repeated with slight variation. Only sporadically one encountered a more imaginative handling.
The feel of energy, too, saved many a scene from boredom.
Marta JakimowiczMusic mehfil
MUSIC REVIEW
Pandit Guru Rao Deshpande was not only a senior performer, but also an able teacher and a Gamaki too. The Sabha, founded in his memory, conducts every year “all night music Mehfil”, apart from Yuva Sangeet Utsav and workshops. In the programme held last Saturday, Musicians and music lovers in very large number, sat throughout night and encouraged the artistes.
When Pandit Vinayak Toravi performed Aahir Bhairav at the fag end of the show, the audience’s receptive mood was intact. Touching the pivotal swaras, with lively phrases, the vocalist moved to madhya laya and to Druth (Ekatal). The raga was melodious and wholesome. His disciples (Dhananjay Hegde, Keerthikumar, Dathatreya Velana Kar and Mukund Joshi) joined him with vocal support. The Bhajan (Bhairav) brought the curtain down on this year's festival. Ravindra Katoti and Viswanath Nakod accompanied on Harmonium and Tabala respectively.
Sharad vaibhava
The annual Sharad Vaibhava festival of dance, music and drama was conducted successfully at the Ravindra Kalakshetra, last week. The dancers from Arangham dance theatre performed here, the Daughters of the ocean - a contemporary dance production.
Based on a book of Shobita Punja, it was narrated through a Kathegara, with attractive body language. It describes three Goddesses - Lakshmi, Saraswathi and Durga-- “going beyond icons, the trinity of the oceans are evoked in contemporary vein through their distinctive attributes and allure.” Fusing personal details along with the stories of Devis and Rivers, with new movements, impactful teamwork - it was a new experience. Along with experienced Anita Ratnam, Aarati Bodani, Narendrakumar and M Palani performed.
Mysore V Subramanya
Tarangini veena
The structuring and selection of songs by Dr Suma Sudhindra for Kannada and Culture at Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandir, Banashankari was the highlight of the evening. She was supported by M S Govindswamy (violin), V.S.Rajagopal (mridanga), R A Rajagopal (ghatam). She has been playing recently on her newly designed Tarangani Veena on several platforms. It is claimed that, this instrument is based on guitar technique, dismantable and designed to facilitate travel.
She started the concert with a varnam in Bahudari, it was fast paced, perhaps at a slower tempo, the effect would have been better. Sri Mahaganapathe (gowla) was played with a brief spell of imaginative swara passages. The nuances of raga Sri Ranjini was charming and minutely played for the kriti Sogasugamridanga followed by kalpana swaras. She gave a brief, but broad outline of raga Bindumalini for Mysore Vishweshwaran’s kriti, which was pleasing. Both the raga delineation and the entertaining tanam for kapi were fluent soft and covering a sizeable gamut of ragas for the kriti Inthasoukya. Violinist reciprocated adequately. The percussionists were showpieces of accompanying artistes rendering the whole exercise musically enjoyable through rhythm. She concluded her concert with a tillana of
Lalgudi.
Jagadha Kumar
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