Is there any one catalytic moment that defines an artist’s style or representation? Or does all of an artist’s life with its highs and lows, joys and sorrows, triumphs and losses, lead to an autobiographical illustration of his art? Should the personal even form part of an artist’s oeuvre?
How important is it for a collector to be familiar with an artist’s life when he invests in his art? Or should art be viewed only through the prism of aesthetics, irrespective of the creator and his life story? At what level should a collector’s and an artist’s life intertwine? And should an art-historian distance himself to view a work of art outside all context, or should he study it within the parameters of the artist's arc of experiences?
No matter how much critics might contend otherwise, for a collector there’s no greater pleasure than in sharing, understanding and empathising with an artist’s life — and work — which is why so many choose to patronise artists in their salons. In the absence of the artist, the art critic is a powerful conduit of information and is as ardently wooed. Though an artist should not have to explain his art, for the collector it is that visceral understanding that forms an important part of his connection with the artist.
Argued contrarily, how many of us know the artists who painted the miniatures in the Mughal court and the Rajput ateliers, or indeed, even the bazaar prints? Where that contention lacks validity is in the subject matter: all classical art tends to appeal at an emotional and cultural level rather than a critically aesthetic one. We are familiar with the histories and mythologies they seek to represent, and it is the quality of the iconography rather than any novel representation that makes up their fascination.
Our reaction to the Mohenjodaro dancer is presumably based on the aesthetic, for we know neither the artist, nor his antecedents, nor even the context. Yet, no one can deny that the allure of the dancer — one of the most iconic representations of the Indian Civilisation — lies as much in the speculation around its origin as in what it seeks to epitomise. If it is a portrayal of the culture of the mother goddess, then it is the first in a link to these cult matriarchs that have taken shape in folk and medieval art as Durgas and Kalis and Mahishasurmardinis, to their equally potent renditions in the hands of Tyeb Mehta, or G R Santosh, or, indeed, Gogi Saroj Pal and Kanchan Chander. To establish a segue across these thousands of years casts light on a way of looking at the works of both an ancient civilisation and the present circumstance of artists and their attempt to communicate an idea that has survived beyond time.
What influence led to the creation of Abanindranath Tagore’s portrait of Bharat Mata, brought Amrita Sher-Gil from the salons of Paris to the stylised modernism of her Indian vernacular, led to the Bengal School aligning itself with the Far Eastern wash technique, Husain’s involvement with horses, Souza’s explosive violence against social mores, G R Santosh’s experimentation with tantra, Manjit Bawa’s Sufism, Subodh Gupta’s understanding of hunger, Atul Dodiya’s exploration of avarice and greed? Readings into artists’ lives provides a larger world-view of their concerns, but it is in the intimate explorations of their cathartic moments that we begin to understand — and truly enjoy — the truth of their lives and art.
Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated
