Studio: international art (89.1925)

MODERN INDIAN ART AT WEMBLEY

"RAINBOW." ILLUSTRATION
FOR KALIDAS'S "CLOUD-
MESSENGER." WATER-COLOUR
BY SAILENDRA NATH DE

(Lent by Rai Krishna Das)

stand by himself to-day, but is supported
by a group of gifted Bengali artists, each
having an individuality of his own, and
a distinctive outlook which has enriched
the movement with varying phases. And
the small but representative selection of
pictures from the brushes of a group of
modern Indian artists afforded an unique
opportunity to study the aims and achieve-
ments of the modern schools. a a

Of this group, none is more idiosyn-
cratically Indian in his vision and
temperament than Khitindra Nath Ma-
zumdar. He has chosen for himself
the old Indian world of imagination. His
brushes are dipped in the fantastic colours
of the mysterious East which he pictures
in exquisitely conceived designs—in terms
of a human type which can only harmonise
with the supernatural. Of his exhibited
works the most typical was his Jamuna,
a symbolical representation of a river of
that name, of legendary association, which
waters north-western India. In this little
miniature the black water of the river is

138

pictured in the person of a girl whose dark
complexion is emphasised by the white
sari and the profusion of quaint jewellery
and decorations of flowers. In spite of
the traditional halo which still adheres to
this subject because of frequent treatment
of the theme in old Indian architectural
sculpture, the artist reveals an absolutely
modern outlook ; his vision is uninfluenced
by the old masters who have repeatedly
handled the same subject. To borrow
the words of Ruskin, in the " holy awk-
wardness " of the drawing of his " figura-
tive creatures," Mazumdar has given ample
evidence of an inventive power which has
not been stifled or limited by the trammels
of " studio models." a a a

This coining of types from the inner
vision, untrammelled by the limitations of
a living model, is a distinguishing feature
of the works of these modern exponents
of old Indian art. In the works of younger
artists of this group the quality is no less
obvious. Take for instance, Sailendra
Nath De's Banished Yaksha, an illustration
to Kalidas's exquisite lyric of a lover in
a mountain exile. Behind the intensely
decorative treatment lurks a haunting
mystery of the theme, which is derived
from a subjective outlook, a common
heritage of all Eastern schools of painting.
Even irt such obviously genre pictures as
Bireswar Sen's Lady's Toilette, an actual
living type is transcended and lifted above
the plane of a mere photographic vision.
Similarly, Dhirendra Krishna Varma's
study of a Temple Dancer has all the magic
flavour and the mystery of an Indian
temple, without the vulgarity of the actual,
or the triviality of the real. Such studies
have a reality of their own which is not
the reality of appearances. Tagore, the
leader of the movement, was represented
at Wembley by two very fine examples ;
one, an early creation, and the other, one
of the latest from his brush, yet each
conceived and executed in a different mood.
His Radhika, startled by the flute of
Krishna, that mystic messenger of her love,
is characterised by a lyrical tenderness
which has been such a marked feature of
his art. In a more sombre key was tuned
his study of the head of Parvati, the con-
sort of Shiva, whose weird snakes and
prayer-beads the ever-young wife loved to