Introduction Text by Alka Pande
Ram Kinkar Baij, a towering figure excavated the concerns of a world inhabited by people who at that point in Indian history lived in luminal spaces. He brought in a specific trajectory in Indian art practice with a rare sensitive insight. Richard Bartholomew’s text with its insightful narrative on Baij’s watercolours contextualises and places him within the firmament of Indian Modernism. In order to understand the complexities of contemporary India it is vital that we delve into the seeds of modernism of which Baij was a gardener of vitality.
Richard Bartholomew: Ram Kinkar’s Watercolours Show, Variegated Vastness
Times of India, September 26, 1976
The National Gallery of Modern Art is presenting a selection of drawings and paintings (mainly watercolours), by Ram Kinkar Baij, noted sculptor on whom the Lalit Kala Akademi recently bestowed a fellowship. Ram Kinkar’s monolithic grey stone sculptures of a yaksha and yakshi, stand as guardians to the entrance of the Reserve Bank of India on Parliament Street. His bust of Rabindranath Tagore is in the foyer of the Rabindra Bhawan. In Modern School there is a bas-relief of Saraswati by him.
The greatest of his sculptures (the Santhal Family, for instance) are in Santiniketan where he lives and works. It was there that the fellowship award ceremony had been arranged-an acknowledgement of Baij’s contribution to Indian art.
That these masterpieces are rapidly deteriorating does not seem to concern those whose duty it is to conserve the nation’s art. While efforts to acquire and present little known works, interesting but minor, are commendable-the National Gallery’s acquisitions now on view are in this category the greatest art pieces are decaying.
The value of a private collection (these acquisitions are from one source only) will appreciate with time. But a sculpture is in the open, and a public sculpture at that, because it is on the campus of a university. When it is made in cement and concrete, it is doomed to perish sooner or later, when it is in a humid place such as Santiniketan.
With Ram Kinkar, fairly old now (and not in the best of health, I am told), the time has come perhaps to take stock of the situation. It should be possible for all art institutions in India to raise a Ram Kinkar sculpture restoration and preservation fund. Representatives of the National Gallery, the Lalit Kala Akademi and the authorities at Santiniketan could associate and collaborate so as not to deny great art its destiny, which is that it should pass on to posterity.
On the other hand it is hardly creditable to the National Gallery to attribute a ceramic figure (Acquisition No. 2,771) by Mawasi Ram, a village potter and folk artist, to Ram Kinkar. These inadvertencies occur in art, sometimes. But such mistakes raise other issues, more important than an act of error. Is Mawasi Ram being accented in the National Gallery only because his work has been mistaken for Ram Kinkar’s?
The protagonists of the folk tradition, among artists, who have been vocal on many occasions, should stand up for Mawasi Ram who (quite independent of the incident) deserves to be considered significant enough for being represented at the National Gallery.
Ram Kinkar’s paintings on view are mainly watercolours and these are either portraits or figure studies of spontaneously and strongly delineated landscape notations. It is clear that nature, her moods and her movements and the textures revealed by changing qualities of light fascinate Ram Kinkar. These, in turn, define the forms of the environment. Being a sculptor, he sizes up the essential structure. The tangibles are gathered together in an act of synthesis. Volume and depth and a variegated vastness are suggested by little works often just a span and a half in width. There is evidence of fast handling: but the watercolour technique is sure, just as it is also certain that what governs this technique is an inquiring mind.
In compositions such as the Kulu pieces or the Raigir landscapes, which are in the main evocative and expressionistic, Ram Kinkar makes us feel the presence of those qualities in a landscape which make it different from being just a pretty scene or a picturesque view.
Each piece has a characteristic rhythm and movement. In these works there are obvious representational elements, included to suggest the theme. But that Ram Kinkar also saw the presence of an abstract principle in a landscape is evident in “Seascape A” where with a dozen lines and curves, three tones rapidly applied, and two small figures, he is able to convey not only the impression of a mood but the action of a force which is phenomenal.
NOTE: The images are not part of the above mentioned exhibition and are only used to illustrate the article.
