Explorations of the Natural World with a Brush and a Camera

Elizabeth Rogers

“For Man is by nature an artist.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Within the hues of monochrome,exploration of myriad media defines artists and their respective realm of connection with nature. Such energy reigns in paintings and photographs which conjure the sensations of ancient work as well as metaphysical artists throughout time, such as the Chinese and Japanese ink painters, and the Surrealists, not to mention woodblock printmakers and lithographers.Integration of vision and matter prove, continuously, how diverse are the interpretations of the real and the imaginary. As a bridge between the hemispheres of the mind, art and artists strive to render the ‘image’ in innumerable modes. To what extent do truly physical manifestations reflect the tangents explored by the creator, and the reverberations elicited in/shared by the viewer?

Aruna Vasudev studied film and received a PhD in Paris, after which she launched the Asian film quarterly Cinemaya in India in 1988. Thereafter, she founded NETPAC and Cinefan –the Festival of Asian Cinema in Delhi. Photography and painting have been present as artistic undertakings throughout her life. Her immersion in Asian cinema exposed her to the traditional East Asian schools of sumi-e and shan/shui painting, in which she found a natural corollary to both Haiku and Zen philosophy that have fascinated her. She has undertaken intensive study with contemporary masters in Korea, China and Japan. The meditative process of painting nature,of grinding and applying ink to the brush and then painting on delicate rice paper, infuses her life and creative expression.

Traditional East Asian Landscape painting (shan/shui in Chinese. Meaning mountain/water) suggests a distinct relationship between humans and nature.Daoists speak of a harmony amongst all aspects of the natural world, and say, “Heaven and Earth and I live together.” In most landscape paintings, ifhumans are present, they are relatively minute in scale. They participants in the scene, the setting, but they do not dominate it. The Northern Sung Dynasty Chinese philosopher, poet, painter, calligrapher and statesman Su Dongpo (Su Shi, 1037-1101), wrote of this communion: “Man and Nature form an indivisible whole. There are very strong affinities between them.They are in sympathy with one another.”

Such monochromatic lenses postulate a reconsideration of the crystal of existence, of the levels of human interaction with the world, and ever potentially expansive powers of perception.Furthermore, in Achal’s photographs, there is a shared lyrical appreciation of the medium, from the subtle cadences of the legendary French photographer Eugene Atget (18571927), and the dramatic vistas of the American photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Achal considers his photographs to be “paintings with light.” The renowned French painter Claude Monet (1840-1926) exemplified such involvement throughout his life as a prolific Impressionist, surrounded by gardens at Giverny. He wrote that “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment, but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life; the air and the light which vary continually…gives subjects their true value.” 2