Important Notice

Lot 48

 

Quick Zoom

"Ram Kumar's Banaras landscapes lift one out of the toil of the moment into the timeless world of formless memories. What he paints now is not what the eye sees in the ancient city, it is rather the response of the soul to the visual impacts. This impact has released the cityscapes of the artist's inner world, world built into the emotional psychological complex of the artist's personality, the only 'true' world. In these canvases he resurrects... "Ram Kumar's Banaras landscapes lift one out of the toil of the moment into the timeless world of formless memories. What he paints now is not what the eye sees in the ancient city, it is rather the response of the soul to the visual impacts. This impact has released the cityscapes of the artist's inner world, world built into the emotional psychological complex of the artist's personality, the only 'true' world. In these canvases he resurrects the images which would have distilled into the sub-conscious, acquiring an authenticity and incorruptibility not of immediate experience" (Jagdish Swaminathan, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, Vadehra Art, New Delhi, 1996, p. 73).

This early Banaras landscape, painted in a palette of blues and greys, depicts a meandering band of faded architectural forms tightly contained between the holy river and the sky it reflects. Devoid of human presence, this scene still speaks of human loss and suffering, much like the artist's earlier figurative works. As Geeta Kapur notes, "...if Benares is Byzantium for Ram Kumar it is not a Byzantium gleaming with the light of the deities enshrined therein. There is no irradiation issuing from the faded walls. The city, as Ram Kumar paints it, embodies not some form of divinity but his own equivocal sentiment, a somewhat weary awe and an attraction which one is nearly tempted to call morbid, so steeped is it in melancholy" ("Ram Kumar: City-Exile", Contemporary Indian Artists, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1978, p. 76-77).

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site