Important Notice

"One has to marry the subconscious feeling and bring it to some clarity and logical shape—so that it exists outside you. This sums up the endeavour of my artistic practice." - GANESH PYNE

Having been formally educated at the Government School of Art in Kolkata in 1959, Ganesh Pyne developed a unique style that drew from a variety of influences, including Bengal School pioneers Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore,... "One has to marry the subconscious feeling and bring it to some clarity and logical shape—so that it exists outside you. This sums up the endeavour of my artistic practice." - GANESH PYNE

Having been formally educated at the Government School of Art in Kolkata in 1959, Ganesh Pyne developed a unique style that drew from a variety of influences, including Bengal School pioneers Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore, European masters such as Rembrandt, the cinema of Bergman and Fellini, poetry, music, religious epics and folklore. Most significant, however, was a lifelong fascination with solitude, death, and decay that informed his oeuvre from the early days of his career.

Pyne was born in Kolkata in 1937 and was deeply affected by the haunting sights of the 1943 Bengal famine and the communal riots in 1946, during the Partition of India. “So Death became like a character that populated my work, my world, my vision. Death appears stealthily moving through shadows, omnipresent as relics. Shadows, characters and symbols. All of them appear and disappear through the shadows of the subconscious,” explained the artist who channelled his inner turmoil by way of a personal symbolism. (“Ganesh Pyne in Conversation With Sona Datta,” Rob Dean and Giles Tillotson eds., Modern Indian Painting: Jane & Kito de Boer Collection, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, 2019, p. 215)

Painted in 1998, the present lot is significant for the deep personal meaning it held for the artist. Titled The Hand, it was the first work produced by Pyne after suffering a stroke and depicts his decayed body and a severed hand, a painter’s most precious tool. Through its macabre imagery, the work offers insight into his own inner dialogue around themes that are an inevitable part of his identity and which surfaced “rich with visual depth in which every single stroke appears charged with muted eloquence.” (Arun Ghose, Jottings as Paintings of Ganesh Pyne, Agra: Sanchit Art Gallery, 2014, p. 2)

The work is also an excellent testament to Pyne’s impeccable skill as both an artist and a draughtsman. His lines are “complex and sharp-edged… Against a backdrop of interesting chiaroscuro effects, these figures stand out clearly, their peculiarities thrown into sharp relief.” (Shiladitya Sarkar, “Locale of the Mind, Myths, and Metaphors,” Thirst of a Minstrel: The Life and Times of Ganesh Pyne, New Delhi: Rupa & Co, pp. 54-55) The work demonstrates a unique luminosity owing to a custom tempera technique that the artist began developing from the 1960s. “We may trace Pyne’s sophisticated adaptation of the Rembrandtesque in his vivid tableaux, his dramatic use of light and shade, and his sombre tones of gold and brown, which he deploys like versatile scalpels to carve space and model volumes, to highlight the characters involved in the main episode and to recess the subsidiary stage properties.” (Ranjit Hoskote, “Reflections of the Art of Ganesh Pyne,” Ganesh Pyne a Pilgrim in the Dominion of Shadows, Mumbai: Galerie 88, 2005 p. 9)

Influenced by Nandalal Bose, Pyne experimented with different binders to produce pigment, eventually settling on an artist-grade Fevicol, free of acid. He would then meticulously layer thin, nearly transparent glazes upon each other, revealing more of the image with each instance. Explaining his technique, the artist said, “I have to work gently, as if it were a pencil drawing, using a single stroke one after another to build up the respective areas of light and shadow… I take care to modulate the pigment, so that shapes can assume their form steadily. Usually, I leave some areas in a middle tone while others remain in a darker tone. In this way, the deepest shadows can be darkened by adding more layers of pigment. This modelling of shadows grows through the application of paint, and has a lasting effect on the saturation of the final colours. So, building up glazes is the key to the process as this allows the luminosity of the painted surface to develop.” (Dean, Tillotson eds., p. 210)

Pyne’s works may be underscored by a deep-rooted melancholia but through a subtle, luminous palette, he takes the viewer on a journey through the depths of darkness and into the light. Rather than using an opaque black to convey darkness, he layers amber, dark brown, deep blue, and moss green. “The darkness in Pyne’s paintings, with light breaking in and oozing out of the canvas, seems to be the result of an ongoing tussle… It refrains from depicting the kind of total negativity that could turn life into a prison of ennui. This darkness encapsulates a Zen-like austerity and a sublime pathos. Within its womb lie hidden the scars of his era, the afflictions of his time.” (Sarkar, p. 51)

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