Introduction text by Bhavna Kakar

Artur Isenberg in his introduction to ‘10 Contemporary Indian Painters’¹ wrote, “This exhibition provides additional evidence that India’s contemporary painters speak the same language as their fellow artists in America and elsewhere. If their language does exhibit any national accent systematically – and there are those who claim that it does – I must confess that it would take more acute perception than I possess to notice in all cases. What is clear at any rate is that the gap between the art of yesteryear and today is as wide in India as anywhere else.”

Krishen Khanna, member of the Progressive Art Group (PAG) as well as one of the artists who participated in the aforementioned exhibition had been writing significantly in the 60s in various art forums and newspapers about the disposition and vision of the post-independence art and artists. The artist has been of the opinion that though as hard as one might try to escape the tentacles of history, ‘it is difficult to avoid it or the context in which we constantly find ourselves’.² 

However in later writings in The Times, he elaborates on this inference of history as meaning one of ‘the worlds’. He states, “..the more important artists have reacted to the world influence (which includes our own) rather than to those that are purely local and revivalist”. His art as well as of the Progressive Artists Group collectively affirmed this with its palpable absorption of European modernism as a way to out rightly reject the revivalist methods of the Bengal School. Khanna understood painting to be an autonomous activity, existing in its own right, though this neither implied a negation of social and other forces nor a direct imitation of the plastic appearances. Putting forth examples of his fellow artist which included Husain, Souza, Padamsee and their art, the artist discussed his stand at various forums. The most ardent exemplification however was of MF Husain, of whom he says in The Times, “transforms appearances into poetic images. The forms of nature are retained, being accentuated or modifies according to the dictates of his personal poetic vision. He does not allow a form to develop that is not in consonance with his original theme. The quality of his imagination is essentially symbolistic and in this he is a direct inheritor of our pictorial traditions.”

Richard Bartholomew³ traced a similar quality in works of Krishen Khanna which developed around a differentiation between spectacle and vision as well as between real imagery and the intuitive function. While nature has been one of the underlying theme of Khanna’s art, the focus has been on describing and delineating the invisible elements of it i.e. the emanating light brought out through the free form and formulating of his paint. “Through the mystery of optics and of anthropology this apprehension makes him portray the world as his personal vision”.

Charles Fabri, however has studied Khanna’s works moving in two different modes – one with harmonious unity in which the pictorial space is lucid and simplified and the other in which the picture appears to be shattered and fragmented. The two of these are rather unconnected and do not influence each other and Fabri is of the opinion that Khanna should develop working along the more harmonious line. One of the examples of such ‘pictures’ being Fruit Seller which Fabri perceives is only one or two removes away from Amrita Sher-Gill in its simplicity and an instant effectiveness.

A man of multiple reverences and comprehensions, Krishen Khanna has journeyed along the modern history of Indian art, delving between various styles though always believing that naturalistic paintings were not the need of the time.

References

1.Exhibition in 1965 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology of 10 Indian painters which included SatishGujral, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, FN Souza among others.
2.IIC Magazine, Volume 2, No.1, 1st quarter 1966 Pg. 34
3.‘Krishen Khanna’ Review of exhibition of paintings at Kunika Art Centre, Richard Bartholomew, Roopa-Lekha, Volume XXXII No.2, December 1961.

Painters are trying fresh techniques:  Krishen Khanna

The Times, London, 26 January 1967

 It is a curious fact that though the world has shrunk and we have accepted the revolution in our systems of communication, we have not as yet developed a more international outlook. Indeed, there is an endeavor to create a national identity from political and economic considerations; and writers, musicians and artists are encouraged to aid the creation of such an identity.

This explains the impetus that has been given to popularising our historic past. The publication Division of the Government of India has produced excellent books on the schools of miniature painting, and ancient sites of artistic interest have been made accessible to all. We are expected to remember the glories of our past, so that traditional values may be incorporated in what is being done now. Nevertheless, creativity is scarcely amenable to such nation-building activities, and the more important artists have reacted to world influence (which includes our own) rather than to those that are purely local and revivalist.

All have this in common, that painting is considered as autonomous and existing in its own right. With most painters this does not imply a negation of social and other forces. The image persists in varying degrees, and it is the kind of equation that each painter creates between the image and the purely plastic elements that determines the differences between the painters. We still have our naturalistic painters who are content to portray what they see, or what they think they see. It never occurs to them that their function was usurped by the camera over a century ago, or that merely reporting on appearances scarcely amounts to any creativity.

Top of the list

M.F. Husain, who is probably the best-known painter in this country, transforms appearances into poetic images. The forms of nature are retained, being accentuated or modified according to the dictates of his personal poetic vision. He does not allow a form to develop that is not in consonance with his original theme. His mysterious poetic themes are enacted by figures inextricably bound in paint. The colours he uses evoke the moods in which his dramas are played, the quality of his imagination is essentially symbolistic and in this he is a direct inheritor of our pictorial traditions.

In the recent works of Akbar Padamsee, the image of the work is created by its massive construction, by the way forms produce other forms, the whole painting becoming a series of inevitable plastic events held together by the image, which is however never the image, which is however never allowed to dominate; it is either a means for generating forms or else the image enter a painting quietly and without imposition, to suffuse what is a purely plastic poetry with a human significance.

S.H. Raza is an artist with an international reputation and his views have considerably influenced younger painters. He has till recently retained the image. It gets lost in the paint, then gradually emerges and gets lost again. As in Padamsee’s painting, the image is not of cardinal importance but a device for releasing other forces those of colour. He conceives colour as energy and a painting as an organization in which such energies are released and controlled.

Gaitonde is perhaps the only non-objective painter of distinction. No images are imported into the structures he creates. His poetry is entirely in terms of the medium he employs, and, unlike Husain, it cannot be symbolically resolved. He is a painter’s painter who is content to preoccupy himself with plastic problems. Nor is this preoccupation a dry exercise in geometry. He feels through sounds, and he constructs like a musician within a limited framework of the colours he chooses for himself. For him painting is an important human activity, just as music is. It is at once a spiritual exercise and a discipline, quite regardless of the ultimate success or failure of the work.

Growing Curiosity

It is not here possible to discuss the work of every other significant artist, and only four painters have been chosen as outstanding examples of the direction of painting in this country. It is significant of intercultural exchanges that while avant-garde artists in the West are placing a greater importance on their attitude to painting as an activity (Zen), the artists here are becoming increasingly curious about techniques and research into materials.

Review by Charles Fabri on Krishen Khanna’s Exhibition in Aifacs

The Statesman, 11 September1957

Mr. Krishen Khanna’s exhibition, opened on Tuesday evening by Mr. HumayunKabir, shows a painter of considerable interest and no mean power. On previous occasions when we saw his work in Delhi, I have mentioned his strength and his struggle with form: in this show, in which he hangs pictures from 1954 to the present day, there is ample evidence of his growing power to express his pictorial ideas, though it would be wrong to assume that he is at the end of his fight.

This is mainly due to the fact that his work displays, clearly enough, two different modes. In one of his modes he has a powerful central vision, a picture of harmonious unity, born evidently of a lucid inspiration that he managed to hold fast and to convey to the spectator. In these pictures, the best in this exhibition, the impact of the entire canvas is immediate and the effect is of strength. Such is the admirable composition of St Francis with the birds, a painting of no mean beauty and great dramatic power; or in that fine canvas entitled Fruit Seller a picture that is only one or two removes from Amrita Sher-Gill in its simplicity and instant effectiveness. Here the elongated limbs give added strength to his design, and the colours are well chosen to set off the woman against a light background.

On the other hand, he also paints pictures in a different mode. In his style, the picture is shattered, fragmented, divided; lines go crisscross in a semi – cubistic manner to break up the unity of the composition, and patches of color, often very small patches of color, further weaken the unity of the composition.

Intuitive Experience

Granting that we are living in a shattered world, of unrest and fear and trouble, and granting thatMr. Khanna paints out of an intuitive experience that corresponds to a tortured world of uncertainty, the fact remains that these canvases do not have the impact that his other, more harmonious compositions convey. The spectator, instead of being instantly touched by the message of the canvas has here to look for a meaning, search for the inner core and the emotional world from which these strange images have come. For they are, let us be clear about this, not abstract works, and they do have a pictorial content, such as fishermen hauling their nets, or a dead poet, or an aviary, and though we are far from demanding that painting today should be representational, these painting are meant to be that, and that is the point.

Whilst I do not think that this manner is the painter’s truest and most effective way of telling us what he feels and sees about the world round himself, there are a few among these too that are effective, such as Horse and Rider, a picture with a central unity well preserved. Others are so broken up that little of the message remains, and one hopes that Mr. Krishen Khanna will develop along the other line, with his more lucid and harmonious, more unified pictures.

I believe there is further evidence that this constitutes his truest inner self in a number of canvases that can hardly be called paintings. They are done almost like line drawings, sometimes with black or brown, with hardly any colour at all, and all these appear to be sincere utterances of a man of vision and a painter of a lucid linear image. Girl with a Bird Cage and Portrait of Mrs. Billows are among the finest things on view. These are works in which a painter of no mean merit expresses his vision in a few lines and a few tints.

It is not difficult to see that Mr. M.F. Husain had a great influence on Mr. Khanna’s works; but these are influences well digested and absorbed, and do not deduct one iota from the merit of his original work.

This is an exhibition well worth a visit.

NOTE:  The images are not part of the above mentioned exhibition and are only used to illustrate the article.