An Outline of Faith:
Benode behari Mukherjee’s Life of the Medieval Saints

Parvez Kabir

Life of the Medieval Saints was completed in the year 1947. Since then, the work has firmly stood for all those who have faith in the plurality of our religious tradition. Away from the mythic and militant narrations of his time, Benodebehari’s vision aims to recognize the value of religion in absolute day to day practices. It captures this everyday life of faith and belief in all its variety and entirety, that too without getting messy or quarrelsome. How is it possible, when we ourselves have failed to do so in reality? The question, I believe, should take us to the structural aspects of this creation. Done in the fresco buono technique, the mural was divided into smaller sections, which were completed one after another as the artist journeyed along the space.

Benodebehari did not use any cartoons, so there was no question of a schema or a blueprint. He, much like the calligraphers of the Far East, relied on the logic of a unit or a component that would stand as a binder in his overall design. In calligraphy, as well as in handwriting, beautiful little marks, a slight slant or the measured thickness of a stroke does the trick of holding the design together. Here, it seems Benodebehari trusted the outline. The outline moves like a river here, shaping figures, connecting groups, producing gestural communications and above all, resisting anything that stands or falls apart. Interestingly, a closer look may tell us, how this vision of unity also implies a chosen blindness; but before going to the invisibilities, it is essential to recognize the visible, the discourse of faith that is so brilliantly articulated here.