Alladin’s cave of language

NOTHING is lost if every-thing simply changes shape. In May 1968, the hegemony of Euclidean geometry collapsed. A war against totality, against the Panlogician’s Absolutism was declared. Being and Consciousness was pluralized by expanding the latter to encompass every aspect of man’s psychological and social life without privileging the economic.

The global reconstruction of space questioned the individual’s emancipation as well as rational human progress.  The period of ‘bricolage’ began taking multiple quotations of elements from within and beyond the human habitation. Politics and culture, social and the symbolic, was once again integrated without attacking any substantive adjectives.

 

Rejecting the Kantian sublime (not governed by a consensus taste), ‘the stable and secure law-governed existents’ (a natural order of things), the Post-Modern   ventured into ‘presenting the unrepresentable’, without adhering to any pre-established norms representation.  The Post-Modern   artistic modes, the style, space and presentation of the works, defy rules as if to ‘formulate the rules of what will have been done’ (a Lyotardian phrase) undertaking a series of major modifications from the inherited modernist space.

 

The modernist value-split culture marginalised the dreary presence of everyday life, stripping art of its social functions and, freed from its utility  purpose, it acquired an utopian character and this utopian space of potential human  freedom  become  the  axial principle of modernism.

What looks like a simple succession in line becomes a Miltonian Argument in history (of Cezanne challenging the Impressionists’ Space, Braque and Picasso Cezanne’s Duchamp of the Cubists’ and so on). But all these happened without a qualitative social change and hence, was easily co-opted by capitalist ideology making the modernist critique only partially effective. It was not just the loss for Man, but Man was lost with history, so it is claimed by the cultural theorists. But what was gained was the image of a more plural and fluid world.

Barthes,   for instance,   described his ‘sexual/textual/social- political ideal’ as a ‘happy Babel’ and in his happy Babel, there are ‘as many languages as there are desires’. But whether this plurality, heterogeneity and difference, or the cohabitation of languages of will produce a happy Babel here in India or elsewhere, will have to be seen as a variety of deconstructive art practices which are slowly emerging, moving away from the logo centric model.

One such attempt, where the Post-Modern   sensibility/concerns are expressed, is in Rummana Hussain’s installations and works on paper in Fragments/Multiples, an exhibition currently on at Delhi’s LTG Art Gallery till September 14.

 

Rummana has emphatically discarded the conventional modes of expression(oil painting in particular) in preference to a space or site stand – a stance, gestalt, a framework, a schema -which can also fall decline  or can ultimately dismantled. The purpose here is to produce new givens by rejecting the dominating givens and as she engages herself in the activity of installing, the focus shifts from the producer to the product; work to text, from the signifier to the signified and moves back again to history, society, ideas, autobiography. The text Rummana produces   wanders, doubles and redoubles, enhancing meaning of critical Post-Modernism sometimes in fluid dualism, sometimes in an unhappy conflict. It remains finally an unstable text as opposed to the sealed text.

What kind of a text Rummana is trying to build up, or to put it from another perspective, is her approach to the objects/themes/issues a new one so that we can call it a new text? The language she creates through half conventional-/half non-conventional materials, say, for instance, terracotta pot, burnt wood and bricks (unearthed), sliced terracotta pot, acrylic sheet and red earth pigment (Conflux), Indio pigment and robin blue on paper (Indigo), Xerox and tracing paper (Behind a thin film), do not entirely move away from the meta-language. They move through the intertextual redistribution of materials in and around the objects she takes the plunge into a crisis, a crisis of the producer first and then produced-splintering the consciousness from the autobiographical (tunnel echoes and androgynous) to the socio historical and the political.

Rummanaas the ‘speaking subject’ draws on chance/accidents/casualness (her choice of everyday objects like her daughter’s cycle, robin blue, mud etc.,) as against the advanced systems of patriarchal linguistics. Like consciousness being, the Self, the body more specifically the female body is split and becomes the other. The docile body which was hitherto bound to foundational history culture and language, is released and deconstructed from its substance (the vagina being externalised from the private sphere to the public sphere in Tunnel Echoes to emphasize the changing models of the subject or the order of the same).

 

Rummana repeatedly uses the vagina image through various materials – like the zinc plate, printing’ ink on paper, etching, pencil drawing, gypsum board to speak both languages. But what are both languages that Rummana wants to speak and is there a visible difference between the one and the other or is she caught in the double-speak?

I have already stated that Rummana invokes the double-ness (the self-same and the other) of the subject, for instance in Androgynous (Frida Kahlo, Orlando and Shen Teh); but it is not produced by double-speak, the truth or the secret neither oscillates nor is it mimed. Frida Kahlo, Orlando and Shen Teh do not simply carry a singular sign, but it is like the double-ententes or double-bind, a curious doubleness in the male-female argument is not set in heterogeneity/opposition but it is to be seen as one and the other, with two signs, two meanings and to her credit, Rummana comes out successfully from the paralytic double-bind of either/or to establish a ‘wholly other logic’, a logic capable of saying both/and.

The logic both/and rests on the experience that the world actually lives encompassing all opposites and not on one side of any binary opposition leaning back on the archetypal feminine. Rummana refuses to fall in line with the phallocentric polarisation of the good mother and the bad mother; in Unearthed she splits the womb of the Great Mother, it seems she prefers to split instead of locking herself into a choice of opposites or choosing anyone of the extremes. But she must realise that the splitting device falls short of any reconstruction approach.

 

The womb which takes first (and never takes back) and gives, where ‘things happen’, where man comes from the outside ‘but can never occupy each other’s place’ (each body remains as separate entities), where life is born never to return again, where both/and are common existents in the complexities of life, why should it be split without suggesting the dialectical third of the double-bind? Perhaps, here she is trapped in ‘deconstruction’s fable of the feminine’?

 It is immaterial whether one works with a predetermined set of  rules or not, but it is important that we construct the structure with deconstruction as a strategy of provided by the possible worlds through contextual demystification of exaggerated symbols. Symbols are otherwise ordered linear, grammatical, linguistic system based entirely upon one fundamental signifier: the phallus.

I would like to argue that simply rejecting everything, finite, structured, loaded with meaning in the existing state of society will place women on the side of the explosion of social codes. Authentic disruption with feminine imaginary will not be enough; the feminine (especially the artist) imagination must build a new reality and transform the givens into a new world.

Here, I would like to refer to three works Crushed Blue Piece, Strung and Bodyscape which are uniquely locked in perpetual conflict between the pour-soi and en-soi (for-itself and in-itself) or, say, between  Being and Nothingness. The use of the crushed paper  as symbol of the female body is creative, capable of transcending,  of forming projects, but the possibility  of an  authentic construction ends in the two dimensionality of the  works even though  textural depth  is created  by the  natural folds/cleaves and adding earth pigment as the substantive adjective.

Similar problems occur  when Rummana uses the acrylic sheet or glasses as gender glass, the reflection of the self becomes a fixed identity ending in the ‘unity of being’ which is false consciousness. Transforming the givens must undertake remaking the home and the world, the self and other.

Rummana Hussain’s Fragments/Multiples is a naked text with deconstruction as a strategy of critical analysis. The intention is to return to the interpreting viewer, who may in his humbleness mistrust the surface of language, who may grope to interpret only the partial as a result from the disillusionment of the totality or the absoluteness of the text.

Concerning the nature of the language and the character of the critical analysis, I would respectfully suggest that the naive viewer may kindly avoid locating the centre because ‘the 24 works which she has put up is characterised by free play diversifying all signs which makes absolute reading an impossibility.

By dislodging the univocal ideal of language from the logo centric Indian metaphysics, Rummana guides us to the ‘Aladdin’s cave of language’, the critical super-realism which she had formulated, I am sure, can be defined as the definitive Post-Modern               tendency. However, it will be interesting to watch whether the critical-aspect in her work finally can remain outside the legitimising discourse of art by tagging the conventional virtues so familiar in the modernist paradigm.

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Installation : image ,1,2,and 3
Title:Sequence & change

 

 

Gaganendranath Tagore: The Pioneer of Modern Indian Caricature in Print

 

The starting point for a true criticism is found in the works of art. True, but how does one understand, interpret and explain a complex artistic phenomena like Gaganendranath Tagore? Critic’s attitude to Gaganendranath’s Paintings can serve as an example of a kind of indentification of the style with the artist.  Although Gaganendranath used several different styles, it is odd that he is only identified with one, and if critics have ever mentioned about the various styles/phases of his work, it is merely to demonstrate that they are not the essential Gaganendranath.

Now, what is the essential Gaganendranath? Critics like Asok Mitra, Jaya Appasamy, Ratan Parimoo and Benode Behari Mukherjee discovered an aspect of Gaganendranath which they were prompt in proclaiming as the essential one, essential not only in relation to Gaganendranath’s whole work but also in relation to his whole spirit. The painter is identified with only one phase of his paintings, i.e., his cubist phase:

Strangely enough both Rathindranath and Dinesh Sen have omitted the cubist  pictures from their account of Gaganbabu’s painterly pursuits’.

Why this overemphasis on the cubist period? For some critics the essential Gaganendranath is his cubist period. But on the whole, the idealist criticism presented comedy (comic/caricature) as an art form of only secondary importance. It is generally considered as among the lower genres of creative expression and is regarded as its province man’s base and more primitive emotions and aspirations.

 

However, as an Art historian I have to confront manifold problems:

 1.Why did Caricature as a form of artistic expression emerged during 1917-1921 and that too almost entirely through Gaganendranath’s unique talent?

 Caricature tradition in India (or to be specific in Bengal) is not a continuous one, this particular form emerged only at certain historical times (for instance during 1850-1880 and again during 1917-19211. Why does a particular art form disappear and reemerge at indefinite intervals? Is time not divided into periods of art history which in fact form a chain of successive styles (Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Constructivism etc)? Actually the problem can be posed like this:

1.Does the history of art really have a history?

2.If so, then what is the principle on which it is divided into periods?

 

Accepting this suggestion would mean that one accepts the relative autonomous existence of creativity (Production of pictures) and art. This is not only straight- jacketing the development of art and history of a society, but it is also vulgarisation of the concept of creativity in a complex world and society.

 Really speaking, can creativity and art exclude its ‘dependence on other histories, say for example, modes of economic production, the religious, social and political aspects or other relatively autonomous history of a society? Max Raphael stated long time ago:

 Art has historical roots that lie outside it, and it has historical consequences that again lie outside it. .. Art as such has no history.²

 Thus the division of time into periods is in general linked up with the mode of economic production.

But within the definite historical condition, one can find the co-existence of several and different visual trends (which may appear and disappear during the epoch), but this one to one relation between art, history and mode of production presupposes that all the different and opposing trends in art are only variants of one major structure. Here, from the above paragraph two problems emerge:

1. Art forms may appear and disappear in a given epoch.

If one looks at the chronology and development of Gaganendranath’s artistic career it is clear that the cartoon period takes place in the middle of his artistic persuit, i.e., before and after, of divergent artistic content and styles.

What is interesting to note that generally speaking the various phases in Gaganendranath’s career do not relate to each other, there is no sequence of development from  one  content   to another, or of one style and technique to the other for that matter and finally the cartoons (as an artistic genre) never reappear either in his life or later in the subsequent growth and development of contemporary Indian art. So I would go back to the problem: why did it appear and disappear?

Was this particular genre painting historically bound to occur between 1917-1921, and why only through one of the major artists of the time and not anyone else, and why such authentic force and character compared to the caricatures of either belonging to the nineteenth century Bengal and of the works of other minor contemporaries of Gaganendranath?

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The first Modern Indian art movement was born out of the cultural regeneration and was part of the nationalist movement. The works of the Bengal school artists were generally acclaimed and accepted. But:

Gradually the bias that gave dominant nationalist overtone to art was exposed to the fungus of a strange Parochial nationalism. .. the Modern Indian painters displayed his remoteness from tradition by misunderstanding the function of traditional art in the modern environment. ³

In the changing social and cultural circumstances, the Bengal school artists painted the same subjects-over and again in the same manner. Their work became manneristic. Qualitative terms like ‘spiritual’, ‘mystic’, ‘rhythmical’, and ‘Lyrical’ came to be associated with their works. Concern was voiced by Coomaraswamy:

They have been anxious to make beautiful pictures, rather than moved by sheer necessity of expression ⁴

 It may be said without fear of contradiction that our present poverty, quantitative and qualitative, in works of art, in competent  artists, and effective connoisseur-ship  is unique in the history of  the world.⁵

But why Bengal school remained a “narrow ridge” (actually spanning from 1905 to 1920, i.e. beginning from the time when Abanindranath painted ‘Bharat Mata’ and till be gave up brush and paint temporarily in 1920), a ridge which could be crossed the moment it was reached? A style which apparently looked solid, based on conservative, formal principles of Indian Classical art, on a technique brilliantly innovated by Abanindranath (wash) and on the lofty ideals of spirituality and humanity, what made it crumble like a pack of cards? Why did it degenerate so quickly into mere imitation of Ajanta and Mughal miniatures? Perhaps the artistic expression of the Bengal school was more an ideal and a fiction than a reality. And unlike the  European Renaissance which was very dynamic and the artists restlessly searched for new forms to master the complexities of the ever changing capitalist mind (and in the process the Renaissance lost the classical balance and poise), the Bengal school was rather weak in constitution. It rested on its achievement [as if in deep aristocratic slumber) and was never eager or able to master the rapidly changing society in general. They lost touch with the new scientific out-look and development, and with the modern cultural developments.

Gaganendranath was an untutored artist [like his more famous uncle Rabindranath) and emerged as a serious painter at the age of forty three, i.e. around 1910. His early works “Sibu Kirtaniya’ dated 1907 and ‘Crows’ dated 1910 express the desire to maintain the unbroken continuity of the artistic process of the Bengal school. But nevertheless we notice the free gesture in ‘Sibu Kirtanya’, the roots of his future departure from Bengal school is inherent in the particular work, or rather the ambivalent nature in relation to Bengal school is expressed here, this ambivalence takes the final shape and form, in an utterly un classical spirit [to take place after 1917). Gaganendranath perhaps realised that the contemporary reality had nothing to do with available range of cliché images, that it was necessary to discover new situations characteristic of his time and to build up new, powerful un -hackneyed images. Myths and legends were no longer  a reality for him. This search for the new Indian Picture-book revealed the extraordinarily subtle form of social criticism went far outside and beyond the – feeble imitation of the mannerist phase of the Bengal school. The method of the un classical was not only able to regain the lost reality but it also created a new art form, which is unique in the history of modern Indian art. Now I will return to the second problem raised earlier.

2. All the different and opposing trends in art are only variants of one major structure.

….. all visual ideologies corresponding to the capitalist mode of production (from the ‘early Renaissance’ to ‘cubism’) have a common structure which is clearly distinguished from the structure of visual ideologies of the ‘feudal’ mode of production, or of the ‘Asian’.⁶

Here the problem is two-fold

1.The Western Capitalist Society under which content and form of all art comes under one common structure. I am sure this one-sided judgement would raise many objections. It has often been pointed out that extremism is one the chief characteristics of the modern movement in art – post-Impressionism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism and so on. Generally this is true: But again generally all capitalist art is Romantic, in the sense that most of the modern western masters revolted [in each movement or ‘isms’ of art) against the bourgeois condition. John Berger sums this up very well:

….. were aware of the feebleness and corruption of bourgeoisie art and values and they all sensed that the twentieth century would produce a new type of man who they wished to welcome ….. They knew that they lived on the eve of Revolution, and they considered themselves revolutionaries.

But because they did not understand the social and political nature of this revolution, they put all their revolutionary fervor into their art… ⁷

They made revolution on their canvases. Whether logical development or not each art movement was a departure from the previous one, sometimes a drastic one for that matter, Surrealism was for removed from Cubism, so is OP art from the Abstract. If all bourgeois art is reactionary, decadent, defeatist and formalist, then we will have to admit that there is no progress in art other than what is being and would be produced by the socialist artists.

Bourgeois artists do take part in the discovery of the world in which we live in and in the artistic expression of the complexities of life and society. Their work is a sort of negation of the existing situations, through which there is a way we can advance. But Marxist art critics may still consider it as the negative role of the bourgeois artists. The question will be: are the bourgeois artists capable of creating new content and form altogether different from another art form or style? In a capitalist society the artists [vis-a-vis, their position as Avant-garde), have the freedom and are capable of creating the kind of art which they want and need. Chaplin through his grotesque parodies of everyday life exposed the bankruptcy of either fascism or of the machine age, and then heralded the victory of man, though not like Eisenstein, but still a victory all the same, and in the process evoked a new cinematic form: comedy/satire or whatever one may wish to define; and now let Ernst Fischer speak for Picasso’s “Guernica’

Picasso, using the painter’s means, showed a world blown into a million pieces, not as an expression of anonymous fate or as a cosmic event but as Guernica, as human existence threatened by Fascist dictatorship. This magnificent painting does not merely represent reality in its most concentrated from: it sides with tortured humanity …. If these were a case of so-called “formalism’ Picasso would not have called his work Guetnica, but Explossion, Destruction, Under the sign of the Bull…when hundreds of genre paintings and academic historical canvases that hope to pass as realistic, have long been forgotten, our great grandchildren will recognise a chronicle of our lives in the bitter, extreme Realism of this tremendous work. ⁸

Kattamoshai, Harbola Bhad, 1st Vol., 1st number,January,1874

 

 

I would like to assert that Guernica had no precedence either in the content that it conveyed or its form. And neither there is any following of this form. Can we call this work Realism? Yes perhaps, but it falls short of socialist Realism only because it uses symbols and allegories. Now-let us see the other side of the coin i.e. bourgeois/capitalist art in the context of the Asiatic Mode. Art and culture under the Asiatic mode of production is bound to develop in a different way, the form it takes, the style which individual artists are able to arrive at, will be different also. There is nothing peculiar about it, but the question is to what extent the art (of each country, of each time and age under the Asiatic mode) is able to preserve its own peculiar characteristics, its identity ( to the extent of keeping in fact the authenticity of the works, which could be discussed at any time in history). Or in other words, suppose I put the question this way: to what extent is Indian art Indian, National and International? To be more specific, as is the case here:

1. To what extent Gaganendranath was an Indian artist, whether he was rooted in the peculiar social reality of his time, whether his form and style was Indian, how much was he International or cosmopolitan?

      2.Was his art a mere variant of the other trends prevailing in Bengal at the time? Or was
it an extreme variant, a completely new type of art?

 Rabindranath Tagore described him as a jovial man who would keep them in good humor all the time. Dinesh Chandro Sen, a close associate of Gaganendranath paid rich tribute to this large hearted kind and gentle nature d men.⁹

Gaganendranath was born to a rich and aristocratic joint family, but, he had to bear the responsibility of the family (at the age of fourteen) due to his father Gunendronath’s untimely death.

 

This awesome responsibility that he had to see his two younger brothers { both of them artists, Abanindranath and Samarendranath get necessary education, made it almost impossible for him to take the necessary education {for a brief period he went to St. Xavier school, Calcutta}. Later he was involved in a legal battle with Debendranath’s family on the question of ownership of family properties. ¹⁰ However, It is beyond doubt that he lived in the same house [i.e. Jorasanko House at Calcutta) where Tagore also lived. Not only that, we see him actively organizing and taking part in the various social and cultural programmes which the house of the Tagores initiated right from 1897 to 1919. Whatever little evidence we have at our disposal of the biographical details of Gaganendranath, it can be safely said that there was nothing satanic in him, he was not of the hissing and whistling type like the other feudal aristocrats of his time. The Tagores’ often indulged in simple and pure fun. The great difference being, that they channelized all their energies, their sentiments, emotions, innovativeness and skill to art. One would not find a single member of the entire Tagore clan who did not either know how to paint, sing, dance or write poetry. Art and culture practically got concentrated around this family.

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But despite the stupendous achievement the family made in the field of art and culture, I am inclined to make this observation that perhaps the family was cursed, some ultimate doom was hanging large on them. Tragic incidents took place almost at regular intervals, untimely deaths, suicides of the young ones, Gaganendranath’s illness (he became paralytic during his last ten years, 1928-1938). Abanindranath’s utter frustrations in the last years of his life over the apparent failure of the art movement which he led with conviction and dedication, the split in the family-due to property feud, and finally the decline in the family capital ( It came to such extremes that many household items had to be sold out, which included books, art objects etc], contributed to the ultimate tragedy. The mess in the financial position was largely due to their own failing. As early as 1893 Surendranath Tagore sent a warning from Woodland House, Shimla to the Jorasanko house: “No one is really concerned to look for a livelihood.”¹¹ Everyone of the family depended entirely on the earnings from the landed property and whatever business they inherited.

But despite these gloomy family circumstances the Tagores found time to indulge in idle fancy. As early as 1897, on the proposal of Rabindrnath and Gaganendranath, a club for the whimsical s/eccentrics (in Bengali: Khamkeyali Sabha) was formed. The club did not really mean any serious business, but the occasional meetings paved the way for the Tagores’ as well as other whimsical artistic members to get together and enjoy the evenings.

 It seems, sense of wit and humor were natural to the Tagores’. Gaganendranath, especially, had a magnificent, elemental wit which provoked sparkling waves of laughter. But at the same time he was perhaps the saddest, the most tragic figure among the Tagores. Was there any “unseen tears” in him? We do not know for sure, but the quotation he used of Mark Twain in the first page of his book on cartoons, “Nobo Hullor’ (Reform Screams) will make everyone to ponder over it:

Everything human is pathetic, the secret source of humour is not joy but sorrow. There is no humour in Heaven ¹²

Before I proceed to discuss the actual cartoons, I would like to answer a few questions which seems crucial to me:

 1.How was his contribution an extreme variant?

 His contribution towards modern Indian art was extremely different from that of his own contemporaries only when we consider him as a caricaturist. During the period three main art trends were prevailing, two of them, i.e:

1. The nationalistic bourgeois style (which is the so called Bengal school]

 

2. The Western Academic style was on the wane already. And the third trend was kind of a mixed bag, something which some of the Bengal artists like Mukul Chondrc Dey, Manindra Bhusan Gupta, Ramendranath Chakravorty did not toe either of the two trends mentioned above. It was kind of naturalism (which I think went back to the tradition of Emily Eden, Solvyns, William Hodges and W.B. Atkinson the residing British artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Bengal]. Let me mention at this point that naturalism was another though less important trend (according to the Archer’s school of art historicism] nonetheless, it did influence the Indian artists of the Patna and Murshidabad school.

 

Rabindranath Tagore who along with Abanindranath and Gaganendranath worked hard in establishing the Bichitra Club at Jorasanko House rightly assessed the contribution of Gaganendranath:

 

During this period Gaganendranath discovered a new medium for giving expression to his fund of humour and satire in caricatures.¹³

 

It is assumed that some of his cartoons were initially published in various magazines at Calcutta, and realising the demand, Gaganendranath decided to publish them in book form, especially in lithograph technique. For this purpose an old litho press was purchased and with the lithographic (an old Mohammedan printer was appointed especially to help Gaganendnath in lithography technique] equipment a new section was added to Bichitra Club. In 1917, Gaganendrnath’s colour lithographic cartoon album ‘Adbhut lok’ 1917, (Realm of the absurd] was printed in this press. Gagenendranath was clever enough to take the opportunity of mechanical printing to popularize his cartoon.

 

Apart from creating a new art form, Gaganendranath’s interest in graphics (or for that matter Bichitra Club’s] initiated a new meaning in the Modern Indian art movement. Graphics or print making, introduced by the British in the art schools, was mainly used for re-duplication of pictures or’ for illustrations of books to make it interesting for the newly growing reading public in Bengal. Outside the Art Schools, printmaking was already in vogue with the private studio-owners but it served mainly as a mass-communication media rather than as a creative medium. From the first illustrated book (printed in 18161 to Gaganendranath it took more than hundred years for the Indian artists to give certain prestige and stability to the graphic medium as a whole, which Europe had achieved at least  a century back.

Comic art has its roots in the ancient past. There are examples of humorous representation in the art of almost all the cultures. According to Hofmann and Becatti,¹⁴ comic art generally originated (both in Asia and the West from Drama. Both the visual arts and the drama found comic themes in daily life, and such personalities as the vidusaka, or buffon appeared in those media in India. Comic art was not unknown to ancient Indian art. But it occupied a minor place in the field of art. –

Most of the humorous incidents depicted in the arts relate to simple facts of life, like eating, sleeping, and the deformities of the human form… the purpose was to idealize rather than to caricature ¹⁵

Besides, the social life did not leave any scope for the artist to caricature kings, brahmins, social customs and manners. But the most important factor that why it could not develop as a full genre art in India till the middle of the nineteenth century is due to unavailability of printing technology (multiple reproduction system], lack of education among the people, an enemy (alien to the soil] who could be treated as satirical themes etc. The obstacles were cleared by the colonial rule or through their regeneration work.

Ironically, it was the British who introduced modern comic in Indian art during the middle of the nineteenth century. But it remained confined to Periodicals/Journals only, it had to wait till Gaganendranath’s advent into this category of art who transformed cartoons as display print or work of art from the normal prints published in the journals.

Delhi Sketch Book a monthly periodical published from Delhi in 1850 pioneered the art of modern caricature in India. Its founder editor was John O’ Biren Saunders. (?-18791). Saunders was succeeded by George Wagentrieber. The periodical wound up in 1857. Available Cartoons published in Delhi Sketch Book do not bear signatures of the artists. But one can probably assume by looking at the cartoons that they were mostly executed by the British artists. It satirises life styles of the British in India. This was followed by Indian Charivari (in the footsteps of London Charivari ) which started appearing from Calcutta in 1872 and was edited by Col. Percy Wyndham. It is difficult to ascertain the identity of the cartoonists who contributed to these periodicals. The first newspaper to publish cartoons was ‘Amrita Bazar Patrika’, in Calcutta (18721. From then on, a stream of comic periodicals started appearing in various cities of India and in different languages:

Bengal: The Sulav Samachar (18701)
Harbola Bhad (18741)
Basantck (1874)

 Lucknow: Oudh Punch (1877)

 Western India: Parsee Punch (1888).

The artists who contributed in these journals were mostly Indians. Cartoons never ceased to appear in Bengal once it started in 1850. At the turn of this century a number of newspapers like the Englishman, The Statesman. The Patriot, Indian Ink, The Bengalee introduced cartoons. But it always kept a low profile, being dominated by the British academic art, the Bengal school and huge upsurge of book illustrations and Kalighat Pata Paintings, it also needed a brilliant educated intellectual like Gaganendranath who could counter the vices of the society in all its aspects and spring off an highly original and personal style. But did he make sufficient number of cartoons:

1. So that it makes a solid body of work?

2. To deserve any serious discussion?

3. To its being termed as a new genre painting?

Accordingy to O.C. Ganguly Gaganendranath painted about five hundred cartoons.¹⁶ Art historians O.C. Ganguly, Kamal Sarkar and Sovon Som agree that Gaganendranath played a pioneering role in this particular category which in the context of his own time and today is valid and relevant and of course it deserves serious attention and discussion which is unfortunately very scarce. Gaganendranath’s cartoons can be divided into four categories:

1. Social b. Political c. Religious d. Educational.

Apart from the numerous cartoons published in various newspapers, magazines (and some untraced, missing, etc.] he published three albums on cartoons:

1. Birup Bajra (1917) Strange Thunderbolts.

2. Advut lok (1917)  Realm of the Absurd.

3. Naba Hullor (1921)  Reform Screams.

 

Birup Bajra (Strange Thunder-bolts) 1917
This album includes thirteen colour and black and white cartoons with an introduction by the famous scientist Jagadish Chandra Basu. This album falls into the category of social.

What is the meaning of Gaganendranath’s cartoons?

 Auto-Speechola or An Automatic speech making machine

 It satirizes the Rajas and Maharajas of Bengal who delivered lectures on various subjects in public prepared by others. The Puppet like doll is the symbol of an aristocratic person. He is, holding a copy of the speech in his left hand. A dagger is tucked into the waist band, and he is speaking through a hand mike. An oil-con is fixed on the top of the head, just because he is like a machine. The puppet is supposed to be run by an ‘auto-speechola’ machine discovered by some scientist of Bengal. It is some sort of a computer which has been fed with the ready made speeches on various topic like Memorial speech, Self-Government speech, Foolish speeches and Fiery speeches in English, also there is a set of Bengali speeches on different topics.

Advut Lok (Realm of the Absurd) 1917

The album opens with two quotations

1.To be foolish is human.
To laugh at it so more so.^18
– Rabindranath Tagore

 

2. Instead of feeling complimented when we are
called an ass,we are left in doubt.^19
– Mark Twain

 

Gaganendranath was an artist-thinker. The thinker and the artist in him was magnificently combined. The brilliant images are contrasted successfully by linking of two contradictory elements. This is essentially possible when the artist has wit, sharp and simple. Wit was Gaganendranath’s element.

My love of My Country is as Big as I am

Here, notice the inflated figure of Maharaja Bijayachand of Bardhaman (Bengal), holding a cigar in his hand, Bijaychand was indeed a hefty fellow. He had English manners and dressed like the British. He went on lecturing about his love for the motherland. This was the contradiction among the educated and aristocratic people of Bengal. Now, notice the middle aged man listening to Bijaychand’s lecture. He is in simple Bengali dress, holding a traditional hukka in his hand; in contrast to Bijaychand’s huge figure, the other Bengali gentleman looks frail and small. He is supposed to be Gaganendranath himself, enjoying the lecture immensely. The artist employs his wit by uniting dissimilar characters, ideas and demotion. Similar is the case with

A  Noble Man

The figure resembles that of Maharaja of Bardhaman. The rich noble man is elevated to a pedestal used for worshipping gods and goddesses. Notice the rickety hands extended towards him for help which he wipes off by the sweep of the stick. The neo-rich of Bengal in those days used to spend lavishly for. vulgar purposes such as on horse race, kite flying and of course on prostitutes. A symbolic hand of a prostitute is shown extended towards him. Look at the vultures around him, they were symbols of posychophants who gathered around him for money.

 

 

Naba  Hullor (Reform Screams) 1921

 

Where is H.E.

 This was done on the occasion of lord Sinha’s (1920-21) appointment as Governor of Bengal (first Indian Governor during the British Rule). It seems a vision from below. The aerial space and earth is indicated by simple division in black and white. But aerial space (top left) and the earth is on the same plane. A very rare compositional structure for a cartoon.But it is more like a painting, In political cartoons minimum space is used, and the figures reduced too much or blown up out of proportion, I would like to mention here the striking similarity of this cartoon with Soul Steinberg’s “Drawing of the Galleria in Milan, 1954”, However, this cartoon depicts several Governors (with their ADC’s) who all look alike,State Funeral of H.H. old Bengal

Purely political cartoon, based on Montagu and Chelmsford (Montford Reform) of 1919, which promised Diarchy (double rule). Followed by the Home Rule, prisoners were released, (Earlier Tilak and Annie Bessant established Home Rule league and All India Home Rule League in 1916). The Montford Proclamation dismissed the old Bengal Legislative Council and though it  promised to empower the provinces towards establishing self-government and self-determination, in reality this act helped the British to suppress individual rights and sentiments for agitating in terms of Independent political power by the people of India.²⁰

 The cartoon shows a long dead body (of the old council) carried by its members, The members have been identified as Maharaja of Bardhaman, Sir Samsul Huda, Sir PravasChandra Mitra, Bhupendra Nath Bose and Babu Musaraf Hussain.²¹

Large numbers of people are witnessing the funeral. Surendranath Bandopadhyay is playing the drum in front of the procession (it is witnessed even today) and a press photographer is desperately trying to take a photograph of the important event. Maharaja Manindra Chandra is sitting on the veranda of his house (and smoking a hukka) and enjoying the happenings. Again, look at the use of space, where the drama takes place. The space becomes large because the artist is narrating a story. This is important in Gaganendranath’s cartoon: the narrative cartoon. This is unique in the history of Indian cartoons. The artist’s tendency in the cartoon is the economy of line, space, size (of the cartoon) etc. Gaganendranath sets his cartoon in the style of a painting

Latest Flight of the Poet

No one, not even his uncle Rabindranath was spared by Gaganendranath. This is a caricature of Rabindranath. The poet is seen flying seated on an easy-chair. Starry sky and half moon, his fountain pen, manuscripts flying, he is holding an Ektara (one-stringed musical instrument) and it is looking on with wondering eyes.

 It was time of the non-cooperation movement and everybody was eager to know the poet’s opinion on the subject but he was abroad at the time. Incidentally this was his first air travel (he left for London on 16th April, 1921) and before his departure Mr. St. Nihal Singh took an interview of the Poet:

…. I learned that he and his party were to go to the continent by air. 1asked him if that would be his first flight. Quick as 0 flash he replied that he had been flying all his life, but this would be first of that sort. The latter port of his sentence was drowned in laughter. ²²

Perched on the nib of the fountain pen are inquisitive journalists trying with their telescopes to discover which side of the earth is the destination this time, whether the region is the region of cooperation or non-cooperation? Rabindranath attracted the artists’ imagination. He was not only handsome but he also had a sensitive face which prompted two of the finest sculptors of the modern era to make portraits [locob Epsteine and Ramkinkar BaiiJ. Besides, Gaganendranath, he was caricatured by several European artists. Cartoons on him were published in America (Ohio State Journal), England (Manchester Guardian), Germany (Simplizissimus), in Switzerland and in Egypt.

 Some cartoons were published in Simplizissimus from Munich (some time between 1914-1823)^23. The first one was done by Thomas Heine. It shows that German ladies were infatuated by Tagore and worshipped him though they did not read much of Tagore’ s literature. The second one was painted by Clav Gulbranson. Gulbranson sets this cartoon in the context of the story of Peter pan. It is a kind of a never never land of Peter where German Tagore-Iovers never grow old in age., It is like a fairy land. Peter (Tagore) with ‘Tiger lily’ reminds us of the oriental fairy land, India. These two cartoons reveal the orientalisrn of the then Germany, who fell in love with Tagore (consider the adulation and ovations he received there and the tremendous boost in publications of his literary works in Germany).

 

Now, if we look at the caricature by Max Beerbohm, “Mr. William Rothenstein warns Mr. Tagore against being spoilt by occidental success:”. It will be obvious that this cartoon is very different from the two German cartoons. Citing two examples of Gaganendranath’s cartoons. “My Love of My Country is as Big as I am” and “The Temple priest sells his benediction”, Abu Abraham the famous cartoonist writes:

his style shows the influence of European masters of art, like Phil May and Max Beerbohm.²⁴

Rothenstein a close friend of Rabindranath visited Calcutta and was the guest of the Tagore’s at their Joraasanko house in 1911.Max  and Rothenstein were close friends too. In a letter to Rabindranath (dated July 1,1915), Rothenstein wrote:

… We have had Max Beerbohm and his wife staying with us. They are Keen appreciators of your work …Max, like all satirists, is very sensitive to Beauty and is not readily deceived by make-believe.²⁵

It is quite possible that Max’s works reached Gaganendranath through Rabindranath. But Max’s style was elegant, very subtle and poetic in his approach to characters and situations. The cartoon resembles more of the so called Bengal school (or the nationalistic bourgeois style of Abanindranath and his pupils. The influence could be other way round, I am inclined to believe. Also it is difficult to accept Phil May’s influence on Gaganendranath. Cartoons in the first two decades of the twentieth century have grown into two diametrically opposite principles.

 

1. A distortion of images born from Expressionism, a violent and forceful social and political satire leaning on the edge of hard realism (like Mino Maccari’s work].

 

2. A subtle and lyrical type of caricature ‘represented by the humorous and other-worldly’ drawings of Steinberg.

 

To which category Gaganendranath belonged? It is difficult to judge, for he did both types of work, but on the whole I think he belonged to the second category.

 Max Weber defined “Style” as a kind of “Utopia”, that means the work of art never actually attains it’s goal. Style or form grows out of content, then, we will have to ascertain what actually the content of a work of art is, or what is the goal of the artist? Like any other medium/category of painting cartoon is a medium. And cartoon is:

… the distorted, usually satirical representation of a person or action by exaggeration of characteristic traits..²⁶

 Mark Twain thought of the comic as ‘highly individual form of inexorably effective social criticism and self criticism’. And Herzen wrote:

 There is no doubt that laughter is one of the most powerful weapons for destruction … ²⁷

Comic is active, always ready to engage in combat. Every content, art form and style has a historical premise. Every new content and form is born out of a new social necessity negating the previous out of date values, the insufficiency of the earlier form and content. A change corresponding to the general intellectual crisis occurs in the theory of art. The art of the nationalistic bourgeois remained stagnant for quite some time. Because of their mythological roots, they were unable to grasp the true reality and beauty, their content and form was indefinite ‘in itself, in contrast to ‘the naive nationalism of the bourgeoisie style, Gaganendranath for the first time raised the problem: that the mythological past to which art was rooted was no longer sufficient in the changing sociopolitical conditions of Bengal. That a different set of relational value between art and society, between art and people, of the immediate situation, could be established.

This new relational value system wiped off the difference between the amateur and the professional, between the working artist and the cultured layman. The role of the artist and the layman reversed. The artist no longer wanted to keep a superior position (vis-a-vis their academic and social status] of painting subjects from mythological past, adopting wishy washy style to make the objects and figures float in darkness. As if the world is viewed through closed windows or dropped curtains. Gaganendranath’s world was real, consisting of immediate facts, because he was always in tension with them. He depicted the characters, situations which were familiar to him. The comic is basically rooted in the objective nature of things. The spectator also changed their stand, they wanted to see the milieu of rich people of the colonial oppressors, and not the circumstances of their own constricted lives. Gaganendranath’s art was intended neither for the working class nor for the peasantry, but for the higher, the urban levels of society.

His was the style of progressive realism. Through satire, sometimes violent sometimes subtle, through grotesque figuration, through exaggeration, larger-than-life approach, he initiated an effective social criticism.

 

 

Bibliography

 

1.Ratan Parimoo – The Paintings of the three Tagores:
Abanindranath, Gaganendranath and Rabindranath,
Chronology and comparative study,Baroda,1973.
Popular Aesthetics,Moscow,Vol.2,1917.

2.Max Raphael-   Pr-historic Cave  Paintings,1945.
London,1963.

3.Nilima Sheikh-‘The Exotic and the ambiguous,
some recurrent tendencies in Modern Indian  Painting.
‘VRISCHIK. Year 4, no. 1, March, 1973.

4. A.K.  Coomaraswamy – Art and  Swadeshi.

5. A.K.  Coomoroswamy – ‘Art in Indian Life’ in Cultural Heritage of India, Vo1.3, n.d.

6. Nicas  Hodjiniclaou – Art History and Class Struggle,London,1979.

7. John Berger – ‘The Necessity for Uncertainty’,The Marxist Quarterly,
Vol 3, no. 1, January 1956.

8. Ernst Fischer – The Necessity  of Art,London,1963.

9. Dinesh  Chandra Sen-‘Gaganendranath Thakurer Smrithikatha,
Ananda Bazar Patrika, 16th March,1938

10. Prasanto  Pal – Rabi Jibani,Vol.4,1988.

11 Prasanto  Pal – Rabi  Jibani,Vol.3,1987.

12 Gaganendranath Tagore – Nabo Hullor
(Reform Screams) 1921 .

.13. Rathindranath Tagore – On the Edges of Time,
London,1958

14. Hoffmann and  Becatti – Encyclopaedia of World Art,
Vol.3,1960.

15. Jagdish Mittal – ‘Caricature and Comic in Ancient Indian Art’,
Rooplekha,Vol 33,No. 1 and 3 1962 (?)

16 . O.C. Ganguly  –  Bharoter Shilpo O Amar Katha,
Calcutta,1969.

17. Kamal Sarkar – Rupadakkha Gaganendranath,
Calcutta,1980.

18. Gaganendranath Tagore – Advut Lok (Realm of the Absurd),
Calcutta,1917.

19. Ibid
20 Nepal Mazumdar – Bharate Jatiota 0 Antarjatikata Ebang Rabindranath,
Vol. 1 (Reprint),1983.

21. Kamal Sarkar  – Rupadakha Gaganendranath,
Calcutta,1986.

22. St. Nihal Singh – ‘An Evening with Rabindranath Tagore’
(Quoted in Modern Review,July,1921).

23 Shamvunath Das – Rabindranather Vraman Chinta’,
Purashree(Calcutta Municipal Gazette},Special
Issue, May,1978.

24. Abu Abraham(Ed.) – The Indian Cartoons,1988.

25. Mary M.Lago (Ed.) – Imperfect Encounter
(Letters of William Rothenstein and Rabindranath Tagore,
1911-1941),USA,1972.

26. Nicholas Wadley- ‘Cartoon and  Caricature’,
The Encyclopaedia of Visual Art,No.10,1983.

27. Alexander Herzen – Quoted by Avner Zis in  Foundations of Marxist                   Aesthetics,Moscow,1977.

Chittaprasad: Humanist and Patriot

In the history of contemporary Indian art Chittaprasad perhaps is hardly known. He lived almost a recluse in Andheri, a suburb of .Bombay, for thirty-two years.Chittaprasad worked and lived in Bombay until he died in Calcutta in 1978.His place was frequented by a handful of his close associates among whom only a few were artists. It is surprising that Chittaprasad’s works were never exhibited in Bombay. To my knowledge he had only two one man shows in India, one in 1964 (organised by a group called ‘Shilpayan’) and the last one in 1980 (after he died), organised jointly by the Chittabharati, an organization devoted to preserve the works of Chittaprasad, and the Department of Information and Cultural Affairs, Government of West Bengal. Both the exhibitions were held in Calcutta. Outside India Chittaprasad’s works were shown in U.S.S.R., Denmark, U.S.A., Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Tanzania.

Chittaprasad was born in 1915,in the District of 24 Paraganas, West Bengal He completed his schooling from Chittagong Municipal High School, which is now in Bangladesh. As a young boy he was encouraged and inspired by the village potters, painters and puppeteers.
This influence was so strong that throughout his artistic career he fell back repeatedly on the sources of the traditional and folk style. The other important thing to happen in Chitta’s life during this period was that it was in Chittagong where he first came in contact with the Bengal Famine Communist Party.He started doing sketch-portraits of the were years of great upheaval.The struggle for Independence national leaders as well  as the    British  GI who were stationed in Chittagong and also started political posters.

But a little later he expressed his willingness to undergo proper art training. He came to Calcutta and tried to seek admission in the Government College of Art and  Craft.But the Principal of the College demanded a written declaration that he would never actively   participate in politics.Chittaprasad refused to oblige.Later Chittaprasad went to Santiniketan to seek admission in Kala Bhavan. He met Rabindranath Tagore and made a quick portrait of him at which Rabindranath was so impressed that he advised Chitta not to waste time in the art college and that he should continue his Sadhna in his own way.
Chittaprasad  returned to Chittagong.

Chittaprasad moved to Calcutta in order to make a living an artist.Both at national and  international levels these were years of great upheaval.The struggle  for Independence was entering its final stages.World-wide economic crisis was getting acute day by day which finally led to the 2nd world war in 1939.

In the meantime the Progressive Writers’ Association and the Indian Peoples Theatre Association were formed in India.Leading poets,artists,dramatists,film-makers joined the    movement.Chittaprasad also joined the political left.During the Bengal Famine in 1943-44 (in which more than three million people died) Chittaprasad toured the  countryside of  Bengal extensively and  reported the human predicament in black & white drawings under the title ‘Hungry Bengal’.* It will be worthwhile to mention here that another artist of  Bengal,  Zainul  Abedin  also made moving sketches and drawings of the Bengal Famine. Later on, Somnath Hare also got involved in the left politics and his ‘Tebhaga Diary’ (Share-Croppers Movement) of 1946 is considered one of the most important social documents of that time.

*These drawings along with the text were published in the ‘Peoples Age’ and later the major part of these drawings were destroyed  by the Editor to avoid the wrath of the British Authority.  

 

1946-1978: In 1946 Chittaprasad moved to Bombay to work for the left press. We notice that from this time onwards Chitta’s major artistic medium became linocut though he did a number of oils, pastels, tempera and water colours. Secondly, there was a definite shift from overt political statements to mark or less social and humanitarian causes. In fact, in 1949 Chittaprasad responded to the call of the World Peace Movement and gradually devoted his artistic pursuit to the children’s cause – their suffering, their .inguish and happiness, their participation in the day today working life. He made a series of telling Linocuts depicting children’s miseries in’ 1952 which was later published as “Angels Without Fairy Tales”in 1969 by the Danish UNICEF Committee. Chitta’s devotion to the cause of children finally culminated in his Magnum Opus ‘Children’s Ramayana’ for which he himself made illustrations and wrote the text. Unfortunately this manuscript is still unpublished. In the fifties itself the genius of Chittaprasad found expression in several mediums. He worked successfully as a screen painter and costume designer for the internationally famed Little Ballet Troupe of Maharashtra and in the late fifties founded his own puppet theater in collaboration with the Traditional Indian Puppeteers. He wrote the plays and made puppets out of wood, coconut shells,rope and paint. Besides this Chitta made posters, political caricatures and a large number of book illustrations. Chittaprasad was basically a story teller.He wrote a number of short stories, plays and poems. His book of poems and a collection of folk-tales retold and illustrated were published in Bengali.

There are two distinct phases of Chittaprasad’s artistic career.In the first phase lasting from 1935-46,he painted India in Revolt and drew with gusto from the direct experiences of the working class people’s struggle and suffering.There was not a single political line of struggle which could evade his attention.The works of this phase bear a close re-semblance to that of the Pata painting tradition of Bengal.Group figures are well knit into a compact composition. In the ‘India in Revolt’ series, the attempt was mainly to create an atmospshere of struggle and revolt in the face of political oppression. The identity of national leaders and workers are clearly established by deft handling of the characters.

In the second phase lasting from 1946 until his death in 1978, Chittaprasad created three types of work.

1.The  life  of  children   in  colonial   India.

2.Landscape

3.Day to day life  events.

Linearity is the prime force of these works.The appeal to the viewers is subtle,soothing and dignified.Power,which was his main forte before,gave way to dignified control and mastery over the medium (linocuts) as well as his knowledge and perception of life around him. In the series of linocuts between the dark and often desperate blackness one can always feel some light of hope coming through. The art has the longing eyes of the victims of, famine, the color of his folk-tradition behind the black lines of linocuts.

The true significance of Chittaprasad’s work lies in his deep and profound understanding of the suffering and struggle of the ordinary Indian people and also his knowledge and command over the cultural traditions to which he belonged. When the rest of his contemporaries were debating on what should be the character of Indian art – whether to identify with the classical Indian tradition or to borrow from the Western idiom – Chittaprasad, along with a few artists, faced the greater social reality of his time and painted them with natural ease, power and conviction.

Amit Mukhopadhyay

Published in:
Art Heritage catalogue,
1985-86,New Delhi.

Towards A Beyond

 

 

A work of art does not exist by itself, it exists in the field of strategic possibilities within a regulated system of differences and dispersions bound to all individuals. In other words, I am talking of common references, common frameworks, which in turn become the ‘space of possibles’. The space of possibles invokes the ‘Paradise of Ideas’ which is fraught with divergences of interests among individuals in this fragmented universe. The field*1 of strategic possibilities, is the field of artistic / cultural production, the field is the science of cultural works which corresponds between poles, structure of the works and structure of social forces, internal demands and external determinants, artists and producers, position takings and space of positions in the field of production, styles, genres, so on and so forth.

What happens to the works in all this? How are the desires for fundamental problems, problems of change resolved? What are the different possibles that constitute the space of possibles at a given moment in time? Any change in the direction of artistic discourse depends on the struggle of the competing artists / agents, state of the system of possibilities and certainly on the direction of the socially constituted artists who are aware of their specific capital (artistic capabilities) and are open to newest possibilities. But let’s not forget that the dominant agents, institutions have a stake in conservation, that is, routine and routinisation or in subversion, that is, a return to sources, to an original purity, heretical criticism and so forth. The questions over which the dominants and the challengers confront each other depend on the possibilities inherited from earlier

 

*1 Pierre Bourdieu,The Field of cultural Production,1993

*2The Mastery and knowledge which is inscribed in the past works,recorded,codified and canonized by the professional experts, critics,becomes a part of the condition of access into the field of production.

 

struggles*₂ which defines the scope of the space of possibilities, position – taking, directing the search for changes vis-a-vis changes in the socialization of the production system. The confrontation between art and money shapes the structure of the cultural field. The clear divide among artists, intellectuals can be stated as = rich cultural capital and poor economic capital vs industries, business = rich in economic capital but poor in cultural capital. The natural tendencies of any change in artistic / cultural practices presupposes a drawing away from demands of the market and as such disinterestedness in material success. Another way of de-routinization could be through laying of works upon works through intermediation of artist who wills to break the spell of the aura of a work of art. Deauratization will envitably lead to the greater autonomy of the specific artistic production.*₃ I am not arguing for an alternate pure gaze in a new avant-garde manner, i.e., in the name of challenging the orthodoxy, in order to return to the rigour of beginnings, a purer definition of the genre, one destroys forms and contents and substitutes with another pure gaze. In today’s context one has to re-voke the artistic and philosophical wonder by introducing the ordinary object as it is, by applying a shock treatment *4 in the manner of Duchamp or Warhol, otherwise the pure aesthetic disposition will always define today’s artists.

The paradox  of  destruction  makes  language  turn

Mechanical reproduction destroys the authenticity of the traditional work of art. Writing, speaking, painting, sculpting are done through stock phrases / styles: this is the form that language takes in the age of mechanical reproduction. In the process of destruction of authenticity, language submits to the technical reproduction. The paradox of destruction is that more tradition is destroyed, the greater

 

^*3 The critical return by the producers upon their own production (the artists moking their own choices in terms of what, how and to what extent o work was to be produced) will help to gain a position to rebuff every external constraint and market demands.

 _*4 It is not just a ‘denial of Sense’. it is in Benjamin’s view ‘the moral shock effect’.

 

the risk of destruction itself becoming a tradition through repetition. The invention of unusable concepts / ideas aim at a destruction and are henceforth reconstituted as tradition. All unusable concepts lie beyond or behind tradition, hence it is always there and does not remain.*₅ The problematic in Benjamin’s discourse is that he differentiates between works of art (literature, painting) with that of film, the same destructive process reinforces ideology and leaves it to one last resort: destruction itself. Let me mention two different premises in Benjamin’s discourse:

 

a) A work of art has always been reproducible*₆. Benjamin says that traditional reproductive system and tradition as reproductive instrument authenticate the work of art by distance (spatial) and propagation. So, in the first place, a cleavage is necessary between the unity of the traditional reproduction (technique) and tradition as reproductive force (concepts).

 

b) In the second thesis Benjamin claims that reproduction misses the work of art, because the element of place from where the work originated is never present in the reproduction. Reproduction can at least produce an object but can never reproduce the uniqueness of time and place. To reproduce a work of art, it is necessary to destroy the unity of time and the object,*₇ If everything from / of tradition cannot be reproduced / destroyed, if tradition retains its charm, identity, authenticity, originality, the tradition in its Fascist form – succeeds in destroying destruction and all destruction is excessive, fragile, vulnerable. Destruction, the language of destruction exceeds its representation in ruins. But Benjamin is ruthless in proposing a complete de-auratization through technical reproducibility of art which separates the new art forms from the ones that come from uninterrupted continuum beginning from ritual art to the secular, autonomous art in bourgeois culture and society.With these radical destruction, a new era arises – ‘a crisis and renewal of mankind’ in which art is ‘based on another practice – politics’. So, how does one visualise the world without myths, what is the other which cannot be named by Benjamin?

If and when you believe, I would love to say, my heart is for the Other. Where is the Other. Whence is the Other? And how is it? Blankness (after destruction) cannot remain forever, who will fill the void of the world, the artist, the critic or the logothete? What Benjamin proposes without speaking is the possibility for a philosophical thinking of the present, a specific opening of the present.

We are at the crossing

Why did Jacques  Derrida write  Glas? Geoffrey Hartman thinks Glas as an extraordinary text in the dissolution of the distinction between literature and criticism. Glas, for Hartman, is too creative to lie a distant cousin of literature. Derrida’s text, we assume possesses all the attributes of a great literary work. *₈ Did he then cross the line, from the critic to the author, from the author to the logothete? I believe he passes through all these categories simultaneously, by saying so, I have already presupposed that he was writing Glas in a material vacuum (common, idle, outmoded languages already destroyed). Within this material vacuum, the logothete is at the crossing, engaged in construction of a language, he is a founder of languages, he is a logo-technician, he is an invent or of writing. In this instance Derrida departs from philosophical  criticism to enter in authorial inscription, thus weakening  the boundaries  between the creative and the critical, which is powerful development  and

 

*8“In a work such as Glas ……. I am trying to produce new forms of catachresis, another kind of writing, a violent writing which stakes out the faults and deviations of language; so that the text produces a language of its own ………..”
Derrida

 

 

necessary extension of modernism in general. What is striking is that Derrida did not force the rethinking of the relationship between critic and author by declaring the death of the author. In fact, he has expanded our notions of criticism and authorship by writing away from criticism in the only way one can: that is, toward authorship. *9The reason why Derrida took to writing  Glas was to rethink the question of the subject outside the context of transcendental phenomenology so overpowering in France since Husserel. His attempt was just not to cross from one intellectual climate to another, from one discipline to another but to raise issues and to debate the question of authorship. In his paper ‘Structure, Sign and Play’, Derrida had said that deconstruction ‘determines the non-centre otherwise than as loss of the centre?

 

In 1992, George Landow argued in his book Hypertext that with the technological developments a paradign shift, a revolution in thought has occurred which takes us far beyond the book / work of art.*10 The advocates of digital revolution tell us that digital technology has turned the monologic text into a dialogic one, that it will be difficult to tell who is the author of the text, a closed / perfect text will be thing of the past, it will be like an open sea, the boundary between the artist and the author will disappear, art will no longer depend on reflective originality of the author, it will be linked with the total textuality of human expressions. The hypertext will be the ‘ultrademocratic, fatherless and propertyless, borderless and custom-free text, which everyone can manipulate and which can be disseminated everywhere’*₁₁. No doubt hypertext will facilitate editions, manuscript variants, source studies, representaion of links, constructive collaboration. It will praide an external corelative for patterns of thought established in a culture of print. Landow opines:

 

*9 Explaining his position in the discussion following “Structure, Sign and Play, Derrida said : ‘The subject  is absolutely indispensable. I don’t destroy the subject; I situate it….. I believe that at a certain level both in philosophical and scientific discourse,one cannot get away from the………of the subject. It is a question of knowing where it comes from and how it functions.”

_*10 It reminds us of the mysterious Foucauldian claim that the ‘ground…… is once again shifting under our  feet

_*11 Regis  Debray, ‘The  Book   as  Symbolic  Object’   in “Future  of  the  Book”  edited   by  Geoffrey Nunburg, 1996.

 

 

……. As long as any reader has the power to enter the system and leave his or her mark, neither the tyranny of the centre nor that of the majority can impose itself. The very open-endedness of the text also promotes empowering the reader.”

 

The question is, will this empowerment be ascribed in the political sphere also? How such an empowerment can be undertaken without addressing the question of economic issues of access, of the gap that exists between the affluent and the impoverished cultures. Digital construction of authorship replace the notion ‘view from nowhere’ to ‘view from everywhere’ without situating the activities of the writer / artist. Seyala Benhabib writes;^*₁₂

“The situated and gendered subject is heteronomously determined but still strives towards autonomy. I want to ask how in fact the project of female emancipation would be thinkable without such a regulative ideal of enhancing the agency, autonomy and selfhood of women.”

Benhabib understands the need for rematerialisation of subjectivity and authorial placements. But how does such palcement occur in various critical discourse? Neither the texts nor the histories mention the role of the author which creates the passage into looking at life and world. Perhaps a new, situated authorial subjetivity will form out of a New Humanism. The narratives of human destiny await new authorships, new representations, new presents.

*₁₂ Seyala Benhobib, Situating the Self. Gender, Community and Post Modernism in Contemporary Ethics, 1992

 

 

Amit Mukhopadhyay
New Delhi
22nd   March,1999

 

published in
Conundrum an Artist’s book
‘view from nowhere to view from everywhere’
Indian Print Makers Guild 1999

 

NAUGHTY BOYS OF THE OTHER CULTURE

THE REALISTS

AT THEIR SECOND GROUP SHOW
SPECIAL SECTION ON PROBLEMS OF COMMUNALISM
BIRLA ACADEMY OF ART & CULTURE,  CALCUTTA.
19 NOVEMBER – 1 DECEMBER 1991.

 

NAUGHTY BOYS OF THE OTHER   CULTURE

Spring was yours.

Another    century,    a  century    of    civil    wars,    world    wars    and    cold    war,tortuous   in    its    ideological  ramifications rolls to a close.The fall of the vital  center is being  drolled out by  an euphoric  victory Chant: Unipolar world, Unipolar world ! Seeds of  hope are being discovered in the August .Failure and  the failure is being treated as a problem  created  by  the Second World itself and  an  opportunity  for  the First  World to exercise  responsibility.Thus  the First World is absolved from the cause.On the other hand,the    Third World have already Been accused of maintaining a primitive lifestyle and  not    joining as ‘Citizens’. It  is an  open field of vast possibilities to be carpentered beautifully    and made habitable for the cavalier citizens of  the First World.The road to epiphany is Open……..

 Who makes decisions at the frontiers of the state?

”    ………We are Americans – part of something larger than ourselves… And tonight we lead the world in facing down a threat to decency and humanity. What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea-A New World Order, where diverse nations/ the universal aspirations of mankind: Peace and Security, Freedom and the rule of the Law ……Tonight we work to achieve another victory, a victory over tyranny . and savage aggression ……For two centuries, America has served the world as an inspiring example of freedom and democracy …The    problem before  us may be different  but the key to solving   them remains the same: it is the individual……
This we do know our cause is just, our cause is moral, our cause is right.”

President George Bush
State of the Union Address
House of   Representatives,
Jan.29, 1991

 

This noble declaration came following the defeat of the Iraqi army. Many American scholars believe that Bush’s Gulf adventure was in a way exoneration of the Vietnam enterprise. True to some extent, though, Bush’s etching of an image of the First World war transforms his adventurism into neoexpansionism, using a double-edged sword:

1.to break the polar barriers, the ‘Centre’ and the ‘periphery’ and in doing so, eliminating multiplicity of differing cultures, culture of the ‘other Peoples’, by either reconciling everything with everything’ else or by pushing upfront everything against everything else for a heady collision so that all culture may appear as one and equal.

 

2. In the garb of pluralism and multiculturalism it premises Regionalism and authentic   localisation, thus invoking separatism, because ‘the other’ must express through difference, difference of religion, caste, language, race and ethinicity which will inevitably lead to internal chaos, breaking down of all values and finally the collapse of the Nation State. All civilized rhetoric for equality” freedom, ‘peace, morality and just cause will turn into grand Bushian spectacle, art will become a mere entertainment and entertainer where citizen of the Unipolar world will be benevolent spectators.

 

Is Small  Beautiful?

The post-modernist critique of the Internationalist culture. (modernism) is that it lived  on the periphery of monolith ism and’ near, totalitarianism.

 

“Post modernism, or The  Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”

The unipolar world offers as many choices as possible to all who cares to accept them,
especially in art, an’ art which looses all particularity of time  and  place-and    become  simply pieces in an eternal chess game with no winner’s  take away  money – because  no body  knows how  and whether to win.The rules of the new game only permit  to exist ephemerally and experimentally by marginalizing all styles  – past and present. It is post-modern art. It is an art without any core, without a centrality any hierarchy, hence it survives without any critical assessment. Post-modernism is decadent. Post-modernism is an ‘eternal laissez-faire of pluralism or multiculturalism.’ It makes life complicated and difficult. It is the counterpart of Nazi art, totally opposed to civilization, it is a kind of wild barbarism which have the power of pulling back history into  the dark ages.Post-modernism has been around since the beginning of Modernism, in fact they have ‘existed in  cannibalistic dialectic, the latter variably consuming the former.’
Little about the Little History of a Little Culture

The history of modernism has many facets. The European version of modernism is,quite  different from the American version which developed in the 1940’s through the European Recovery Programme in 1948  which was later called the Marshal Plan. A huge aid programme was, directed  towards reestablishing Western economy which could be strong   enough to resist  the  advance of socialism, which at that time demonstrated, the decadence of the bourgeois,culture and at the same time the non existence of American culture on the   global art scene. The witch hunt of art began, Premises were set, the liberals, led by the new American middle class advocated, for a softer line of winning the minds of the European people by defending abstract and modern art in general along with expressionism,    automatism, surrealism etc. The conservatives  mounted  a  virulent campaign against
modern  art  vis-a-vis  liberalism.They  wanted  to  come  out from an  isolationist position  and plunge in International politics more vigorous-sly  supplementing  it with a           aggressive culture triumphant,optimistic and They  thought that modem art  was  “Bolshevistic”,”International”  and “Un-American” and propagated  for a romantic  realism  glorifying  the  physical beauty   of  America through  narrow regionalistic approaches.Finally, modern art won.but it had  yet much darker days ahead.  Euro/American art what we see today have come in  the  guise of  post-modernism.

 

A Little History about a Big Culture.

The Indian situation is very  different.Post-colonial India, more or less liberalistic through parliamentary  Democracy,have given seeminqly  enough open space, for  a variety  of  art   styles to grow  which never  is  completed, never  leads  to  formed  tradition of art.One of the reasons for such uneven,development of our art traditions is the, splendid
slavery of  the, Indian  artists in general,a colonial hangover,swallowing all that has been  routed the phenomena of modernism.This aping act stretched so far that even the  category  of  neo  Brahminical  art, ( of the  60’s  and  early  70’s)could  not resist  western   abstractionist   wrappings.In the Post-cold war days there are  possibilities that some old   set of questionsand  criterias,  live lndianness  and,Nationalism in art  may, be revoked,   restructured  in collaboration with  the Post-modernist ethos.Both lie in  wait  For an   opportune moment to strike.

 

Shaping of a new Nationalism in India

India as a country (if   not as a Nation),we should not forget, has a fairly long tradition
Of Nationalism routed through the notion of Hinduism. The dominant  view since the formation of the new middle class under British colonialism.This Bourgeois Nationalism was posted successfully in our struggle against the colonizer.The logic of the myth became
Rational-static in all spheres of our life  (including    art), as long as it enjoyed the  confidence of  both the colonizer and the colonized.In the post-colonial period  Nationalism is a  problem  because it  is conveniently used to protect the culture of the   ruling class, it becomes an ideology of the ruling  class which attempts to establish a point    of convergence,a homogeneous center cutting away all  empirical  events in the moment
from the periphery. The unipolar world will  be equally encouraqed  to sustain the  yet  complete Nationalism to extend their benevolence through economic and cultural negotiations, finally settling cultural exchanges, economic aid and goody goody human relations.We do not know yet how old fundamentalism will be replaced by the new one,  what aesthetic and artistic norms will be set before the artist to qualify the new Nationalism.Will there be a revival of the Brahminical past,will art be mythicised,be  the  style of neo Nationalism, hostile, aggressive,overcommital,uniquely authentic to the  utopian ideal of  the one,the all  pervasive one? These are of course anticipatory prefixes.    But one thing can surely be predicted:if there is a resurgence of Hindu Nationalism along with Unipolar world’s levelling of  all  differences  in  culture,decadence is surely east bound.

 

Humanism  of the post modern

Humanism is a Legitimate framework or for the supranationalism of  the  west to   maintain  supremacy over  the  peoples of  the other cultures.The unipolar  humanism   first kills and then offers charity.Charity  though always ambivalent,is always central to Western humanism, whether it is famine striken Ethiopia, flood ravaged Bangladesh, or an emergency aid needed  to rebuild the economy of India, Mexico, Brazil, or the Soviet Union
through economic reforms and market economy,charity  is always, forthcoming arm-twisting will come later,conditions for such charity  will be imposed at a suitable   time,media lies  will be  heaped on the people, humiliation of  the  people will  be complete   through the constant slow poisoning of  culture and conscience.Rampant  commercialism  and  egotism will   paralyse  all  political sensibilities.Every category of art will  be consumed by  the supermarket, Post-modernism will reduce the artwork to a commodity   precisely because it annuls  the artwork’s senses.

 

Will Winter be ours?

What shall we do? Should we observe occanic, reticence and watch humanism to be colonized, should we follow AIexandrianism or should we be ,the naughty boys of the other culture and fight the deconstructionist mafia, who have discovered humanism in abstract art.?. After  all,  humanism  is  not anyone’s exclusive right or property.Art is not  industry,
it is not just casual and arbitrary  fantasy  of  the  few, who    decompose and deconstruct  the  text  to suit their own  ends.Art  must have a core, a status, a centrality. differing from localism to localism, it must have a body, a hierarchy and it must be real which is open to criticism .What is perhaps required today that artist’s desire should be limitless and the desire’s limitlessness will rediscover the limits of the object of desire and save it  from   total degeneration and bankruptcy.The artist  must participate in the process of  the   dialectic between despair and  hope,death and  life  and between decadence  and   rejuvenation.This dialectical operation will provide a strong will to live and make art alive.
The  reinvestment in art can come from the sources of  the subject and subject panting   which is the most difficult thing to do.Let  the Family of Man (most of whose members live in the Third world) be our metaphor. But let us not forget the recent lessons in history that nearly  icing of faith and desire is not going to be enough. Fire accompanied by blinding dust storm have the power of breaking hardest of the iceberg.

 

Amit    Mukherjee
November 1, 1991. Calcutta.

 

REFERENCES

1.    Dissent:   The  issue  of  modern  art  in  Boston  (a  collection   of  essays)    by
the Institute of  Contemporary  art U. S. A.  1985

2.    Artists  in  Revolution –   Portrait  of  the  1905 –  1925  Russian  Avant-garde
Robert  C.Williams, U. S. A.  1975

3.    10+ 10, Contemporary  Soviet  and  American  Painters,  a  publication of  Fort
Work  Art  Association, U. S. A.  1989

4.    Third   Text, 14  Spring   1991

5.    Sculpture,   July – August, 1991

6.    May – June, 1991

7.    Art forum,Feb,1991

8.    Art forum , May,1991

9.  ‘Art- religion interface and New -Brahminical  art’ Pranabranjan Ray in Art and Life in     India- the last Four decades,edited by Josef James ,I.I.A.S. Shimla,1989

10. “ A brief review of convent cultural nationalism’ Geeta Kapur in Art and Life in India- the last four decades,I.I.A.S. Shimla,1989

11. Emergence of Realism in the Art of Bengal(1910-1940). Amit Mukhopadhyay (an unpublished thesis,later published in 1993)

 

BIO    DATA

SUKANYA  BANERJEE
Born-1967, West Bengal.
M.Fine  in Painting  Visva-Bharati University, 1991.
Present Address – Kala Bahavana, Santiniketan

RATI BASU
Born-1957, Delhi.
B. Fine-in    Painting, 1980 M. S.  University,Baroda,
M. Fine – in Printmaking,   1982,   M. S.  University, Baroda,
Teaching    in    Patha-Bhavana,Visva    Bharati.
Present  Address -Dakshin PaIli,. Santiniketan    731235~

 

SURANJAN BASU
Born-1657, Santiniketan.
B.Fine-in Printmaking, 1980,Visva-Bharati
Post Diploma-in Printmaking, 1982, M. S. University, Baroda,
Research assistance in Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati.
Present    Address – Dakshin      Palli,    Santiniketan   73.1235.

 

SUSHANTA     GUHA
Born-1957, Gaya,
Post Diploma-in Printmaking, 1982, Vjsva Bharati
Teaching in Birla Vidya Niketan. New Delhi.
Present  Address-402, Santnagar,  2nd    Floor, East of  Kailash.
New   Delhi   110065.

 

PULAK    DUTTA
Born-1957,    Bolpur.
B.Fine-in Print-making, 1980, Visva     Bharati.
Teaching    in    Patha-Bhavana, Visva    Bharati.
Present   Address  – 25,     Nichu-bangla,
Santiniketan    731235.

 

SUMANTRA SENGUPTA
Born – 1958.
Diploma in Painting, 1980, Government College of Art and Crafts, Calcutta.
Post-diploma-in Painting, 1983 Visva Bharati.
Working    independently  at  New     Delhi.
Present   Address-(STUDIO) K-30, Hauz Khas,
New    Delhi-16,

RAMPRASAD BHATTACHARYA
Born-1956, Port – Blair.
B. Fine-in Printmaking, 1980, Visva  Bharti
M.A. in Painting, 1983, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta.
Teaching under Directorate of Education, Andamans Admistration.
Present Address Shankar General Stores, Golghar, Port Blair, 744101.

 

PINAKI    BARUA
Born-1954.    Calcutta.
M.Fine-in Print making, 1980, Visva Bharati,
Teaching   in  Rabindra  Bharati University, Calcutta.
Present    Address  – P-40,     Garia    Park,   Calcutta,     700084.

 

NIRMALENDU   DAS
Born-1951,    West    Bengal.
B.Fine-in Print-making, 1973,Visva  Bharati.
M.Fine-in Printmaking,1975,M. S.University,Baroda.
Ph.  D.-Visva  Bharati, 1984.
Teaching   in   Kala  Bhavana,    Visva     Bharati.
Present  Address-Kala    Bhavana,    Santiniketan,731235.

 

PRABIR KUMAR BISWAS
Born-1948. Jalpaiguri
B.Fine-in Painting,1972, Visva   Bharati,
Craft Designers’ Training Course-1974, All India Handlcrafts Board. New Del
Teaching in Kala Bhavana. Visva Bharati.
Present   Address-Kala    Bhavana.   Santiniketan,     731235.

Many friends from other disciplene are also associated with us. We would like to mention a few names. they are Sugato Hazra, Debabrata Dutta, Saibal Mitra and Indrani Barua.

 

NAUGHTY  BOYS OF THE OTHER CULTURE
First Published, November 1991.
Published by Sujata  Mukheriee,
United Church, Benachiti,  Durgapur-13, West  Bengal
COPYRIGHTS Sujata Mukheriee

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE REALISTS (A Way of Seeing)

The Realist group was formed in 1984 through a process of workshops, camps, intense discussions among artists friends basically trained at kala bhavan, santiniketan.This was in response to the moribund art educataion system prevailing in indian art institutions which offered to creative thinking and practice.We were also dissatisfied with the artistic practice of the time which was marked as high modernism and new ways were no where in sight. we used to meet at santiniketan during summer holidays and work together to create an IDEA of  A   GROUP. We had disagreements, fights, disillusionment initially and it took a few years before we decided to form the group in 1990.

Amit Mukhopadhyay

 

         Realism  in Art
(The   European background)

 

 

 

Perhaps everyone would agree that it is not easy to define Realism. It is rather a simple term which got complicated by different interpretations given to the basic concept at various stages of time. One would like to adhere to Engels’s original definition of Realism, but at the same time try to seek avenues for the best use of it in today’s context, But before investigating into those possibilities, it is necessary to set the historical overview to the problem especially in the European art context, from where the movement began.

 

When did Realism begin? Champfleury, the writer-friend of Courbet attributed the beginning of the movement of Realism to Courbet, why? Wasn’t Greek art which brought into its scope to bring down gods to human level, Realism? Renaissance art depicted the poor and underprivileged, can it not be regarded as Realism? We notice that in the Nineteenth century England (beginning from 1840s) a sub-stream of paintings depicting the poor and various social problems were depicted almost consistently, can we not call it Realism? It is true that realistic  elements can be traced in these paintings but still it was not Realism because Greek art. presupposed the existence of mythology and a mythological attitude toward nature. What the Greek society anticipated and needed from the artists is a liberation from the mythological modes of thought and secondly, the primitive character of the Greek society could only create naturalism, Realism was not possible within that societal system.

 

 

 

The poor and the dispossessed which were introduced in the paintings from Renaissance on wards were mostly incidental figures brought in to heighten the religious and moral effect or simply as decorative elements. There was no integrated understanding and approach to social problems as such. Realism still did not emerge as a genre painting, neither the artists were tied to a common programme which could give coherence’ in their approach to the problems, in their treatment of the subjects, in their styles.

 

Courbet and Realism

 

Realism which began with Courbet was a democratic aspiration around 1848. Before 1848 be painted Romantic subjects. And the Romantic painters before him presented an ‘autonomous world, the picture of the unreal, ideal existence, that did not need to be brought in any direct relationship to the life of the present and the life of every day’. Courbet and Realism was the direct antithesis to this, Courbet fought for a new type of man and a new order. In a letter of 1851 Courbet declared:

 

I am not only a socialist, but also a democrat and Republican, in a word, a partisan of revolution and above all, a Realist, that is, the sincere friend of the real truth.

 

The choice of-subject matter was the central point in the_realist doctrine, and the lower classes were the most important factor through which the underlying social mechanism could be revealed. From 1840 onward there arose a taste for the people, as if in anticipation of the coming struggles. The sentimental attitude to folk art and tradition created by the Romantics gave way to a conscious, vigorous and scientific attitude which helped Champfleury, Max Buchon, Dupont to unite the folk and Realism into a Common programme. Courbet’s personality, strong and tenacious like a peasant, (The precise opposite of the dandy of the thirties and forties), his political radicalism, his relations with Prudhon and his part in the commune took him close to the people. He himself affirmed that his art was in essence democratic, which was possible due to his materialistic outlook. Max Raphael correctly says:

 

…..set himself the task of treating his colours in such a way as to reproduce the full materiality of the objects represented (stones, water etc.), and to show how a number of different materials might be interrelated through their common character.

 

As a means of education and study, Courbet had never anything but-his magnificent eyes. In fact, one of his favourite axioms was that anything which does not appear upon the retina is outside the domain of painting. In his own words:

 

….that painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely physical language ….an object which is abstract, not visible, not existent, is not within the realm of painting.

 

Imagination in ‘art consists in knowing how to find the most complete expression of an existing thing, but never in inventing or creating the thing itself.

 

Courbet’s materialism clearly separates him from the Romantics, Classicists and the Naturalists, however close they may have come to nature. All the three schools, including the Realists had one common point of departure: nature as the basis of art. In fact their boundaries seem to be quite fluid.

 

Any attempt to differentiate between the four phases, especially between Naturalism and Realism may lead to a terrible disaster. Classicism sought to correct nature through studies from antiquity or from the masterpieces of Renaissance. In order to purify nature and reality, it in fact deformed or weakened it. The Romantics though not afraid of nature and reality, never sought to alter it, they wanted to assert individualism through totally free interpretation of nature. Naturalism is an artistic style, it tends to exclude the individual, if helps to study matter and life as a surface detail in a style of the kind of a Camera obscura. But the main difference is that Realism is a philosophical attitude which embraces all of man’s existence., that comes within the scope of the artist. Realism does not simply mean depiction of things as they are seen but as they are. Sidney Finkelstein made the classic distinction between Naturalism and Realism. Looking at the same phenomena, the setting sun, the Naturalist exclaims:

 

“See, the sun revolves around the earth” the Realist replies., “No, the earth revolves around the sun”

 

To my mind, Naturalism in order to be close with nature and reality,reduced life to a mere transformation of the techniques of representation. They were basically idealists and they never sought to express the conscience of their age, their century, their people. There exist an antagonism between Classicism, Romanticism, Naturalism and Realism which can be determined by social facts and hence they are historically inevitable. Realism can not be born in all ages, in all societies and at every time by the simple whim of everyone or anyone. It is a specific and concrete socio-political and artistic movement consciously undertaken to express the democratic spirit of the age, of the society and people. Realism is a historical truth. Originally Realism was a pre-Marxian phenomena and had in its scope included both social and political subjects which was highlighted by radically different uses of technique, imagery and styles. It is an eminently nineteenth century phenomena of Europe but have emerged as a movement in other countries of the world which are still in the pre-socialist stage.

The Burial at Omans

 

 

The jury of the Universal Exposition of 1855 rejected two entries of Courbet, Burial at Omans and the Artist’s Studio on the ground that the works were in the Realist mode. An angry Courbet decided to have his own show in competion with the OfficialInternational Exhibition. The poster read like this. ‘REALISM. G. Courbet. Exhibition of Forty Paintings of his work’. According to some critics Courbet’s friend and contemporary Realist writer Chempfleury gave a coherent form to Courbet’s ideas in the introduction to the catalogue of the private exhibition. The introduction is regarded as the Realist Manifesto. (Appendix-L)

 

The Burial was painted in 1850 in Courbet’s native town of Ornans where the local people posed for him. The scene of a village funeral is taken up as an important historical event. We do not know who is buried. But it represents the funerals of all small towns. It is this triviality which shocked the critics. The disappearance of the grand subject guaranteed the truth of the picture, and the objectivity of the representation. Realism meant a liberation from the rhetoric, from the traditional idealizing subject or of personages, Courbet rejected the dramatic. The greatest achievement of Realism was ‘the acceptance of the trivial, banal, material and the refusal to ennoble it, idealize it, or even make it picturesque.’ The Realists attempt was to make a monumental work out of the material of daily life. The preference of the ugly, the banal and the trivial needed to be depicted in an un distorted and unromanticized way, hence, the aesthetics of Realism focused on both the objects represented and the manner of representation. Characters and situations were aggressively represented through the aggressive use of the point. To correlate the hard reality, colour was implemented through a palette knife rather than a brush. No fancy, no dream, no flight from the fact and personages. The frenzy of the Real raised a genre scene.

 

Engels, Van Gogh and Realism

Engels gave his classic definition of Realism in a letter addressed to Margaret Harkness critisizing her book ‘A City Girl’ (1857). In the letter of 1888 he wrote:

…..Realism to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction  oftypical characters  under  typical circumstances.

 

A  pair  of  Shoes

Engels was perhaps pointing to the fact that the prime concern of the artist must be his truthfulness to reality, to probe beneath surfaces, to expose the social meanings of life,Poverty, Exploitation, War, all these certainly come within the scope of Realism. But what about a landscape or a flower? Or love? Surely, they also come within the scope of Realism, which will largely depend upon the techniques and methods (obviously materialistic in nature) and its application leading to a style or form of Realism, the classic examples are Van Gogh’s Sorrow(1882),   The Potato Eaters (1885)  and A Pair of Shoes (1888).

Van Gogh’s intention was to document the hard way of life. But be never explicitelywanted to make it a painting of social protest or an expression of class struggle. Van Goghsh was not cast in the shoes of Courbet but he was more a follower of Millet,both were simple, hard-working as an artist, they had no political goal as such, relied more on a simple, unpretentious life of a peasant or a worker without caring for any financial reward or the approval of the authorities.

Van Gogh’s touching still life A Pair of Shoes shows how closely he identified with the lives of the working class men which he symbolized through the battered Pair of boots. However, some Marxist critics of the twentieth century found his works closer to Realism. Julies Meier-Graefe wrote in 1906 that:

…..some of his ideas were from the beginning determined  by a thoroughgoing  socialism.

The Dutch socialist Pieter Troelstra visited the Van Gogh exhibition of Amsterdam in 1905 and his feelings as recorded by his son:

….. the deep compassion and the protest that spoke from those workers convinced of the burning seriousness of the revolutionary, who, in order to be true to his calling, could not follow in the path trodden by others but had to break new grounds …..

Some of Van Gogh’s works (especially the Potato Eaters) immediately link it to Engels’s concept of Realism. The artist is truthful to reality, is presenting truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances. In fact, Van Gogh’s sympathy for the working class has never been in doubt. His works definitely fall under the category of Realism, but unlike Courbet he neither grew with a political movement nor he had arty political goals to achieve. His paintings do not offer solutions to the problems he depicted.

We may recall here Engels’s criticism of the three books ‘A City Girl’, ‘The old Ones and the New’ and ‘Franz von Sickingen’ (See his letters to Margaret Harkness (1888), Mina Kautsky (1885) and Ferdinand Lassalle (1859). Engels accepted their works as Realism but yet wished for a definite solution-based works of art which were missing. However he acknowledged the reasons (historical inevitability) for such an absence of socialist types of art which are:

1. The condition in which the artist or writer could take the side of the proletariat or to show the emancipation of the working class or to depict the class struggle artistically was still absent  at the time, Le, in the nineteenth  century  Europe.
2. The artists mostly came from the bourgeois class and tradition to which they were tied.
3. The creative pieces were mostly addressed to the bourgeois circle, a class not directly an ally of the proletariat and hence not ready to accept socialist works of art.

So, in a situation when overtly political/tendentitious works of art is not possible to create, when majority of artists belong to the bourgeois class and when works of art is primarily addressed to a bourgeois circle which in turn is not ready to accept socialist works, we have no other option but to accept the form of passive Realism in art which undoubtedly is social in character and should be accepted as Progressive Realism.

THE REALISTS

 (A Way  Of Seeing)

Every phenomenon in art is both an answer to the questions posed by time and a new question posed by art to its own time. The existence of a peculiar dualism in a half-feudalistic and half-capitalist culture, results in the creation of several antagonistic and multi-directional art forms. From nineteenth century onward India has witnessed the rise and growth of many such art forms which almost existed simultaneously or followed one after the other. These variations, disparities of art form are the product of one and the same society, and though it baffles us, it is all a historical reality. No’ history is an unlimited movement onward and upward in line and ideals, if there is a logic and method in history, there are also trends to pull back the force and movement of history from achieving it ideals, there is also freedom to dislocate all methodological logic. Every art from in a particular century/epoch has its special qualities,

it lives and realizes the entire sum of its possibilities within the era/epoch to its maximum limit and when all the possibilities of expression representing the society, the people is exhausted it dies its natural death. Initially the group faced many difficult problems vis-a-vis its position- in contemporary Indian art. Among these, two important problems were:

1. The heavy  weight of Indian  tradition,  the  folk and  especially the  ideas  of Havell, Abanindranath and others, which is neither easy to reject nor easy to update in the context of the changed situation of the 1990′ s.
2. The imitation and copying attitude from the western tradition which is essentially bourgeois.

We realized that neither of those traditions were sufficient enough to reveal the whole gamut of social reality, of the problems which we are facing today. Our objective is to combine the social conscience with a documentary interest in a faithful though not necessarily through an accurate recording of characters and events that take place everyday. Realism in art does not mean

• simply to represent things naturalistically, it depicts the lowly and the commonplace, the ugly and the trivial correcting the historical bias. Social realism does both in relation to modem social problems, but it leads art towards the grand and the spectacular.

The realists have deliberately chosen the path of realism. Our attempt is not just adopting and including new types of subject matter, it is the new attitude of the mind which is important. Subjects can range from poverty, war and peace, unemployment, riot, protecting democratic rights and even an intricate love relationship. Chernyshevsky’s materialistic aesthetic becomes relevant here.

Art does not limit itself only to the beautiful ……it embraces the whole of reality the context of art is the social aspect of life.

We are definitely proposing a concept of art which is real, which reflects and reshapes the reality of life. The relation between the artist and the society is a dialectical one. The dialectics of life as seen and discovered by the artists may not be the same, but the artists do understand that dialectical materialism is not a different way of seeing reality physically. We would agree with Sidney Finkelstein who said:

It is a way of seeing reality with the understanding that all phenomena we see have connections to all other phenomena, that what we see is not static but a stage in a continuous process of growth or change or development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a way of seeing that gives a collective shape in comprehending reality, it is a collective attitude of the mind which is even ready to give up the so called personal style in favour of a group style. That is why we as a group have attempted at huge scroll paintings, woodcut and  linocut folios based on common themes. This effort is also a process of learning the truths of life, of sharing and understanding each others stylistic traits and habits. At the same time it is a process of unlearning the academic way of looking at things, depicting them in a standardized routine formula in terms of techniques and mediums. The group believes more in the consistency of attitudes rather than depend upon individualistic stylized idioms which is normally regarded as the artists own style.

 

We admit that the concept of style is very complex. A style can mean the specific organization of a form, it could mean something deeper and beyond that specific form and finally that all styles grow directly from the society which produces art. There is also a concept of individual style, national style, regional style or epochal style.

 

But can there really be a national style such as American style, or a regional style like Florida style? It is true that an artists particular style can be referred to as the artist’s own style but that too in the context of prevailing styles of other artists of that particular period. Actually, the concept of style transcends the individual and is not exclusively determined by regional or national qualities, although some styles may prevail during a certain period in a region or a country. A style is a combination of elements, themes or motifs, forms and techniques. Themes makeup content of style and each style has its favorite themes.

 

The exhibits here show a variety of themes expressing the particularity of the people’s life,their pleasures and pains, their concerns and problems, their longings and their dreams. The exhibits also focus on a variety of approaches to reality, with varying degrees of success, though stylistically they mirror the collective tendencies of the group.

 

Sumantra’s Homage to Safdar completely abandons naturalism. Thematically it is a conceptualization from reality and stylistically he uses symbols, expressionist devices which in Sumantra’s usage is also realist. Symbols are used here not to express a personal vision, but the elements are only converted as an expressive medium. The painting stretched to six panels uses the narrative elements of a mural. It is a visualization of conceptualized events happening within a.definite time-space frame which in turn is transformed into reality when it is actually performed. And that was the.occasion when it was painted .i.e, on the first death anniversary of Safdar Hasmi.

Suranjan’s painting Collective labour is a realistic theme executed in naturalistic devices. Naturalistic details have been introduced to emphasize movement in space, perspective distortions have been used to heighten compositional unity and character. The Supervisor who watches the workers with hands in his pockets takes an arrogant posture and the buildings, a potent symbol of money and power serves as a direct antitheses to the workers cause in general. Naturalistic details help us to identify the workers from the rest of the objects/figures and once this recognizability is achieved they become real, especially through the extreme emotive force of the two working men almost turning their faces to the audience with the message of helplessness/sorrow contradicted by anger and hatred. The painting is a powerful expression of the oppressed labor.

 

The profound simplicity of Pinaki’s etching Mother and Child savagely delink us from the interplay of naturalistic details with realistic themes of Suranjan. The locale of the picture can be placed anywhere in Africa or Latin America. The departure from the naturalistic details sets the picture apparently in an emotionless frame. It is the representation of the stark reality of Africa people’s struggle for freedom from the racist, colonial power. The beauty of the work is its superb draftsmanship and excellent distribution of forms, the essence of which is to reveal the dialectics of love and hate, of war and peace and of life and death. Cool and calculated division of space, almost a geometrical construction built up on the left hand side of the picture, transmit a mood of coldness via death but the human plane on the right side exposes an universal feeling of love, compassion and life almost negating the death aspect shown on the left hand side of the picture.

 

Riot, a painting by Nirmal presents us with a phenomena manifested in our society, an evil and terrifying aspect of religion which kills the basic fabric of our social life. The thick bush not only separates the Temple and the Mosque symbolically, but it also acts like an envelope as if a beautifully designed curtain is spread over the underlying darkness, it is the darkness of our soul, of our society. The conflict of religious values is further heightened by depicting the dead body lying in the paddy field. It is a superb effort to arouse the emotional response from the audience. Interestingly it is again a conceptualization of reality which the artist witnessed and experienced in 1984. The point of reference is not the locale, not even the actual characters, but on the social problem, on the social divide based on religious fanaticism.

 

Pulak is not interested in a predetermined theme. He works on a particular surrounding, watching and observing the characters, their work pattern, their habits etc. And what emerges

 

 

 

Riot

 

out of that is the connections which are not static, but it follows some inner dialectical logic and movement. Within the movement he places himself simultaneously as the hero or anti-hero. In Alienation, the man sitting with a glass of tea before him is none other than the artist himself. Caught in the network of activity around him, he takes great pleasure in watching people work but at the same time he has retreated into himself as if undergoing the moment of analysis and self-criticism- that he is never a part of the active moment, or otherwise he is a non-participant to the larger societal movement which goes on eternally. Could be become one among those or could he not, that seems to be the question, the viewer may ask himself also.

 

 

 

 

Black and white II

   
Dhoban                                                                     The Babu with his Dog

 

 

The Underworld  Scene

 

Sushanto’s graphics belong to the genre of hard and precise realism. Meticulously materialistic in approach to his subjects and also in his handling of the medium, his works embraces the lowly, the trivial and the ugly side of life. He draws upon the street images without either vulgarizing or romanticizing it. In Black and White-II, the interior of a room is perfectly drawn, the characters faithfully portrayed. It is this faithfulness which makes his works convincing.

 

Ramprasad, Sukanya, Prabir and Rati’s works are restricted to the particular, each one defining his immediate environment truthfully. Ramprasad depicts the life of the tribals of Andaman and Nicobar Islands where he lives now. Rati introduces the professional characters like Chaiwala, Dhoban etc. to bring out the element of pathos. Tragic element is also represented by Ramprasad in his linocut Death of a tribal. Minimum actions, introvert and unstable poses with simple bold lines express the tragic event. Bold burning flames highlight the incident. Rati, on the other hand, with the help of naturalistic details depicts the sad plight of people belonging to lowly professions with great love and sympathy.

 

Prabir and Sukanya excel in minute observation and introduce a fresh element in their work, the element of humor and satire. Though not fully explored, their works do have the potential of an explosive power. In The Babu with his dog Prabir brings in the element of humor through minimum proportionate distortion of the Babu and the dog. The man of the street watches the absurdity of the situation from a distance with a mild disdain. In The Underworld Scene Sukanya delineates through parallel hatching of the lines which creates the textural The distortions highlight the vulgarity of those who delight in such banal operations. Sukanya uses the materialistic technique to make the characters look real. The conduct of the characters: their facial and body features are deliberately exaggerated to satire.

 

These exhibits will perhaps validate the point that the expression of reality is our key concern. We obviously differ in interest, taste and background which provide us with a chance to see life in a varied way, we include the varied impulses of life and depict them through our own choices of techniques, materials and’ stylistic methods. But the uniformity lies in our way of seeing, in the consistency of our attitudes. It is this factor which encouraged us to name the group as the Realists directly borrowing the name from the first realist manifesto.

 

The Child by Nitai  Mazumdar

 

Generally speaking we embrace the whole tradition of realism but considering the peculiar Indian situation we feel more at home with our realist modes and the movement which started with Jainul Abedin, Chittaprasad, Somenath Hore and Ramkinkar Baiz during the tumultuous 40′ s of this century. Unfortunately this tradition of realism is yet to get its due place in Indian art history. We sincerely want to explore the possibilities of the tradition and hope to update it in the present day context. We are aware that all the works which are presented here may not be equally convincing, that like it happened in history we may remain a minority, but we are hopeful that these works will definitely pose a question to our time.

 

Amit Mukherjee

January 30,1990,

Calcutta._,

THE REALISTS  (A  Way  of  Seeing)
First Published,  January 1990
Published  by Sujata Mukherjee,
United Church,  Benachiti, Durgapur-13,  West Bengal
© Suiata Mukherjee
Cover:  Collective   Labour.  Suranjan  Basu
Alienation.   Pulak Dutta
Mother and Child  Pinaki Barua

Appendix 1
The Realist Manifesto

 

The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of Romantic was imposed upon the men of 1830. Title have never given a true idea of things, if it were otherwise the works would be unnecessary.

 

Without expanding on the greater or lesser accuracy of name, which nobody, I should hope, can really be expected to understand, I will limit myself to a few words of elucidation in order to cut short the misunderstandings.

 

I have studied, outside of any system and without any prejudice, the art of the ancients and the art of the modems. I no more wanted to imitate the one than to copy the other, nor furthermore, was it my intention to attain the trivial goal of art for art’s sake. No! I simply wanted to draw forth from a complete acquaintance with tradition, the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own individuality.

 

To know in order to be able to create, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch, according to my own estimation, to be not only a painter, but a man as well, in short, to create living art-this is my goal.
From: Linda Nochlin’s Realism and  Tradition 1848-1900, U.s.A,    1966

 

 

References

Linda Nochlin – Realism and Tradition 1848-1900, U.S.A, 1966 (Sources and Documents)
Amold Hauser –  The Social History of Art, London,  1972
Max Raphael- Prudhon,  Marx and  Picasso, U.s.A,  1980
Mayer Saphiro – ‘Courbet and Popular Imagery’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld          Institutes, New York, iv, 1940-41
Leonard Baskin – ‘Some Notes on Style and Reality’, New Foundations, 1 iv, Summer, 1948
Maynard Solomon  (Edited) –  Marxism and  Art, London,  1979
Jules Meir – Graefs  essay in Van Gogh in Perspective, by Bogomila Welsh Ovcharov,U.s.A,    1974
Julian Treuherg – Hard Times, U.K, 1987
Vaughan James –  Soviet Socialist Realism, London,  1973
Nicos Hadjinicolau – Art History and  Class struggle, London,  1973
Marx and Engels –  On literature and Art, Moscow, 1978
Luncharasky –  State  and  literature, Moscow, 1967
Rabindranath Tagore –   ‘Art and  Tradition’  in On Art and  Aesthetics, 1926
Sudhi Pradhan – Marxist Cultural Movement in India, Vol-Il, Yol-III,1982  and 1985.

 

Bio Data

 

SUKANYA BANERJEE
Born-1967.      West   Bengal.
B.Fine-in    Painting  Visva  Bharati, 1988.
Studying    M.Fine, in  Painting  Visva  Bharati.
Present    Address-Kala Bhavana, Visva  Bharati.
Santiniketan-731235

 

RATI  BASU
Born-1957.      Delhi.
B.Fine-in    Painting,     1980    M.S.   University,     Baroda.
M.Fine  – in Printmaking, 1982,    M.S.   University,    Baroda.
Teaching     in Patha-Bhavana, Visva  Bharati.
Present    Address -Dakshin  Palli,
Santiniketan-731235.

 

SURANJAN BASU

Born-1957. Santiniketan.
Fine-in Print-making, 1980, Visva  Bharati.
Post Diploma-in Print-making, 1982, M.S. University. Baroda.
Working independently at Santiniketan.
Present    Address – Dakshin  Palli,
Santiniketan-731235.

 

SUSHANTA    GUHA
Born-1957 Gaya.
Post Diploma-in Print-making, 1982, Visva Bharati.
Teaching in Birla Vidya Niketan, New Delhi.
Present Address-402, Santnagar, 2nd, Floor, East of Kailash
New Delhi 11 0065

 

PULAK   DUTTA
Born-1957 Bolpur.
B.Fine-in    Print-making,1980,    Visva  Bharati.
Teaching    in  Patha-Bhavana, Visva  Bharati.
Present    Address-25,Nichu-banqla,
Santiniketan-731235.

 

SUMANTRA SENGUPTA
Born-1958.
Diploma-in Painting, 1980, Government College of Art and Crafts, Calcutta.
Post-diploma-in Painting, 1983, Visva Bharati.
Working with television, theater etc. at New Delhi.
Present    Address-(STUDIO) K-30,   Hauz Khas
New   Delhi-100016

 

RAMPRASAD BHA TTACHARYA
Born-1956, Andamans.
B.Fine-in    Print-making,1980, Visva  Bharti.MA – in Painting, 983, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta.
Teaching under Directorate of Education, Andamans Admistration.
Present     Address -Shankar  General Stores, Golghar,
Port  Blair- 744101.

 

NITAI MAZUMDAR
Born-1956. Calcutta.
B.Fine-in Painting, Delhi College of Art, New Delhi.
M.Fine-in Printmaking, Visva Bharati.  1983
Teaching in College of Art, Trivandrum.                                                                                      Present  Address-Rat-313, Prasant  Nagar,  West Fort,
Trivandrum-695023.

 

PINAKI BARUA
Born-1954.   Calcutta.
M.Fine-in Print-making,  1980, Visva Bharati.
Teaching  in Rabindra  Bharati University, Calcutta.
Present Address- P.40, Garia Park,
Calcutta-700084.

 

NIRMALENDU DAS
Born-1951.   West Bengal.
B.Fine-in Printmaking,  1973, Visva Bharati.
M.Fine-in Printmaking,  1975,  M.S. University, Baroda.
Ph.D.-Visva Bharati,  1984.
Teaching  in Kala Bhavana,  Visva Bharati.
Present Address-Kala Bhavana,
Santiniketan-731235.

 

PRABIR KUMAR BISWAS
Born-1948.   Jalpaiguri.
B.Fine-in Painting,  1972, Visva Bharati.
Craft Designers’ Training Course-1974,All India Handicrafts Board,New Delhi.
Teaching  in Kala Bhavana,  Visva Bharati.
Present Address-Kala Bhavana,
Santiniketan-731235.

 

 

Many friends from other discipline are also associated with us. We would like to mention a few names, they are Sugato Hazra, Debu Dutta and Indrani Barua.

 

 

 

Violence: Double Spread- from private to the public to the ‘Life World’

As an orphan of the 21st century, now nestling under the ideological force of the new world order, I am a bit intrigued by what Foucault said in 1979:

“We are witnessing a globalization of economy? For certain. A
globalization of political calculations? Without doubt. But a
universalization of political consciousness? Certainly not”.

The question is when did the process of globalization begin? Does it have anything to do with post modernism and escalating violence in today’s world? This brings us to the main questions: What is violence? Why does violence occur? Jurgen Habermas the German philosopher says that violence exists in all societies with an exception that it does not occur in democratic societies because of the praxis of our daily life depend on the solid foundation of the communicative action. But why in a large democracy like India we find a sudden spurt of terrorist activities leading to a ‘Spiral of Violence’, violence of all kinds, and subsequently a complete collapse of trust, tolerance, dialogue and communication. Habermas says:
“The Spiral of violence begins as a spiral of distorted
communication that leads through the spiral of uncontrolled
reciprocal mistrust, to the breakdown of communication”.

Has globalization humiliated the notion of the public sphere altogether?We have two divergent viewpoints regarding the effect of globalization on various countries and culture. Habermas believes globalization is largely responsible for escalating violence basically due to inequalities, pressers to modernize and establish enlightenment values especially in the countries which still live in the dynamics of traditional/feudal life-systems. Derrida almost voiced the same concern like Habermas by understanding the inequalities created by globalization and doubted if at all globalization is taking place in the Islamic and African cultures? Derrida also brings in the problem of modernity and enlightenment or rather the absence of it in various cultures which suffer from the paradox of marginalization, impoverishment, denial of democratic rights and even dispossession of its natural resources (like oil) which are in fact the only goods left today and are ‘non-deterriorilizable’. Giovanna Borradori says:

“This situation makes the Islamic block more vulnerable to the
savage modernization brought about by the globalized markets and
dominated by a small number of states and international corporation.”

How many lies do we live with?

Derrida rightly understood the effect of globalization on the dynamics of conflict and war. The west unilaterally declares war and the reasons given for such actions are complete lies, beautiful, exact and well constructed lies. The secrets are kept as classified documents unless there is a Julian Assange whose WikiLeaks reveals the truth. Let us not forget that communication is mutual understanding and understanding cannot occur in a completely unregulated context, namely, one in which, lies, deceit, hypocrisy plotting to destabilize democratic nation – states, mystification, mythologizing and manipulation predominate. Telling the truth could be a ‘bit of ideality’, because by and large the civilization and the life world survives on lies and deceit, however, even if individuals may not always tell the truth the basic political, economic, diplomatic, military informations cannot be manipulated all the time. If such things happen a single or a series of lies can devastate the entire world.

Re-configuring the Public Sphere

If this is the age of globalization it is also the age of ‘suspicion of reason’ there is a rage against humanism and enlightenment, hence the category of public sphere is under deep erasure. The onslaught against enlightenment was initiated by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Enlightnment, they said, intended to remove fear and suffering, instead the enlightened world ‘radiates under the sign of triumphant evil because already in the itinerary of enlightenment there was a grain of violence in the form of imposing the rule of reason over other things… enlightenment is patriarchal… knowledge which is power knows no limits’.
In a counter argument Habermas analyses the public and the private sphere by drawing a parallel between the system and the life-world. Habermas distinguishes between the pre-modern and modern societies by saying that unlike the pre- modern societies, modern societies separates between productive functions into two specialized institutions, the economy and the state, or the life-world systems linked to the economy and administrations. Life-world includes both the private and the public and the debates, participations, opinion formation takes place in the public sphere which constitute the two institutional orders of the modern world. Action in the modern world is coordinated by systems which function according to an internal logic of rationality: the market is an example of such a system. Choices and outcome of action are primarily dictated by market compulsions and secondarily by the desires and intentions of social beings. The political institutions of the state function as another system determining social action and modes of interaction. On the other hand, the fabric of the life-world (the private and the public sphere) is constituted by socially defined means and ends. The socially coordinated action gave rise to the (rational critical public debate of private persons… that had its home in the sphere of patriarchal conjugal family). As the process of rational-critical endeavour heightened, deep structural changes occurred at the label of gender relation. The patriarchal conjugal family consolidated through the concept of the aristocratic world and extended families of the peasantry. The new bourgeois family was apparently related to the (permanent intimacy) which ran into the contradictory phenomenon of (playful intimacy) born out of urban mobility. The image of the bourgeois family was in serious conflict with social reality. The wish for a happy conjugal life, ideas of freedom and cultivation of cultural aspirations of the female members of the private sphere were socially and economically depended upon the male head as well as institutions that were heavily patronized by men. It is in this context Habermas proposed the idea of the ‘third sphere’ that of the intimate sphere (conjugal family) in addition to the public and private sphere. In a positive vein Habermas refers to the letter exchanges, diaries, other literary activities of women of the 18th century and places it as ‘audience oriented’ whereas similar activities were placated by Michel Foucault in the ‘confessional mode’ (Inward looking). The significance of Habermasian placing of such activities is in the ‘transfer of experience from the intimate to the public sphere’.

Is it time for us to move into a much wider and cosmopolitan public sphere, so to say, into the Husserlian ‘Life world System’? If this shift is granted /accepted it can imply that the reference to ‘Life World’ will free the public realm from the model of the public sphere as enunciated in the 18th century European background which had a clear divide between the public and the private domain. I would like to argue that we cannot reverse the wheel of history and go back to the established norms of traditional value of ethics, morality, religion, economy and culture which would then dangerously invite the three most powerful cultural and religious tradition- Hinduism, Christianity and Islamic civilization to clash and challenge the 21st century. Secondly, the rational dialogism and the communicative action is being systematically mutilated by both the political and non-political forces like religious fundamentalism, all kinds of fanaticism, market and other forces. It is true that there are new ranges of social movements like environmentalism, Civil Rights, Pacifism, and anti- globalization whose basic aim is to focus on the well being of the Life World which are constantly threatened by the system- imperatives. But simply shifting focus from the public sphere to the life world will not be sufficient to stop violence, which has become ‘interior’/ ‘domestic’.

Why Choose Public Sphere as the Umbrella Concept

Public sphere concerns of a space where private people come together as a public to share interact and exchange their ideas on a broader social, cultural and political domain. While globalization has accelerated the process of “Violent uprooting of traditional ways of life”, in a dialectical way it has also opened up the possibilities of new public spaces where cultural producers can engage themselves to negotiate the various issues of a new world order which is constantly changing.

The projects have the following signposts:

1. Re-configuring the Public Sphere.
2. Exclusive and inclusive function of geographical boundaries – culture in relation to the other.
3. Derridian notion of hospitality as against Habermasian notion of tolerance.
4. ‘Federation of people – towards a more cosmopolitan/ cosmopolitical life-world.
5. Violence – where is the ‘Other Heading?’

Amit Mukhopadhyay