IT has been a week of shadowing the mysticism of Amrita Sher-Gil. On the heels of viewing her work at Art of India at NCPA came the screening of Amrita Sher-Gil: Une Rhapsodie Indienne, a documentary by the French filmmaker Patrick Cazals at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum.
The film dwells on her personal and significant milestones with insights from artists; the much younger versions of her sister’s son, the late Vivan Sundaram, Akbar Padamsee’s comments in French, and Arpita Singh in her studio. The credits acknowledge Rajeev Lochan the ex-DG of NGMA, Delhi which houses over 100 of her paintings of Amrita that were granted National Treasure status in 1976.
Early Art Inclination
AMRITA Sher-Gil’s artistic roots stem from her family. Her father Umrao Singh Sher-Gil was a modern-day photographer and nationalist scholar(who documented the family substantially via his camera) while her mother Marie-Antoinette was an opera singer from Hungary. It was her uncle Ervin Baktay, an Indologist, on a visit to Shimla, who spotted and encouraged her artistic talent. Financial challenges brought eight-year-old Amrita and her family to India in 1921 from her country of birth, Hungary. Her fascination with drawing and sketching set her apart.
Amrita’s exposure to European masters during her education in 1924, in particular, cast the die on her discerning eye, confidence marking her early practice. She was able to imbibe the best of these skills as she evolved to her marked style over the decade and a half of her short lifetime.
Interpreter of the Poor and Sad
SHE was moved by the poverty of India, and toiling women, and was determined to interpret the voice of India’s poor and sad through her work. She clearly states that she dislikes glorifying poverty, and her works are stylized and devoid of detail that marked her work in Europe. She is influenced by Indian miniatures and mesmerized by the murals of Ajanta and her travels across the country led her to Kochi and Padmanabapuram. This leads to her iconic collection of work inspired by South India. In this collection surfaces a patch of white in the body that now distinguishes her later practice.
The Story Teller
AMRITA’S work in recent times created auction history when her 1937 artwork “The Story Teller” sold for a record Rs61.8 crore by Saffron Art. That she died at the tender age of 28 years in 1941 makes the realism stream she practiced even more significant as despite having a voluminous body of work, that was it. Her rivals would be the pioneers of the Bengal Renaissance.
While we have a centennial of the modernist and progressive group Souza, Raza; Amrita goes back a decade before them. She was no more around the time when say Tyeb Mehta, drew inspiration from her stamp of modernism. This pioneer of liberal Indian art of the 20th century had a parallel avant-garde contemporary in Frida Kahlo. It’s as if they had a filial thought-processing expression through the medium of their paintings.
The superlative art she produced, from a young age, was an extension of a woman who lived life on her terms. She declares that she is meant to be a painter and the volume of artwork she created, till she passed on at the tender age of 29, speaks of her inborn calling to the canvas. Her sketches ranged from getting the staff to pose for her to her encounters with social fabric. This led to “The Child Bride” with an incisive essay in her diary. Her coming of age is marked by “Tinder Box,” a theme that is explicit in her work which anticipates her phrase “sensuality of the eyes.” Her exceptional use of white is outdone by the sensual red, which one would associate with her favourite colour from her rich palette.
Fatal Attraction
THE beautiful artist is as much a subject of documentary films thanks to the international recognition of her painting. Her subjects draw from a broader context of influences and liberated mindset without the deliberate attempt to be a feminist. The work stands out head and shoulders above her contemporaries, she set the benchmark. Her work drew generations of painters including Raza, while her persona drew its own fans. A compilation of her letters would be the foil that balances her creative expression. Her parents are said to have burnt some like the correspondence penned during her interactions with Prime Minister Nehru, when she was in Hungary, on the subject of marriage. Today’s selfie-obsessed clickers can take note of her numerous self-portraits. Hers was almost a conscious biography of her transformation from girl to woman, the ability to stand back and objectively view and recreate the imagery she perceived. In this case the artist and the object being the same.
The Indian Rhapsody
IT’S not Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody in my head as much as Bing Crosby & The Andrew Sisters “Don’t Fence Me In” that seems to match the Bohemian artist. I marvel at how she followed her path quite at a tangent from the strictures of a conservative and conventional society. Could it be the affluence she came from that shielded her choices? More like she had the fiery spine to stand up to her convictions.
Amrita’s influences come from her education and exposure to Florence as well as travel to Turkey, France, and India. Her 1932 “Young Girls” oil paint brought her recognition. Her confident assertion “….India (The World of Indian Art) belongs to Me” saw her return to India in 1934 after a long spell in Europe. She embraced her Indian origins, almost as if the allure of the West and Paris could not match the soul-stirring canvas of India for her.
She was fascinated by the frescos at Ajanta, Ellora and South India, making them the subject and influence for the works in her last years up to 1941. Her exceptional palette of earthy colours and ochre is evident at this juncture.
The Voice of Modern Art in India
SHE comes across as opinionated with her strong verbal expression. She liked Jamini Roy and denounced art in India in her time as fifth grade putrefied works of replication from the European Renaissance. Amrita was outspoken and expressed disappointment about the quality of work that imitated Western influences. Raja Ravi Verma was influenced by the Renaissance.
For one equally good with words she declared she liked the painting but not the literature of Rabindranath Tagore. This did not augur well with royal patrons when she travelled through India to solicit the sale of her works. While this led to her work being rejected by them, she rejected awards as she was unhappy with the competence of the judges. As is the case with path-breaking artists of those years, her artistry was not acknowledged during her lifetime.
On my dream list is a visit to the Amrita Sher-Gil Cultural Centre in Budapest, Hungary. And if wishes come true a walkthrough with Rajeev Lochan through these treasures at NGMA New Delhi.
Tumhari Amrita
ONE thing is sure though, the loss of classical music when Amrita, a proficient pianist, chose painting as a career. Amrita was drawn to painting from the age of eight when she began her formal training. Her life has inspired other disciplines of creativity. “Tumhari Amrita” is one such that is a dialogue of her letters. Her paintings have also been used in film.
Addressing Good in Grief
GRIEF is a persistent bedfellow. It’s an experience private to your being. I connect the emotion with Gogi Saroj Pal’s solitary paintings when she got back to her art after losing her son. One of her paintings hung in the sunshine at the Dilip Piramal gallery on the 1st floor gallery for the Art of India 2025 exhibition. Exactly where a woman as definitive as her should belong.
You may try to deal with it but it is what it is. A new normal. Unbelievable, as Mum says, that the two years have flown for my brother, and keeps her faith. For me, the plunge is an immersion into art to confront it. It is the art of being, a superpower that is the legacy that he left us with. It lets us keep sight of the larger canvas. His generosity of spirit and compassion met the challenge of rising above mere mortal existence. And that goodness is what makes it a difficult memory. He has given us reason to grieve.
What endures is the serendipitous choice of my brother’s favourite hymn by the canters at his memorial mass. “Make me a channel of your peace.” How befitting that life begets life for a being that was so giving. And as we are reminded for Ash Wednesday coming up on March 5, 2025 “Man you are made of dust and unto dust, you shall return,” it is a yardstick that keeps us grounded.