Drawings set the format for many artists and are pointers to the planning of a painting. But are they also collectibles?
How artists paint — or rather, how they plan their paintings — is a source of endless fascination. What is the idea that triggers a great work? What goes through their mind when faced with an empty canvas? Is there an instinct that propels them to pick up their brushes, is there something spontaneous about it, or do they think through the entire work down to the last detail, treatment and colour?
Many artists I have spoken with over the years admit to a process of being swarmed by ideas that haunt, concern or energise them, ideas that might just disappear in the harsh reality of attempting to pin them down on canvas in their studios. Some might decide to let the heart guide the mind directly on canvas, but most artists — and I say this particularly of the masters, but also of most senior artists — prefer to draw out their ideas before braving the canvas.
The contemporary environment, particularly the personal computer, has made the artist’s task a lot less daunting. The contemporary artist is more likely to be fired by ideas than by the skills of drafting, and with the vocabulary having changed so much, is unlikely to be apprehensive about such minor details as ensuring that the human anatomy is finely crafted, that the fauna and foliage, even the perspective, is executed to perfection.
It is entirely possible that artists today, even though they have subverted the process to software, do think through and plan out their paintings, but can a computer ever hope to reproduce the magic of an artist’s drawings, the sketches and outlines that go into creating the final work? Look at Pablo Picasso’s drawings from his Suite Vollard collection, for instance, currently on view in Delhi, some of which lead up to his iconic work, Guernica. What software can hope to reproduce the original drawings — in themselves works of art — that were so much a part of, say, F N Souza? His endless scribbles of, for instance, nudes (the landscapes required far fewer drawings), the way he placed his figures across a surface, the sometimes seemingly endless studies of Sunil Das’s horses, the intensity of Tyeb Mehta’s minimal strokes to express a ferocious rage, all preceded by tens if not hundreds of drawings… all of these are not just of academic interest, but also collectibles.
Drawings are often important for collectors because they point to a phase in an artist’s life and provide the provenance that is so important in understanding the details of how a work of art was first conceived, then completed. Retrospectives of an artist’s work, therefore, often include a selection of drawings as a pointer to the artistic process and grammar that the artist observes. Many of us are familiar with drawings by Akbar Padamsee or Krishen Khanna, but M F Husain, who is a more spontaneous artist than most, has shown far fewer drawings, and I at least have yet to see drawings by S H Raza, or Anjolie Ela Menon: important artists who have tried to keep this aspect of their art private.
Do drawings have value? That may depend on the returns you expect from them. Because there is likely to be a large body of drawings, many of them repetitive, or flawed, they will never return the kind of investment that a finished work of art will. This is understandable, and not just in the context of the far lower price you pay for a drawing than a completed canvas. If, for argument’s sake, a completed canvas gives you a return of 25 per cent over five years, no drawing can hope to achieve that, since drawings are not seen as instruments of investment. On the other hand, drawings are far more affordable (sub Rs 1 lakh for many, around Rs 2 lakh for most masters, and above that only for very rare or celebrated ones). At those prices, it is the closest you might get to owning a work of art that, even if it does not replicate the complete work, is suggestive of the structure on which it is based.
The pleasure of owning a drawing or set of drawings lies in that embryonic form — warts, flaws and all. While for academic purposes, it is only a pointer towards the final, finished work, for collectors it is akin to being allowed a privileged peek into an artist’s soul. That is what makes these low-priced works priceless.
These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation the writer is associated with kishoresingh_22@hotmail