Idyllic Tranquility Recent Paintings of Subrata Ghosh

Timelessness and temporality are two of the components that constitute a work of art. Tradition in art is also a reflection of the assimilation of these two. ‘It cannot be inherited’, TS Eliot wrote about ‘tradition’ in his book ‘The Sacred Wood’, ‘if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.’ This was the dictum during the age of modernity. The process of assimilation has been more complex during the age of post-modernity in our region particularly, due to onslaught of globalization. We know in our contemporary culture both post-modernity and globalization are working simultaneously in a contradictory way, one influencing, at the same time opposing the other. Globalisation tends to erase the plurality of culture, where as post-modern concepts tries to look deeper into diversity, into the uniqueness of every subtle reflection of traditional nuances. These mutually opposite trends have made the expressions of contemporary art very complex. There are artists who completely ignore tradition. To express temporality they resort to global post-modern (read Western) idioms. There are others who despite their commitment to temporality do not ignore the subtle shades of ‘timelessness’ or tradition.

Subrata Ghosh, the young artist, who has appeared in the field of contemporary art during the first decade of this new century, belongs to this second group. He tries to touch temporality from the perspective of timelessness. The enlightened heritage of Indian classical art inspires him and helps him to build up his own idiom. He looks back towards the grand tradition of our painting and sculpture of classical era. The tranquility with the divinity of the Ajanta figuration and Gupta sculpture makes some imprint in his delineation of form. He imbibes robustness, illusion of three dimensionality from these classical traditional sources and induces a kind of sobriety through duality of light and shade in his figuration. The echo of idyllic elements also reverberates in his works. He also induces decorativeness from traditional sources.

The floral elements, rhythmic plants and creepers, flying birds decorate the tranquil faces or figures in his paintings with the message of ideal or divine contemplation. His paintings, especially of this present series, are therefore rare examples of the assimilation of the two opposing trends or attitude to life, that is classicism and romanticism. In tranquility and meditativeness, in depicting the divine values of an enlightened and celebrated culture, in connecting his visual elements with the ‘timelessness’ he imbibes classical sensibility, where as in decorativeness, in transcending dry rationality towards an ethereal emotiveness his works posit a tendency of romanticism. With these elements of ‘timelessness’ he tries to touch or project, albeit very subtly and indirectly, the values of ‘temporality’. To him the time present is a time of strife and discordance, of anarchy and violence, violence towards life also towards nature and environment. His paintings grow out of a rebellion against these decaying values. He tries to posit an ideal to negate this decay, this human frailty that the civilization is engulfed with.

There are two types of temporality in human expressions: direct and indirect. Direct temporality reflects rebelliousness against decaying human values. The cubism of Picasso, the expressionism of Edward Munch or Kathe Kolwitz or some of the German expressionists or the surrealism of Salvador Dali or the works of Dadaists, in our country the works of the artists of 1940-s like Jainul Abedin, Chittaprosad and Somnath Hore are the examples of such direct temporality; where as the cubism of Braque, post-impressionistic expressions of Van Gogh or Cezanne or the Fauvist expressions Matisse or in our country the works of Abanindranath, Nandalal Basu, Jamini Roy or Rabindranath may be cited as examples of expressions in indirect temporality. They are also rebellious in the sense that they posit a transcendence negating all sorts of decays of humanity. Subrata Ghosh tries to fix his sight and creative impulse towards this transcendence.

Subrata was born in Kolkata in 1975 and graduated in Fine Arts from Indian College of art and Draftsmanship under Rabindra Bharati University in 2000. He made his first solo show in Kolkata during 1998, before completing his course in Art College. Since then he is regularly exhibiting his works in different parts of the country and taking part in various art activities. Since the beginning he has worked in various mediums and experimented in various forms. He is very prolific in linear modes and worked extensively in various commercial ventures, which has given him confidence to work with any kind of imagined structures. At a certain stage he has tried with mythical subjects in traditional forms with some reflections of neo-Indian style. Gradually this trend has been transformed towards a tranquil, idyllic, meditative and sonorous form, where, as has been stated earlier, classical sobriety and romantic imaginativeness have merged to build up his form. The works exhibited in the present show mostly reflect this trend.

He has worked in acrylic on canvas. He applies colour layer after layer to arrive at his own chromatic structure, where white with little shade of yellow, cream and light grey gets prominence. This colour scheme helps him to create an environment of idyllic tranquility. His subjects are various, mythical, religious and secular expressing various shades of life. In ‘Nirvana’ he depicts the face of Buddha in classical style. In ‘Mahamaya’ he paints in semi-profile the face of the divine lady. ‘Tejaswini’ also reflects the image of Goddess Durga. ‘Eternal Love’ is an image of eternal mother and child where the mother holds on her lap a child with a pachydermic head like Ganesha of Hindu mythology. ‘Silent Love’ is the image of a beautiful lady depicted in idealized naturalistic form seated with a bunch of lotus buds in her hand. ‘Rhythm’ depicts the mythical theme of Radha Krishna. Apart from these myth oriented subjects there are also works of non-mythic category like ‘Boy and Kite’ where the artist depicts the pleasure of a boy while flying the kite as a memory of his own childhood, or the ‘The Owl’, image of the nocturnal bird that flies within the realm of myth and reality.

Through all these images Subrata Ghosh paints an environment of idyllic tranquility, where the resonance of the divine merges with earthly reality, thus assimilating timelessness and temporality.

Mrinal Ghosh

Eminent Art Critic