Art-buyers looking for an idea to bind their collection will find eclectic artists working on themes around Christ and Christianity.
It was at a talk recently that this point came forcefully across — for, often, our ways of looking at art change when we start exploring interesting dimensions even within the established genres of artists we are familiar with. In this case, it was in the context of Christ and Christian fables and how they are depicted in the hands of Indian modern artists. Christianity itself is hardly new to India, but it is interesting that in terms of art, its reference points come to us from Western art, and that it covers the main events in Christ’s life in much the same way that artists in Europe did, but in a decidedly Indian manner. This interpretation is, of course, important, but it is the large number of Indian artists who have painted the journey of Christ that allow for some interesting revelations.
Jamini Roy is almost always the starting point in modern art where paintings of Christ are concerned. Trained in the Western idiom, which he renounced to develop an individual style of his own patterned on the region’s folk tradition, Roy painted the same subjects over and over again — whether his mother and child, groups of praying women, cats (with fish, or lobsters), and scenes from Christ’s life that included the nativity, crucifixion and last supper before he was betrayed. Roy’s characteristic style lends the canvas flat tones and simple strokes, which enhance the heraldic quality of Christ’s story, but where Roy painted with an enhanced simplicity, F N Souza’s renditions of the same themes appear like angry bursts of temper. Souza was opposed to many aspects of the church, but was nevertheless drawn to Christ’s story. Where he showed the church as venal, and often denigrated those who occupied offices of papal authority as well as congregations of the laity as objects to be mocked, his narratives of Christ were rarely bitter.
Almost all the modernists have grappled with Christ, including Akbar Padamsee, Nikhil Biswas and M F Husain, but rarely has anyone painted his life with as much detail as Krishen Khanna, the overwhelming sense of grief almost palpable as Mary laments over Christ’s body in Pieta, or his suffering when crucified on the cross, or of the sense of doom that hangs over his Last Supper (he also did a rendition of this, called Last Bite, which has a posse of his contemporary painters around a table, though this has no apparent Biblical significance).
While contemporary painters have moved away from traditional stories on canvas, and are thus distanced from tellings and re-tellings of Christ, it is interesting that folk-inspired artist Madhvi Parekh has discovered this familiar subject in her recent work. So, instead of Hindu myths and allegories that have been her subjects for decades, she has, since a visit to Jerusalem, brought her own insights into Christ’s story.
Roy’s market is well established and works are priced on average between Rs 10-25 lakh, Souza’s canvases are priced substantially higher, though his chemical alterations go for less, Krishen Khanna’s large canvases are usually in the range of Rs 25-65 lakh, and Madhvi Parekh could sell for anywhere between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 8 lakh.
These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which the writer is associated.
kishoresingh_22@hotmail.com