Lot 32

 

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“The art of painting begins with visual experience and ends with the conveying of that experience in a concrete form-an art form.” - N S BENDRE

N S Bendre’s reputation as an impeccable colourist was accurately predicted by D D Deolalikar, who trained him at the State Art School in Indore in the 1920s. Bendre impressed in his very first lesson on watercolours, leading his teacher to hold up his work to the class proclaiming, “This... “The art of painting begins with visual experience and ends with the conveying of that experience in a concrete form-an art form.” - N S BENDRE

N S Bendre’s reputation as an impeccable colourist was accurately predicted by D D Deolalikar, who trained him at the State Art School in Indore in the 1920s. Bendre impressed in his very first lesson on watercolours, leading his teacher to hold up his work to the class proclaiming, “This boy is going to be a great colourist.” Deolalikar himself was instrumental in developing Bendre’s skill. He would take the students out into nature to observe and replicate its many shades. The training was “...entirely through their observation of nature, never through books... They were taught to observe the behaviour of light at different hours of the day and night and were made to work even in the light of the hurricane lanterns they carried. This was their introduction to an impressionistic palette that almost discarded black. They also became conscious of the fact that line did not exist in nature-it was an invention of the artist for the purpose of delineating form.” (Ram Chatterji, Bendre: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 8)

The present lot is a brilliant display of Bendre’s deft handling of light and colour. The blues and whites of the subject and the background tie each to the other and yet the tonal distinctions create enough visual distance between them to appear as separate entities to the viewer. Bendre’s distorted figuration here is the result of engaging with works by the greats of Western modern art during his travels around Europe in 1948. The Museum of Impressionists in Paris stirred deep excitement in him; he was moved by the technically stupendous sublimity of Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. “He had seen the masterpieces of European traditional art, which came to an end with the advent of impressionism. He had also familiarised himself with the outstanding examples of the contemporary movement. He felt convinced that representation was not the ultimate goal for an artist. Emphasis had to be laid on ultra-sensorial factors. To achieve this, it was essential to arrive at integration of all forms, an inter-relation of chosen elements. And for this, distortion was essential-no movement or action was possible without it. Integration could be achieved through a variety of means. Cezanne and Braque achieved this quality structurally, and Gaugin through colour, which had made a profound impact on Amrita Sher-Gil.” (Chatterji, p. 41)

Moving beyond his training as an academic realist which taught him only to artistically interpret an object as visually perceived, Bendre studied cubism to look at it anew. His philosophy of figuration expanded to take into account the temporal experience of an object. Leaning on his training under Deolalikar, he became a tireless interpreter of all that he experienced. The artist has said of his meticulous creative method, “To me, creative art demands transforming raw material from surroundings observed deliberately or by chance into an integrated whole. The process has purpose and meaning. Meaning to the creator first and to others later. I believe that all great works of art have abstract considerations at the root of the process, like establishing aesthetically desirable relationships of parts with the whole.” (Artist quoted in Chatterji, p. 63)

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