The scroll, titled ‘Scenes from Santiniketan’, which is simply six inches extensive, will journey in July to Santiniketan, the college city based by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore
-(Picture Credit score: The BBC)
By:
Kimberly Rodrigues
A 44-foot-long Japanese-style handscroll painted by the famend Indian blind artist, Benodebehari Mukherjee, has resurfaced after nearly a century and is on public show within the Indian metropolis, of Kolkata, his birthplace, the BBC reported.
Mukherjee, born in 1904, was blind in a single eye and misplaced his imaginative and prescient fully on the age of 53, following eye surgical procedure for his different useful myopic eye.
Nevertheless, he continued to create outstanding works as a panorama painter, sculptor, and muralist, turning into a defining determine in Twentieth-century Indian trendy artwork.
The scroll, titled Scenes from Santiniketan, which is simply six inches extensive, will journey in July to Santiniketan, the college city based by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, the place Mukherjee was a pupil and later a instructor.
That is the longest scroll ever created by the artist.
The scroll’s journey to its present show in Kolkata concerned a number of exchanges. It seems that Mukherjee gifted or offered the scroll to Sudhir Khastagir, an artwork faculty graduate in Santiniketan, round 1929.
Khastagir later gifted it to a different artist, who finally offered it to Rakesh Saini, an archivist and proprietor of an artwork gallery in Kolkata, six years in the past.
Crafted when Mukherjee was simply 20 years previous, the charming scroll options ink and watercolor work meticulously layered on paper.
It takes the viewer on a journey via Santiniketan, beginning with a determine sitting underneath a tree, probably representing the artist himself.
The scroll guides the viewer via a forest of Sal bushes, altering seasons, and varied scenes depicting human figures, animals, and nature. It additionally captures the artist’s sense of solitude and isolation, expressed with out self-pity or bitterness.
Mukherjee’s instructor at Santiniketan, Nandalal Bose, was initially involved about his visually impaired pupil however determined to let him pursue artwork if he confirmed sincerity and curiosity.
Mukherjee went on to develop into an influential artist, with notable college students comparable to KG Subramanyan, Somnath Hore, and filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
The scroll remained hidden for practically a century till it was acquired by Sahni, proprietor of Gallery Rasa in Kolkata, in 2017.
Alongside the scroll, the Kolkata exhibition additionally options reproductions of Mukherjee’s different works, together with The Khoai, Village Scenes, and Scenes in Jungle.
Owned by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the final paintings is superbly painted on the semi-circular pith of a banana tree.
A few of his well-known frescos are displayed at Santiniketan, showcasing his expertise previous to dropping his imaginative and prescient.
Regardless of his blindness, Mukherjee continued to create artwork till the top, producing murals, collages, and sculptures with the identical inventive ability.
In a uncommon touch upon his impaired imaginative and prescient, he described blindness as a brand new feeling, expertise, and state of being.
The rediscovery of this forgotten scroll not solely highlights the expertise and resilience of Mukherjee but in addition supplies a chance for artwork fanatics to understand and rejoice his contributions to Indian artwork.
