The Relevance of Modern Art

Art of India, in its historic role, has perhaps been the greatest communicator of beauty, rich both in the spiritual and human emotions. And because of its nearness to all aspects of the social and cultural life it has done so in a language that can reach and move most men. In course of time with alterations in values and expressions, even newer possibilities of transmitting beauty have also been explored. It is therefore tragic, that we have today to ponder over the relevance of modern Indian art. It is said that much of modern Indian art is ugly aberration from what is beautiful, from what makes sense and the artists are blindly basing themselves on Western patterns. In fairness to the artists, it may be argued that their work reflects the spirit of the century, and in this era of internationalism every art movement, including the Indian will eventually have to participate in the art movements coming also from the West. But it will also be argued that creativity in any age must have a valid purpose in our culture and must also have a sense of significance. It is with these reflections that we may try to look at modern Indian art with objectivity and understanding.

It was the 19th century that witnessed a turning point in the fine art traditions of the country. Till then art in India had travelled from the ideals of static repose of the classical era, to the conceptual forms refined in the spiritual imagination of a great people of the early medieval period, to yet a period of a delightfully, decorative and lyrical loveliness bound with the life of the people of the later middle ages. But already in the 19th century India was losing grip of her destiny, and specially in the field of painting, the Mughal, the Rajput and the Pahari movements of Indian art were patering out through the impact of British culture and of the crude naturalistic products of Western art.

At the turn of the present century, however, a movement for national regeneration was in the offing. It ushered in a new promise for the future, and artists turned for inspiration to their own cultural heritage. While Bengal took a start by taking themes­ from legend, literature and history of India, which the artists idealised in the manner of the later Ajanta phase, Bombay experimented with representationalism with a wider range of styles and treatment which did not exclude the Western techniques. But soon came a period when artists began to question the chauvinist nationalism of the Renaissance School and also the barren cosmoplitanism of the Bombay artists. They on their part tried to discover for themselves new principles of content and form which could be followed with advantage. It was a search in which a few succeeded, but those who did, showed the path to modern Indian art. Rabindranath Tagore gave birth to expressionism designing his compositions with extreme simplicity. Gaganendranath Tagore experimented with Cubism and studied the pictorial possibilities of light. Jamini Roy turned to the joys of folk culture which he expressed vigorously and coherently in certain basic forms and patterns. Amrita Sher Gill realised her artistic mission by synthesising a dramatic colour sense with deep sensitiveness to the anguish and pain as also to moments of fulfilment in the lives of the common Indian.

The door had thus opened up a new horizon. A number of artists saw the direction in which the art in India had started moving, and pursued that direction with intensity and integrity; However, a much larger number who also saw that opening just wondered off on the path with “their own inclinations, their own artistic visions, sometimes with their own synicisms. It inevitably resulted in a vast outpouring of paintings and sculptures, not much of which was really modern in flavour or even aesthetically pleasing. But today the Indian cultural scene is flooded with these products. And as we look around we find that our artists are no longer conscious of the rich heritage of their tradition, but are so completely fascinated by trends of art in the West that they are eagerly emulating ideas and techniques from there. They have in fact become so much West-oriented that this situation appears perfectly normal to them and we see everywhere Western artistic awareness dominating the Indian scene even more overwhelmingly than what the erstwhile political domination had done.

What after all is this modern Western awareness. It is part or that larger movement which started about 1900 with the revolutionary thinking of the post-impressionist painters like Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin who desired that representation of outer form and colour must be subordinated to the demands of emotional values. It led on to Matisse’s fanatical pass on for the summary expression of form and movement in which the artist further subordinated natural representation to formal design, and created a pattern of line and colour, which should appeal primarily to pure aesthetic sensibilities. This outlook got exaggerated into Piccasso’s Cubism who, in order to give a greater reality and strength to things, seem cut up the natural forms into geometrical shapes and shuffled them arbitrarily. Soon the distortions of Matisse and the puzzle pictures of the Cubists developed a new pseudo-philo­sophy of art which altogether discarded the facts of vision in favour of something conceived in the mind because they said that art should be free as music to give emotional pleasure, without any appropriate association of material ideas. It has thus led to a demand that art should be abstract and not concrete, it should not necessarily be bound by space or time, and that it should depict not figures or objects but only the inner vision of the artist who need not bother about society. In this way it is the artist’s own personality which should motivate him, it is his own style to which all things should be subdued, and it is his own private language in which he must speak. The appearance of this outlook was the expression of excessive individualism, a rejection of the traditional values, an abandonment of all that had gone before, and an adventure in­to the realms of tireless experimentation in accordance with still newer theories of the purposes of art.

This thinking was indeed a reflection of the intellectual climate then prevailing in Europe. At this time a highly industrial­ised and materialistic-minded society was alienating the individual from his natural surroundings. The human values were giving way to egoistic culture. Man felt that he was living in a hostile world where he must wrest everything he wants, even if it meant the des­truction of the natural arrangement of things. Religion and classical philosophy were found wanting in capacity to provide answers to his problems and doubts. He was even questioning his own existence. The man in the West was thus existing in a state of tortured tension, and on terms of disbelief both with his past and his fellow-men.

Now when it is in this context that the art form is developing in the West, we may ask how far this situation has any validity for the contemporary Indian artistic activity. The spectacle of life in modern India, if superficially viewed, does show many similarities with the life and character of modern Europe. It has the same phenomenon of extensive industrialisation as in Europe, and consequently the same urbanisation which is characterised with organised selfishness, the unabated demand for new technology, the idolatory of money, the passion far individualism and the severance of life from religion. To these we have added social changes by borrowing European institutions and ideology and developing an enthusiasm for Western cultural modes. But the fact remains that we have acquired only the surface adornments The inner substance continues to be typically Indian, and we carry a rigid crust around us beneath which there is a living faith in our age-old ideals; Howsoever much European we may become, our food habits, clothes, customs and manners remain unaltered. We still identify ourselves with castes and sects, and find security within the con­fines of the family system. Religion still has a deep hold on our minds, the sanctity of rituals has not dimmed, and we crowd around Sai Babas, Yogis and the many kinds of Bhagawans on, earth in ever-increasing numbers. We endlessly reminisce upon the wonders of our temples, frescoes and crafts; the dancing Nataraja still inspires our concept of art, and the classical dances and music keep life vibrant. Nowhere, therefore, is there any sharp break with the tradition, and nowhere has the Indian really abandoned his social and cultural moorings.

So in this ground is it unreasonable to demand that contemporary Indian art in order to be modern must first be identifiable as Indian and only then as modern. Modernism does not mean rejecting the academic discipline, or refusing to acknowledge the sources of the national art activity. It also does not mean accepting a style for no other reason than that it is fashionable in the West, or going abstract and using a language which is mystifying, incoherent and unconvincing. Art to be good and genuine has to be conscious of its heritage and establish a living relationship with his own social and cultural ground. Without it there cannot be any artistic integrity, only borrowing of mannerisms, either one’s own or those of an alien origin which have their own underlying psychology, their own inner compulsions and problems. While it is useful to admire the art of the Western world, for it has conducted great artistic enquiries into the psychology of perception and the science of aesthetics, and having perfected techniques led to bold experimentations. It is also useful to remember that no artist who values more the technique than his own vision can really create a work of art that is to survive through the ages. Fortunately we have artists in our country who keep on revitalising their expression by outside contact, and yet feel they have a responsibility to the land and people they belong to, and thus boldly evolve comprehensible idioms which open for the spectators new areas of experience. Their work is original and vital. But they are in a microscopic minority. The vast majority of the moderns in this country is tragically enough practising art with intensely individualistic insistence upon novelty, and projecting abstract sensational devices to startle or overawe the spectator. But their work lacks depth, insight and understanding. It is empty and unrewarding, an art of the escapist or of one who seeks fame overnight. Real art must provide a lasting intellectual and aesthetic stimulus; it must arouse a response among those who look at it. It must be an indispensable expression of human experience; and it must have a valid purpose in our culture. Art is always greater than its creator. It must, therefore, be a living organism, must remain socially subjective and grow out of the tradition which it takes a whole civilisation to evolve.

–Courtesy Akashvani