{"id":1272,"date":"2023-10-22T16:09:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T16:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2023-11-22T16:11:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T16:11:02","slug":"is-art-a-companion-of-change-or-an-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/is-art-a-companion-of-change-or-an-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Art a companion of change or an agent?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Goldie Kasturia
Founder, TAKHTE<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

K.H. Ara painted a sizeable horizontal painting of a procession of many Indian people in exuberant celebrations of the Independence of India, submitted it for the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, and got rejected on grounds of unavailability of space enforcing arbitrary selection. Rejection mushroomed anger and lament in him, a turning point as he, along with like-minded friends F.N. Souza<\/a>, S.H. Raza<\/a>, M.F. Husain<\/a>,  H.A. Gade<\/a>, and S.K. Bakre<\/a>, formed ‘The Progressive Artists’ Group’ (PAG) just months after the partition and Independence in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PAG, in the reverberation of spirit and energy of political freedom around, underlined the perception of Art being the catalyst to change, intended to break free from the shackles of academism and ideologies of the revivalist nationalism established by the Bengal School of Art<\/a> and to encourage an Indian avant-garde, engaged at an international level. Emerging from various societal milieus, committed to secularism and pluralism, these artists propagated the Nehruvian ideals. They cited “the partition” as the impetus for exploring and starting the new art style. Ara ‘demanded that artists should have freedom, for their expression and should overthrow the living corpse of the worshippers of false art’. F.N. Souza, in his manifesto for the Bombay Progressives Art Exhibition in 1948, wrote, “Today we paint with absolute freedom for contents and techniques, almost anarchic; save that we are governed by one or two sound elemental and eternal laws, of aesthetic order, plastic coordination, and colour composition,” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art, in general, is decorative, thus enhancing and gratifying. However, it may not be pleasing if it is to bring about change, and artists with a different mindset are traditionally risk-takers. They endeavour to create Art that is thought-provoking and will address situations for political, economic, and social changes. In their artworks breaking away from the stereotype, the PAG, including F.N. Souza, used an expressionistic style to illustrate both the highs and lows of Indian social life. His disproportionately sized heads and brazen nudes became his technique. K.H. Ara preferred to contemplate life in a comparatively gentler way, particularly the nude female form and still-life objects. S.H. Raza’s abstract works were replete with icons from Indian cosmology and philosophy. H.A. Gade brought minimal forms, the lucid outlook characteristic of his profession (science), to his work. Sadanand Bakre, the sculptor, transformed the human form into a new puzzle with distortion, fragmentation and partial elimination. M.F. Husain utilised a modified Cubist style to create narrative paintings; his seemingly carefree brushstrokes, marked by a signature style, explored the abstract through the figurative. The art critic Rudi Van Leyden, the artist Walter Langhammer, Schlesinger and Herman Goetz, and the German expatriates almost served as the tutors of the PAG artists. The PAG had their first group show in 1949, inaugurated by the eminent art critic Dr Mulk Raj Anand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Group held two exhibitions before Souza departed for London in 1949, followed by Bakre. In contrast, Raza preferred to go to Paris and the remaining artists, while still committed to the Group’s principles in their work, slowly moved toward individualised practices. Each contributed as a companions of change around. The Group failed to continue in its entity and had officially disbanded in 1954.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the discussed scenario, their Art didn’t play a staid role in bringing a revolution in people’s minds but played an essential role in supporting a livid thought that could bring a change. Art affects the people who see and understand it; the predicament is that the people who take an interest in understanding Art are economically better than those who need a change in society and the system. This is further endorsed by Larry Rivers’s suitable statement, “Any art communicates what you’re in the mood to receive.” Still, people need to be educated to accept the change, which will be affected by the informed person. These changes will happen simultaneously when the Art is produced and not because of the Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art has always been a product of its time and milieu, though it is likely to be a companion of change and most unlikely to be an agent of change. It is quite apparent that which artwork of Indian artists during pre-independence evoked people to join the Free India movement or what painting of Picasso made people join the Communist Party? Or what painting of the Futurist inspired people to join Mussolini’s Party?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accentuated fact one fathom, if it is a painting, very few will see it; if it is a play, how many would watch it; and if it is a book, how many would read it or understand it, provided graffiti is all over the place, both as a medium of expression and at times protest, though getting banned if able to create an uproar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Goldie KasturiaFounder, TAKHTE K.H. Ara painted a sizeable horizontal painting of a procession of many Indian people in exuberant celebrations of the Independence of India, submitted it for the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, and got rejected on grounds of unavailability of space enforcing arbitrary selection. Rejection mushroomed anger and lament in him, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[325,326,329,327,328],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","tag-art","tag-culture","tag-goldie","tag-khara","tag-painting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}