"Is beauty dead? The answer
that springs from much of contemporary art is an unapologetic "yes."
-- Grime, grit, death, destruction, flesh, and flaws have replaced
pretty models, still lifes, and pastoral scenes. . . ."
While
browsing online through the back numbers of some internationally famous
magazines recently, I came across the above thought in an article
titled 'Does beauty still belong in art?' by art critic Carol Strickland
in The Christian Science Monitor (20 Dec, 2007).
Which made me forcefully recall an article I had written in 1974 in Shankar's Weekly, alias The Punch of India,
which was regularly publishing my humorous articles in the early
1970's. The magazine had no art critic, and the Editor thought I might
be able to take up the job. So he asked me to write a review of any of
the ongoing art exhibitions in New Delhi, just to see what I could do.
And
he was so pleased with the result that he straightaway offered me a
regular column as the prestigious magazine's art critic. I basked in
the glory of that status for a couple of weeks, but then found that
having delivered an extremely harsh generic verdict on the prevailing
art scene in the metropolis, I had nothing more to say on any individual
shows, and my column never materialized.
And
I am delighted to note that 40 years after it was written, the
following text is still likely to sound substantially true today almost
anywhere in the civilized world!
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Shankar's Weekly, New Delhi
23 June 1974
LET'S HAVE SOME BEAUTY!
When
I was a college student in Madras some twenty years ago, young people
who had artistic leanings had no place to exhibit their works of art in
public. In the late fifties and early sixties I was living in Calcutta,
and though I found that far better facilities were available in that
city, it was still difficult for a budding artist to put on an one-man
show. This was so because an exhibition was always visualized as a
major artistic event which attracted a lot of attention and cost a lot
of money. Usually one had to have a reputation before one could think
of projecting an exhibition, and how to achieve that reputation without
exhibiting one's work was a vexing problem which was difficult to solve.
I
have no idea how things were in New Delhi those days, nor do I know how
things are in Madras or Calcutta at present. But I can see that in New
Delhi today nobody has any difficulty in getting up an exhibition of
his or her artistic works, irrespective of the merits of those works.
There are several spacious art galleries and halls in the Capital, and
they are let out on fairly reasonable terms. Even ordinary students can
afford to hire space for several days if they pool their pocket money
and organize a group show (as they often do). Consequently, there's
hardly a day on which there aren't one or two exhibitions in the city,
and on some days there are many more.
Naturally,
one would be tempted to think that all this must be conducive to the
growth of public interest in the visual arts in the Capital. In
reality, however, most of the exhibitions attract nobody except a few
well-wishers known to the artists, and some casual visitors (and, of
course, the art critics!). The pathetic picture of the ambitious artist
sitting all alone in the exhibition hall -- with only his own works and
misfortune to contemplate -- is a common sight.
I
wonder what makes so many artists hold one-man shows and group
exhibitions in such discouraging circumstances. Could it only be a
natural wish to have it mentioned in the publicity campaign for some
future occasion that one had held or participated in an exhibition in
New Delhi at such-and-such a time, and perhaps gain a good review in the
newspapers? Or do the artists get some satisfaction merely out of
gazing at their own work in a public place, in the same way as we find
our dim reflection in a shop-window far more agreeable to look at than
the brighter image in a domestic mirror?
Missing element : beauty
It
is possible that the multiplicity of exhibitions has something to do
with the thin attendance on any given occasion ; but I don't think it's
the only factor responsible for this conspicuous lack of public
interest in art exhibitions as a whole.
I've
been consistently noticing that most of the works of art which are put
up for show in New Delhi's galleries and exhibition halls are devoid of
all beauty. Sometimes the exhibits are positively bizarre in appearance
or morbid in significance. Dismembered limbs and other organs of the
human body ; animal characteristics transplanted in human forms and
vice versa ; ugly and garish depictions of the human genitals and
entrails ; supernatural elements juxtaposed in day-to-day surroundings ;
or just an elaborate hotchpotch of colors -- these are some of the
themes which recur frequently in these shows. Paintings and sculptures
depicting such themes and totally lacking in beauty have even won
awards in certain important institutional exhibitions, confusing the
public mind and making it doubt the value of patronizing contemporary
art.
Pleasing
the critics or the collectors may be a different matter ; but it does
seem to me that if a work of art is to evoke any serious public
response, it must have beauty above all else -- whether it is modern
art, conservative art or ancient art. Having seen so much in the
Capital's exhibitions to offend the eye and the intellect, I am
beginning to wonder whether it's really worthwhile to attend these
shows. I must confess that I am only an ordinary man -- but isn't the
great public constituted by a very large number of ordinary people?
Personally I haven't yet given up my attempts to discover something
beautiful occasionally in this morass of un-beautiful products ; but
how many people would patiently go on trying?
I
just can't help thinking that if all the ordinary art-lovers in the
Capital had a collective voice, they would surely cry out : "Let the artists infuse some beauty into their work, and you won't find us avoiding their exhibitions!"
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PostScript, 2015
Missing element : Hungarian colors
Although
I did continue to attend art exhibitions in New Delhi now and then in
futile search of the elusive element of beauty, I never came round to
reviewing any of them for 12 years -- till an exhibition of
representative Hungarian art in New Delhi in 1986 forced me to come out
with a highly critical comment in the evening paper, about an
intriguingly missing basic element -- not of beauty in all cases, but
invariably of authentic Hungarian colors themselves!
I had explained that context in detail earlier (see Mystery Of The Missing Magyars, posted on 21 Dec. 2012).
