A Romantic Visionary : Gopal Ghose

Sandip Sarkar

Gopal Ghose died two days before Ramkinkar Baij, on 20 July 1980. Ghose was Baij’s younger contemporary and shared Baij’s attitude to life. Their patterns of living were different. The older artist had lived most of his life in the cloistered atmosphere of a monastic university in a natural setting in Shantiniketan. Ghose had lived much of his adult life in a bustling metropolis. Their approach to art and life, however, had much in common. They were both eccentrics who did not conform to standard norms and could not care less of what others thought of them. They liked their drinks and when they had a drop too much they would be boisterous, happy and joking one moment but if provoked they could be rude and rowdy the very next. In their sober moments they took great interest in what went on around them.

They were personally very cordial and friendly to everyone. Their love for nature was pantheistic but they both understood the bond had broken and human beings had betrayed nature and were bent on destroying it. Their works are infused with this discord and do not project a view of harmony. Their awareness of disharmony within and without marks them out as twentieth century moderns. Their non-formal approach in search of meaningful form is also another indicator. Gopal Ghose was born in 1913 in Calcutta. His father was a captain in the army and had seen active service in Mesopotamia during the First World War. After retirement in 1924 his father lived in Benaras. Gopal read up to Intermediate in Arts in a college at Allahabad. Inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru he joined the Civil Disobedience movement and did not complete his education. He used to draw and paint and his father sent him to Jaipur School of Arts from where he graduated with a first class.