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| The importance of still-life |
| Kishore Singh / New Delhi Feb 10, 2010, 00:56 IST |
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Artists across styles and generations have painted them - but how do you value them?
 Do Subodh Gupta or Jitish Kallat paint still-life? I daresay that with so many younger generation artists having evolved their art practice at a time when technology plays a key factor in their working methodology, it is possible we may never know if they have sketched a vase of flowers or a bottle of wine sitting on a table, as countless senior artists before them have to hone their craft. Yet, one can truly test the mettle of an artist from the way he draws or paints forms in still-life.
True, still-life as we know it is an inherited idea from the West, and one belongs in that sense to our painterly past. But in the way it continues to fascinate both artist as well as collector, I would wager that as a subject it is still to reach its sell-by date.
The art fraternity has been fortunate in being able to view some excellent examples of still-life works at recent exhibitions, and even though no works of still-life have so far commanded the heights of record-breaking prices (something that has come the way of figurative works — is there a moral in that somewhere for investors?), to my mind it is still the best measure of an artist’s personality, his mood (at the time of painting it) and his craft. The masters all dabbled in it, as did most senior artists, and it would hardly be surprising to learn that the contemporaries too doodle it, if in secret — they could scarcely countenance their interest in a form so at odds with the more intellectual ferment that is their oeuvre!
Take F N Souza’s still-life — stalks of flowers, mostly — and you can scarcely ignore the belligerence with which he rendered them, the angry lines, the impatient use of impasto, but also an incredible energy that breathed life onto canvas and paper (going on, in later years, to develop works by chemical alteration on magazine paper). Or take K H Ara’s more dreamy form, almost idealistic, turning the image into a rendition in its simplest form. Ara painted still-lifes for the longest ever, a form he came to be identified with. To so dedicatedly paint one subject demands a passion, and some of Ara’s still-lifes are outstanding for it.
But there are others whom one hardly associates with the subject, who spent equally fruitful hours in their studios working on still-lifes. In recent times, we have seen such works by Jogen Chowdhury — the suggestion through a few powerful strokes being enough to communicate the idea — but the interesting finds are Laxman Pai whose renditions are based on strict outlines that reduce the containers, or fruits and flowers, to an almost geometric rendering. Or take Prokash Karmakar at his voluptuous best, Jyoti Bhatt’s whimsical renderings, R B Bhaskaran’s almost comic distortions, Chittaprosad’s extravagant and Rabin Mondal’s expressive styles so at odds with their image as “serious” artists. Then there are Gopal Ghose and H A Gade’s modernist renderings, and very early (and very rare for it) works by S H Raza, which make them if not valuable, at least collectible. There are examples from Santiniketan — Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee’s fragile works, certainly Jogen Chowdhury, but at his earliest, even Rabindranath Tagore could hardly escape its influence — but the more experimental Baroda school turned its back on such Western-derived notions, starting a movement away from the form.
Even though in artistic terms it can scarcely be limited, as it usually is, to just the fruits-and-flowers as is generally interpreted, still it helps compare artistic styles of artists, as a result of which its importance in an artist’s oeuvre can scarcely be downplayed. Collectors, too, cannot resist the temptation of adding works of still-life to their collection — whether as a nod to the subject per se, or to complete a period or even an artist’s journey across different subjects. The best of these, therefore, fetch respectable prices, but because a still-life is seen as something more sterile than a figurative work (often based on the interpretation of mythology), it is judged, and valued, solely on the merit of its artistic quality. For an artist, that’s hardly a raw deal.
These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation the writer is associated with.
kishoresingh_22@hotmail.com
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