K.G. Subramanyan was 92 when he passed away this week, after a magnificent innings lived and shaped with fierce energy, drawing in his wake some of the country’s greatest modern artists

For some, he was the greatest of teachers. For others, he was the doyen of modern Indian artists forever breaking out of fixed categories and emerging moth-like from multiple cocoons. To some, he was a storyteller re-inventing old myths but cladding them in new forms. Often, he could be disturbing, as he poked at the ant hills of convention with his painterly brush and unearthed the termites of hidden lusts lurking within. But one thing that made K.G. Subramanyan the great spirit he was, through his long life of 92 years, was that he always remained an artist; tending the creative force within and nurturing those who came in touch with him.

To those associated with him during the most creative period of his early life, when he fled to Santiniketan (1944-50) and had that moment of revelation when he met the guardians of Tagore’s vision, Nandalal Bose and Ramkinker Baij, at Kala Bhavan, the arts department of Visva-Bharati University, he was always Mani da, an honorary Bengali. For those who met him in later life, swathed in multiple layers of raw silk and cotton in muted colours, he was an apt representative of that austerely elegant school initiated by the Tagorean ethos.

Only some sources mention that Subramanyan’s early influences were those of his native place, Mayyazhi, or Mahe (as it was known in North Malabar), a French protectorate. North Malabar is famous for its living performance traditions of sacred dances, where the dancers, all men, paint their faces and adorn themselves with fantastical costumes made from palm fronds and sheaths, turning into supernatural beings. Some of Subramanyan’s paintings of luridly painted faces and women with exaggerated appendages bring to mind these terrifying manifestations.

There is also a very keen element of making fun of authority that is seen in Kerala that may be observed in Subramanyan’s often pointed caricatures of human interactions, particularly between men and women in moments of erotic congress. In these, he emerges as a ‘trickster’, a bahurupi who changes form continually to both entertain and enrage viewers. The artist here wields the brush like a missile, to taunt society.

Nothing is quite as it seems. It’s this enigmatic quality between the surface of his calm, almost placid, palette of colours sometimes carefully coordinated like those of a fashion designer, and their desire to provoke, that makes Subramanyan’s work full of surprises. Equally, of course, they reflect his close observation of images from contemporary cinema, advertisements and life, as he recorded them in all their curious anecdotage. To him, the great epic dramas tended to be repeated in the events that unfolded around him in everyday life.

Or, as he observed in response to questions about the recurrence of certain motifs in his work, whether painting on wood, glass, paper or a wall, or sculpting sectioned portraits in terracotta like the storied facades of temples in parts of West Bengal; whether illustrator or toy-maker: “We have our own little obsessions. And they may be continuous. But not enough to become a goal. At least a grand, steady goal. Really speaking, I don’t want any more goals and challenges. If the little things I see around excite me and link up into stories of a king, that is good enough.” (Quoted in The Flamed Mosaic by Neville Tuli.)

Long before Santiniketan, Subramanyan had enrolled at Presidency College, Madras, and taken part in the freedom movement as an ardent follower of Gandhi and been jailed for a short while. In the early 60s, he spent some time in New Delhi, both teaching and learning; he had his first brush with Baroda, which would become his second and, later, his spiritual home for two decades (1951-55 and 1961-80); he learnt the nuances of emerging art trends of the mid-20th century at the Slade School in London (1955-56); and worked at Weavers’ Service Centre in Bombay (1957-61).

A great teacher is known by the quality of those who come after him. In Subramanyan’s case, the period in which he lived and worked in Baroda created the ferment in the contemporary Indian art scene, with the dominance of the Baroda School, which produced many greats. Many of these artists have emerged as the conscience-keepers of their generation. In that garden of light and shadows, there can only be one king. Long may K.G. Subramanyan’s aura continue to glow.

Geeta Doctor is a Chennai-based writer and critic.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Magazine / by Geeta Doctor / July 02nd, 2016