Important Notice

This work resembles Kumar's post-Benaras landscapes from the 70s onwards. While hinging on a vaguely familiar scene from nature, the work blurs this out through an undefined merging of colours, rendering them formless and timeless. The cityscape makes an entry here: "...its earthworks are broken and rephrased along the flanks of valleys, laid out on highland pastures, gathered into the pure abstract motion of swirl and fall." (Nirmal Verma,... This work resembles Kumar's post-Benaras landscapes from the 70s onwards. While hinging on a vaguely familiar scene from nature, the work blurs this out through an undefined merging of colours, rendering them formless and timeless. The cityscape makes an entry here: "...its earthworks are broken and rephrased along the flanks of valleys, laid out on highland pastures, gathered into the pure abstract motion of swirl and fall." (Nirmal Verma, "From Solitude to Salvation", Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p41)

The artist believed that his works should not be burdened with too much philosophy and meaning. This is true especially of his post-sixties' works which lean to abstractionism and hence gather the danger of being philosophised and intellectualised. Understanding the artist's personal idiom then becomes crucial. "...rejecting the chaff of false collectivities, he preserved the grain of an insight into the 'large, grandly meaningful whole', which after a long lapse of time, illuminated his nature landscapes...Spiritual...lies not in painting the 'sacred', but in overcoming the dichotomies and displacements of the profane, man-made world." (Ibid, p27)

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