In Kolkata, the city where he was born, a 44-foot-long Japanese-style handscroll that was painted almost 100 years ago by an illustrious Indian blind artist has resurfaced and is now on display to the public.
Born in 1904, Benodebehari Mukherjee had severe myopia in one gaze and blindness in the other. At age 53, he completely lost his perspective. Muckerjee, who passed away in 1980, produced ground-breaking works as a landscape and fresco artists. He came to define modern arts in 20th-century India and was also a sculptor and painter.
In July, the scroll – which is just six inches wide – will travel to Santiniketan, the university town founded in West Bengal a century ago by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, where Mukherjee was a student and later a teacher. The scroll, the longest that the artist created, is titled Santiniketan images.
Before arriving in Kolkata, where it is currently on display, the roll changed hands twice.
It appears that Mukherjee either gave or sold the roll to Sudhir Khastagir, a Santiniketan arts school graduate, as early as 1929. Khastagir after relocated to Dehra Dun to work as an art instructor for a prestigious institution. He gave the roll to another designer, who later sold it for an undisclosed sum to Rakesh Saini, an historian and the owner of an art gallery in Kolkata, six years ago.
Mukherjee had created this fascinating scroll at the age of 20 using ink and watercolors on properly layered sheets of paper. The number in the first frame is seated beneath a branch; this could be the artist himself, leading the viewer through Santiniketan. In Chinese and Japanese scrolls, carefully placed figures direct our viewing, and this motive is frequently used.
A journey through time and space begins as the spectator moves from right to left, leading her into a jungle of sal trees painted in black ink before gradually changing to shades of green that reflect the changing seasons.
22 people, 22 animal, 3 chicken, 1 dog, and 1 bird are depicted on the scroll. Mukherjee uses exercises of loneliness to represent the land and sky.
According to eminent art historian Siva Kumar, the roll is permeated with the author’s” solitude, a sense of loneliness gently expressed and presented… a condition of his life, without self-pity or bitterness.” He claims that the roll” bears all indications of the author’s genius that blossomed in the years to come.”
The khoai, which is just over 10 foot long and was painted in the middle of the 1930s, was Mukherjee’s longest piece until it was published.
One of India’s greatest designers, Nandalal Bose, who oversaw Kala Bhavan, the arts school, taught Mukherjee at Santiniketan. According to Siva Kumar, Bose had expressed worry to Tagore about a visually impaired arts pupil. Tagore retorted,” Is he honest? He seems serious. So leave him alone.
Individuals of Mukherjee at Kala Bhavan were almost as well-known as his mentors. Artists like KG Subramanyan, Somnath Hore, and Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray were among them. Ray produced a film about Mukherjee in 1972 called The Inner Eye. The poignant ode thrust the lonely actor and his creations onto the international stage.
Tagore and Bose’s handcroll photographs that they had brought up from their trip to Japan may have served as inspiration for Mukherjee. According to Siva Kumar,” Mukherjee was particularly interested in the scroll’s format because it offers some possibilities that other forms do not, such as[ showing ] the passage of time.”
” Rather than just standing there and gazing at it, you can restore the experience of walking through a landscape.” In typical landscapes, character is fragmented. However, you can demonstrate persistence and change in a handscroll.
So where did the Scenes vanish for almost a decade?
The roll was purchased from a collection in 2017 by Rakesh Sahni, the owner of Gallery Rasa in Kolkata. Mr. Sahni remarks,” I may have displayed it earlier, but I lost three times to the crisis.”
Reproductions of Mukherjee’s other artifacts, such as Scenes in Jungle, Village Scene, and The Khoai, are also on exhibit at the Kolkata present. The Victoria & amp, Albert Museum in London is the owner of the final painting, which is depicted on a semi-circular fruit tree stem.
The frescoes on the walls and ceilings of houses in and around Kala Bhavan are among Mukherjee’s different well-known creations in Santiniketan. The Lives of Medieval Saints on the surfaces of Cheena Bhavan, a Sino-Indian ethnic studies center, is arguably the most well-known. It is nearly eight feet tall and sprawled across an impressive 80 feet. Before the actor lost his perspective, the frescoes and manuscripts were finished.
After having his practical naive eye amputated during surgery, Mukherjee continued to produce murals, collage pieces, and sculptures using the same artistry as when he was also able to see.
Mukherjee made a rare remark about Ray’s vision impairment in his film.
Deafness is a novel sensation, experience, and state of being.
Perhaps that is Mukherjee’s best obituary.
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