The celebrated artist, trainer and public mental Kalpathi Ganpathi Subramanyan (KGS) was born in Kerala 100 years in the past. At a deeper stage, his journey from Palghat to Vadodara, through Chennai, Santiniketan, Baroda and once more, Santiniketan, exemplifies the most effective of the thought of India. From the 1997 ebook by tutorial Sunil Khilnani to the erudite dialogue between historian Romila Thapar and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, we’ve a framework to know the contours of the thought of India. Whereas these students articulate it in phrases, the visible language of KGS offers a graphic and pictorial studying of a nation that went by means of the excesses of each colonial and post-colonial regimes.
The probing query that emerges from the world of Khilnani, Thapar, Spivak and KGS is: what does it imply to be an Indian in up to date society? I attempt to reply this by means of the aesthetic and political journey of KGS, drawing from my private interplay with the artist and from his prodigious artwork, writings and lectures over the a long time. I’m related to the exhibition referred to as Story of Three Cities. These are choose drawings he did in Beijing, Oxford and New York, and will likely be displayed at Chennai’s DakshinaChitra Museum from September 7 to December 1.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from China.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from Oxford.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from New York.
| Photograph Credit score:
Seagull Basis for the Arts
KGS was fondly referred to as ‘Manida’ by his pals and college students, and my final interplay with him was in 2012 when he had two exhibits in Chennai: one on the Lalit Kala Academy and one other at Focus Gallery. He visited Cholamandal Artists Village, the place I dwell, and the DakshinaChitra Museum, and interacted with each artists and most of the people. A effective raconteur, he spoke about his travels throughout the nation from the colonial instances to the current.
Early influences
The foremost high quality of his work is his wonderful fluidity. This comes from the truth that he was a Tamil hailing from the Palghat area of Kerala. For Tamils, it’s Malayali area, and for Malayalis, it’s Tamil area. He was born when the liberty battle was gaining momentum. Historical past paperwork the refuge supplied by Pondicherry, which was below French management, to Aurobindo Ghose and Subramania Bharati. Mahe supplied KGS an identical escape from English colonialism. Mahe at present stays part of the Union Territory of Puducherry, however is located nicely inside the Malabar area of Kerala.
He lived in Mahe till he was 17 after which moved to Chennai. Originally of his great journey of curiosity, magnificence, belonging and independence, he took a serious determination that remained his hallmark all through his creative existence: he signed his works as ‘Mani’ in Tamil.
Okay.G. Subramanyan in Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan.
| Photograph Credit score:
Seagull Basis for the Arts
Most biographical references document the truth that KGS did economics at Presidency Faculty in Chennai. His involvement within the freedom battle led to his incarceration and he was debarred from authorities faculties. His interactions with D.P. Roy Choudhury, Okay.C.S. Paniker and S. Dhanapal gave him the thought of becoming a member of Santiniketan, which was outdoors colonial administration. In 1944, he joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, as a scholar and graduated in 1948, a yr after Independence. His palimpsest of methods, method to artwork and artwork schooling draw from the benevolent mentorship of Benode Behari Mukherjee, Nandalal Bose and Ramkinkar Baij. Eminent artist Gulammohammed Sheikh, artwork historian R. Siva Kumar, and founding father of The Seagull Basis for the Arts, Naveen Kishore, have documented the a number of streams which have contributed to the creative universe of KGS and his sphere of affect on fashionable Indian canvases, murals and drawings.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from China.
| Photograph Credit score:
Seagull Basis for the Arts
Not current in silos
At Santiniketan, KGS witnessed the assimilatory and accommodative energy of artwork when his trainer Nandalal Bose was invited to visually craft the Indian Structure. Chennai-based artist Okay.M. Adimoolam as soon as noticed that the Structure was the primary canvas of the trendy Indian masters. KGS’ robust thought of what’s proper and what’s unsuitable, his profound empathy and respect for human dignity, and his abhorrence of all types of humiliation got here from, it appears, watching the crafting of the Structure by Bose and his staff. His illustrated works for youngsters exemplify his unwavering dedication to the founding rules of the republic. I’ve the privilege of translating one such work for the Tamil viewers: The Story of the Speaking Face, set to be launched subsequent yr.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from Oxford.
| Photograph Credit score:
Seagull Basis for the Arts
In 1951, KGS moved to Baroda to take up a educating place at M.S. College. I feel this journey from East to West was his moral and creative response to one of the vital heinous hate crimes that outlined the a number of fault traces of impartial India: the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. By going to Gujarat, the house state of Gandhi, KGS carried out a process akin to that of Jawaharlal Nehru. Whereas Nehru created a secular, inclusive state, KGS, by transferring to Baroda, created a creative oeuvre that will foreground the three ‘D’s of democracy: debate , dissent, and determination. KGS’ artwork is concurrently inquisitive and affirmative. His early works are, in a way, a creative dialogue between Gandhi and Tagore mediated by means of traces and colors.
His journey by means of numerous cities on this planet makes one side clear: whereas significantly desirous about subcontinental aesthetic moorings, he might simply weave the common into his work in an unobtrusive method. I had a preview of greater than 100 of his drawings that will likely be exhibited at DakshinaChitra Museum. They seize numerous realities: the populous Beijing, an erudite Oxford and an prosperous New York. These drawings give an perception into his world of cross-cultural interactions and break the slender nationalistic silos which might be erected ruthlessly by a number of forces.
A Okay.G. Subramanyan sketch from New York.
| Photograph Credit score:
Seagull Basis for the Arts
About cultural schooling
In 2021, I used to be a member of a committee constituted by the State Planning Fee of Tamil Nadu to have a look at methods to make cultural schooling within the State extra vibrant and efficient. KGS made my process straightforward by addressing many of those questions in his letters.
In 2008, a group of 17 of his letters was printed and these missives, in broad brush strokes, addressed the assorted questions confronting aesthetic pedagogy in India. His 1972 letter about upgrading the sculpture coaching centre at Mahabalipuram right into a Faculty of Conventional Arts, Sculpture and Structure guided my very own response half-a-century later.
In 1980, Indira Gandhi returned to energy and the excesses of Emergency had been already a distant nightmare for a overwhelming majority. At that time, KGS returned to his alma mater, Santiniketan, as Professor of Portray. However, his finish got here in 2016 within the metropolis the place he spent most of his time educating and creating artwork: Vadodara, nee, Baroda.
Story of Three Cities; September 7 to December 1; DakshinaChitra Museum, Muttukadu.
The author is a fellow of the Roja Muthiah Analysis Library, Chennai.
