OLD MASTERS
This monsoon, treading under the canopy of
nostalgia of yesteryears, the Art Indus gallery
recaptures the essence of the art legends through
their artworks in the show ‘Old Masters’. Time,
tide or market value have failed to dim the
radiance and timelessness of these art works,
observes Uma Nair
Ambadas Khobragade, K.S.Kulkarni, Sailoz Mukherjee, Jamini Roy
and S.H.Raza – it isn’t often that one finds a combination of an inspiring
alchemy of old masters, but Art Indus Gallery, New Delhi, celebrates this
monsoon with a once in a blue moon showing that brims on the beauty of
quietude in the yesteryear.
One must begin with the subliminal fluid matrix of colour and
contour in two works on display by artist Ambadas, who lived in Norway.
“Art to me is a happening and performance, an instant plunging,
flirting and merging with life, with it’s being and becoming it. All that is
there on the canvas is but a charge in celebration,” he wrote in 1973.
In 1996, he had stated in sagely simplicity, “Nothing is empty. Every
bit of space breathes.” So, while this great abstractionist attempted to
reflect the sinuous curves and the little flotsam like nuances of a nonformal
atmospheric fluidity, just looking at his works brings you face to
face with the master’s metaphor of his own dulcet tones of the breathing
spaces of meditative moorings. It is said that Ambadas was one of the
first abstractionists to lay the groundwork for modern art in India. A
contemporary of MF Hussain, KH Ara and FN Souza, his art however is
infused with profound spirituality and a rootedness that blurs boundaries
and explores Braquian ratios in resonance.
If Ambadas delved on concepts of impermanence through his
art, K.S.Kulkarni also ensured that people could grasp the underlying
meaning of his works that struck semi-formal tonalities and distincti