And then you get an artist says he doesn’t want to paint at all
He takes an empty canvas and sticks it on the wall. Dire Straits.
There are moments in one’s life when one can unwittingly enter into a conversation with a stranger and feel somewhat trapped. I say unwittingly because it was not my intention in the first place to attend an art exhibition many years ago in Calcutta. At the time I was more into jazz, rock and classical music concerts – Indian and western. Art exhibitions, be they paintings or sculptures left me largely unmoved. Not unlike one of those sculptures. My bad, to employ a present-day idiom, one that I abhor but needs must. All that changed later but that is another story. This particular exhibition of contemporary, modern art was by a young, up and coming Bengali artist, of whom I knew next to nothing. That was not the artist’s fault because I had not heard of too many Bengali artists at the time.
To be honest, I had not heard of too many artists, period. I was a philistine in these matters. I was surprised at the number of people who had turned up for the opening. I should not have been, surprised that is, as I had only a few weeks earlier heard about a replica of Rodin’s celebrated bronze masterpiece, The Thinker being shown at an art gallery where the crowds were so great they had to let in the art-loving throngs in instalments. Incidentally, this is very much a Calcutta characteristic – a Fellini or Bergman movie hits town and everyone goes bonkers. I was reliably informed that had they brought Rodin’s other famous if a tad risqué, sculpture in marble, The Kiss, matters might have gone completely out of hand. Lest you begin to conclude that philistine was too charitable a term to describe me, I had heard about Rodin. If only just.
Anyhow, a close, upper crust Bengali friend of mine who knew a thing or two about Rembrandt and Van Gogh, to say nothing of Vermeer and Monet, insisted I tag along with him to witness the works of this ‘most promising young painter’ from a remote corner of Calcutta. That was one of the first things I learned about promising or even established artists, particularly in the City of Joy. By definition they had to be very poor. Destitute almost. I have no idea why. The brochures handed out to us had several photographs showing the artist in question slaving away in darkness in a dingy hovel with only a kerosene lamp to throw a shaft of light on the subject. In fact, those photographs could themselves have qualified as serious works of art. I took this up with my friend prior to entering the exhibition hall.
‘Why are artists invariably shown to be living in abject poverty? It appears to be almost a sine qua non. Is it some kind of inverted snobbery?’
My friend was miffed. ‘Look, I know you prefer books to paintings but don’t throw Latin or whatever that was at me to impress. It’s all Greek to me. As to your question, art is all about suffering. You have to feel pain to produce something memorable.’
‘You mean to tell me that Van Gogh never experienced a day of happiness in his entire life? He seemed to have made a lot of people very happy. And very rich.’ I was being ironical. My friend did not get the irony.
‘You are right. Van Gogh was miserable all his life. He hid all his paintings under his bed, cut his left ear off and painted even that. Self-portrait with a bandage. He was depressed. So would I have been had I lopped off my left ear. He ‘selfied’ himself standing in front of a mirror. He finally died in penury. His brother found all the canvasses. The rest is history.’ The only time I had heard about Van Gogh was thanks to a beautiful song by Don McLean, Vincent.
Anyhow, my own views on the subject were somewhat mixed. ‘Mind you, I think poverty and artists are now a thing of the past. Our own M.F. Husain did very well for himself with those Madhuri Dixit interpretations. The Bollywood bombshell was Husain’s “ultimate muse.” Caused quite a stir, those Madhuri paintings. Like many artists, he had his eccentricities. His walking around our cities and villages barefoot was more an artistic affectation than anything else. He has been seen wearing a three-piece suit sans footwear of any kind! A walking art form, our Husain. I once, by sheer chance, ran into the bearded one in Russell Street in Calcutta one afternoon; no slippers. Husain that is, my feet were well-shod. I was so startled I froze, like one of Rodin’s statues. If I had not known any better, I would have dropped a 50p coin at his feet. In the early 70s, that was good money for a mendicant. However, Husain was certainly not down-at-heel, bare feet notwithstanding.’
Dear reader, the meaning of the word serendipity was brought home to me forcefully when that very evening, I was invited by a few friends to take in a movie at the New Empire in the city. The film’s name? Barefoot in the Park!
My exhibition guide was impressed. ‘For a guy who claims to be a philistine, you seem pretty well up on painters and their quirks. Enough of all that. For now, let us see what this young painter has to offer.’ So saying, we entered the main exhibition area, which was choc-a-bloc with all manner of people. The rich, the famous, the intellectuals, college students, art critics from the media and just a whole bunch of lay people such as myself. A brand of cheap red wine was being ‘trayed’ around. Plonk, I believe is the mot juste.
A brief diversion at this point. Bengalis often refer to pseudo-intellectuals, somewhat derisively, as aantel. You will come a cropper if you attempt to pronounce it as written. It is a corrupted or satirical adaptation of the French word intellectuel, or the English term intellectual, spoken with a pseudo-French flair. I mention this only because you are more than likely to bump into a fair share of aantels at any art exhibition in Calcutta. They will hold forth with ringing authority on the subtleties, symbolism and hidden meanings embedded in the canvasses on display. Frankly, there is no fun if you do not seriously engage with an aantel at an art event. That said, if you are buttonholed by one of them, they will not let go. You will experience that ‘being trapped by Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner’ feeling. You have been warned.
I speak with bitter experience. At some point in the evening, my companion pushed off in another direction. While I was rubbernecking over the arrivistes looking for him, an elderly gentleman, smoking a pipe smiled at me, stuck his hand out and announced himself in a baritone, Satyajit Ray kind of voice, ‘Mukerjea, no h and ending with jea.’ His no h and jea business had me groping. ‘And you are, young man?’
I was a young man then. Illogically, a Bob Dylan line came into my head. Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. These weird things happen at art exhibitions. Anyhow, I told him who I was while desperately seeking my absent friend. For want of something, anything, to say, I made bold and said, ‘Is smoking allowed here, Sir? Could taint the paints, yes?’
Mr. Mukerjea, with no h and jea, smiled benignly. ‘If you look carefully, you will observe the pipe is not lit. I just keep tamping down the tobacco. Will light up once I leave the hall. Force of habit. By the way, what do you make of Samiran’s works?’ He punctiliously pronounced the artist’s name, Shomeeron. ‘And one other thing. On no account should you touch the paintings,’ he added rather pompously. He needn’t have worried. I wouldn’t have touched them with the proverbial bargepole.
That was the first time I had become aware of the painter’s name. I was struggling for a response. Where the hell did that idiot pal of mine disappear to? ‘I haven’t given it much of a thought, Sir. Perhaps if I just took in a few more canvasses, I might be better placed to respond to your query.’
Mukerjea remained unfazed. He now held my left arm and did not look like letting go. I was well and truly in his clutches. ‘Never mind, I will give you my impression on Samiran’s unique style of impressionism.’
At which point he started droning on. I suspect he was already three large whiskies to the good before downing the exhibition wine for a chaser. He still held my arm tightly. He seemed unsteady on his feet and spoke haltingly, if not actually slurring. He was staring at one of the canvasses and said, ‘It hurts to look at it, doesn’t it? That is the acute pain of true genius.’ I turned to the painting in question and felt pain, the pain of not understanding the random blobs of paint. And the pain from my arm being held too tight by this inebriated aantel. He wasn’t quite finished. ‘The true avant-garde understood that form is a prison. Impressionism is the liberation of the retinal shudder.’ By now I was shuddering. Mercifully, just then my friend hove into view and saw my miserable plight. He appeared to know Mr. Mukerjea and gently held him by the waist and deposited the senile, old codger into the loving arms of a lady I took to be his unfortunate wife.
‘And not a moment too soon,’ I chided my friend. ‘I don’t know about you but I am catching the 2B double-decker straight home. Thanks for nothing. Next time I will drag you, kicking and screaming, to a 3-hour Carnatic vocal music concert and let’s see how you survive. Not a drop of wine on offer. Filter coffee, if you’re lucky. Good night.’
Published with permission from Suresh Subrahmanyan – A long time advertising professional, now retired, and taken up writing as a hobby. Deeply interested in music of various genres, notably Carnatic and 60’s and 70’s pop/rock. An avid tennis and cricket fan. Voracious reader of British humour and satire. P.G. Wodehouse a perennial favourite. He blogs at – https://sureshsubrahmanyan.blog/
Join our WhatsApp Group for News and Article Alerts
