The happiness of being

An exhibition of Ram Kumar's landscapes reveals his artistic trajectory

There is now scientific proof that doing what you love can add years to your life, and Ram Kumar is living proof of that. In December 2016, the nonagenarian held an exhibition of 73 works and released a book alongside. Barely a month later, he’s holding an exhibition of his recent works in New Delhi. 

There are two parts to the exhibition. The first are his recent works on canvas. Unlike his usual paintings, these are colourful, abstract landscapes, done in shades of yellow, green, red and brown. The earthy, mountainous landscapes have a sense of movement and flight, and bring an aerial perspective to the forms and backgrounds that are a staple of Kumar’s repertoire. These represent warm days and beautiful landscapes, as Ram Kumar rarely does. These are untitled, like all of Kumar’s works. We can only presume to know what he refers to in them, because he's known as much for his reticence as his influence on modern Indian art. But there is a familiarity and joy that is palpable. 

The two sides of the diptychs are different, as different as sides of a mountain, or opposite sides of a cave. This is a non-linear tale that the master painter is telling through his bold and measured strokes, and the viewers are expected to use their imagination to fill in the stories that the canvas doesn’t tell.  

Outside the main exhibition room is another surprise. A few of his earlier figurative works are hanging on the stairs, including two wonderful paintings. One is of a hollow-eyed girl, crouching hungrily in the darkness and watching us. Another shows a standing couple, gazing directly at the viewer. This direct accusing gaze of his figures was one of the trademarks of Kumar’s figurative work. 

On the floor above, there are earlier watercolours and it’s easy to understand here why he is India’s first important abstract painter of significance, honoured by the government with the Padma Shri in 1972 and Padma Bhushan in 2010. These give us a chance to see how his works have progressed from his early figurative drawings, to the depictions of his travels to Varanasi, Shimla, Ladakh and the Thar Desert, through dark city and natural landscapes to the abstracted landscapes he has done since. They also show how his new works are similar in topic to his earlier works, but have a difference in palette from his earlier cooler palette of blues, greys and yellows. Throughout, Kumar engages with art at its most basic level — through colour and texture, surface and depth, through meaning and memory. 

He’s been a member of both the Bombay Progressives and the Delhi Shilpi Chakra, and he was immensely influenced by Partition. His earlier works focused on the state of the displaced refugees who came to Delhi, as they tried to recover from the trauma of separation and dislocation on the one hand and material deprivation on the other. The dark planes and the reduced urban landscape in the background of these works were in keeping with the compositions and trends that were being explored by colleagues of the age, including S H Raza, Ghulam Rasool Santosh, M F Husain and Krishen Khanna. 

In the 1960s, as the figures disappeared from his canvas, he started exploring absence — of God and of humans — and used architecture as metaphors for cultural and psychological fragmentation. In the 1980s, with his broken structures, Kumar made a reference to incipient violence and destruction. The later landscapes have an aura of meditative serenity and show regeneration and acceptance. This calm is now mixed with acceptance and joy. It took the artist a lot of time to come to this, and it is worth it. 
 

Ram Kumar: Recent Works on Canvas will be on view till February 22 at Vadehra Art Gallery, Defence Colony, New Delhi