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拍品專文
The reason I made these sort of paintings, was that I was a bit inspired by the left politics at that time, there was an inclination towards the tragic side of life [...] it started here, becoming more mature in Paris. And even if I had not been inspired by politics, perhaps I would have made the same kind of paintings, because that is a part of my nature some sort of sadness, misery or whatever it is.
- Ram Kumar, 1993
Standing at the forefront of the first generation of modern Indian artists, Ram Kumar drew equally from his early life experiences and his studies of international modernism as he embarked on his artistic career. During the initial short-lived figurative phase of his practice, which began in the late 1940s and lasted just under a decade, the artist expressed his despondent reaction to the harsh realities of urban life that he came face to face with at the time in India and abroad. As Ranjit Hoskote notes, Kumar “spent that decade, the first decade of India's independence, perfecting an elegiac figuration imbued with the spirit of tragic modernism. Infused with an ideological fervour, he drew equally upon exemplars like Courbet, Rouault, Kathe Kollwitz and Edward Hopper dedicating himself to the creation of an iconography of depression and victimhood [...] To this period belong those lost souls: the monumental Picassoesque figures packed into a darkened picture-womb, the bewildered clerks, terrorised workers and emaciated doll-women trapped in industrial city. Rendered through a semi-cubist discipline [...] these fugitives are trapped in a hostile environment and in their own divided selves.” (R. Hoskote, ‘The Poet of the Visionary Landscape’, Ram Kumar, A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 37)
Painted just before the artist left India to study in Paris, this double-sided figurative work, likely from one of his early sketchbooks, highlights the particular pathos that defined the artist’s early practice. The faces he depicts are often afflicted by some sense of sadness – perhaps forlornness, melancholy or loneliness. “As a young artist, Ram Kumar was captivated by, or, rather obsessed with, the human face because of the ease and intensity with which it registers the drama of life” (S. Lal, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 15). None of the figures in these works are portrayed in action or speech, and there is no trace of rage or hint of protest among them. Instead, their expressions, acutely defined by sharp eyes and pursed lips, tell us all we need to know about their story, and their quiet acceptance of it.
While these are raw images of real people, they do not necessarily capture a tragic story, in a western sense, but “in the Indian way of thinking… a void at the heart of things” (Ibid., New Delhi, 1996, p. 16). There is no material violence or tragedy which the subjects are confronted within the frame, and hence, Ram Kumar renders a narrative not of personal misfortune, but metaphysical anguish. In the present lot, Ram Kumar illustrates how this ‘void’ is felt both in company and alone. On the recto, a group of figures, perhaps a family with their animal, gathers around a reclining woman. Afflicted by some sort of malaise, a fog of depression seems to have rendered her listless, and, radiating from her cot, consumed those around her as well. On the verso, a single male figure sits in a bare landscape, half clothed with his eyes closed. A dark tree echoes the cloud of melancholy that has enveloped him, weighing him down.
As the viewer explores these early works on paper, it becomes evident that putting into words the complex feelings they evoke is near impossible. As with Ram Kumar’s later paintings, however, these works may be read as sites of solitude, whether they include many figures, a singular one, or none at all.
- Ram Kumar, 1993
Standing at the forefront of the first generation of modern Indian artists, Ram Kumar drew equally from his early life experiences and his studies of international modernism as he embarked on his artistic career. During the initial short-lived figurative phase of his practice, which began in the late 1940s and lasted just under a decade, the artist expressed his despondent reaction to the harsh realities of urban life that he came face to face with at the time in India and abroad. As Ranjit Hoskote notes, Kumar “spent that decade, the first decade of India's independence, perfecting an elegiac figuration imbued with the spirit of tragic modernism. Infused with an ideological fervour, he drew equally upon exemplars like Courbet, Rouault, Kathe Kollwitz and Edward Hopper dedicating himself to the creation of an iconography of depression and victimhood [...] To this period belong those lost souls: the monumental Picassoesque figures packed into a darkened picture-womb, the bewildered clerks, terrorised workers and emaciated doll-women trapped in industrial city. Rendered through a semi-cubist discipline [...] these fugitives are trapped in a hostile environment and in their own divided selves.” (R. Hoskote, ‘The Poet of the Visionary Landscape’, Ram Kumar, A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 37)
Painted just before the artist left India to study in Paris, this double-sided figurative work, likely from one of his early sketchbooks, highlights the particular pathos that defined the artist’s early practice. The faces he depicts are often afflicted by some sense of sadness – perhaps forlornness, melancholy or loneliness. “As a young artist, Ram Kumar was captivated by, or, rather obsessed with, the human face because of the ease and intensity with which it registers the drama of life” (S. Lal, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 15). None of the figures in these works are portrayed in action or speech, and there is no trace of rage or hint of protest among them. Instead, their expressions, acutely defined by sharp eyes and pursed lips, tell us all we need to know about their story, and their quiet acceptance of it.
While these are raw images of real people, they do not necessarily capture a tragic story, in a western sense, but “in the Indian way of thinking… a void at the heart of things” (Ibid., New Delhi, 1996, p. 16). There is no material violence or tragedy which the subjects are confronted within the frame, and hence, Ram Kumar renders a narrative not of personal misfortune, but metaphysical anguish. In the present lot, Ram Kumar illustrates how this ‘void’ is felt both in company and alone. On the recto, a group of figures, perhaps a family with their animal, gathers around a reclining woman. Afflicted by some sort of malaise, a fog of depression seems to have rendered her listless, and, radiating from her cot, consumed those around her as well. On the verso, a single male figure sits in a bare landscape, half clothed with his eyes closed. A dark tree echoes the cloud of melancholy that has enveloped him, weighing him down.
As the viewer explores these early works on paper, it becomes evident that putting into words the complex feelings they evoke is near impossible. As with Ram Kumar’s later paintings, however, these works may be read as sites of solitude, whether they include many figures, a singular one, or none at all.