Revolutionary Women Artists in the Expansion of Modern Indian Painting

Exploring the Unique Artistic Journey of Revolutionary Women Artists in Modern Indian Painting

by Arti Goel*, Dr. Narender Saxena,

- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540

Volume 15, Issue No. 6, Aug 2018, Pages 845 - 849 (5)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals


ABSTRACT

The painting made by the artists demonstrates their enthusiasm to convey their emotions which communicates certain setting of history and contemporary period. It resembles an individual journal of artist wherein the artist registers their torment, enduring, distress with art structures, shading, analogy and increase their own passionate articulation. Singular understandings of environment around them symbolize bland creation to portraying social parody. Their imaginative undertaking to blend Indian and present-day disposition give the work an incredible uniqueness. Important Allegory-All the women artists present a social message using images, codes and illustrations. They like to show the injury and enduring in backhanded way and are fit for connecting with the watcher in their art work. Each image has a reasonable importance, a vehicle for the artist’s self-articulation and uncovers strange parts of their imaginative art venture.

KEYWORD

Revolutionary Women Artists, Expansion, Modern Indian Painting, emotions, history, contemporary period, individual journal, torment, suffering, art forms, coloring, analogy, emotional expression, environment, social parody, Indian and modern attitude, Allegory, social message, images, codes, illustrations, injury, viewer, artistic journey

INTRODUCTION

Life Sketch of Anjolie Ela Menon

Anjolie Ela Menon was born in 1940 in India of mixed Bengal and American parentage. She went to school in Lovedale in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu and thereafter had a brief spell at the J.J. School of art in Bombay. Subsequently she earned a degree of English Literature from Delhi University. After holding solo Exhibitions in Bombay and Delhi in the late 1950s as a teenager, Menon worked and studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1961-62 on a French Government scholarship. Before returning home, she travelled extensively in Europe and West Asia studying Romanesque and Byzantine art. She had over thirty solo shows including at Black heath Gallery-London, Gallery Radicke-Bonn, Winston Gallery- Washington, Doma Khudozhinkov-USSR, Rabindra Bhavanand Shridharani Gallery-New Delhi, Academy of Fine Arts-Calcutta, the Gallery- Madras, Jehangir Gallery, Chemould Gallery, Taj Gallery, Bombay and Maya Gallery at the Museum Annexe, Hong Kong. A retrospective exhibition was held in 1988 in Bombay, Menon has participated in several international shows in France, Japan, Russia and U.S.A;.

Work and style

When she was about eighteen she was drawn to the romantic, elongated forms of Modigliani, and to the lyricism of that great Indian painter, Amrita Shergil. Shergii epitomized perfect aesthetics, distilling into her very still pictures all that was most beautiful in rural India. In France she shared a studio with a young Mexican painter called Francesco Toledo now much celebrated, and they shared the same problem, even though they had no common language initially. They influenced each other greatly; his sensitive, colourful paintings were replete with mythological creatures from Mexican lore, strange images floating in coloured spaces garnered from the bright hues of her Indian garments-pinks, oranges and purples. Few contemporary Indian artists have created a body of work of such beauty and depth as Anjolie Ela Menon over the last four decades. Her paintings reveal an extraordinary sensibility. The early paintings were characterized by a moodiness, profoundly influenced by Romanesque art. The brilliance of a Byzantine palette and sensibility illuminated her work of the late 1960s and her subject matter included priests, prophets. Madonna;s and brooding nudes;. By the 1970;s Menon;s work began to acquire an allegorical, narrative quality but the myth was of the artist's own making-a strange amalgam of east and west. Goats, dogs, crows and lizards often attended the central protagonists. Bombay. 1963 Solo exhb.. Alliance Franfaise, Bombay. 1968,71,75 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Triennale, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. 1976 Solo exhb. Gallery Chemould, Bombay. 1978 Exhb, New Delhi. 1980 Exhb, New York and Washington DC. 1980 Paris Biennale, Paris. 1986 Indian Women Artists;, National Gallery of Modem Art, New Delhi. 1988 Retrospective 1958-88, Organized by The Times of India, Jehangir Art Gallery,Bombay. 1989 Solo exhb. New York. 1993 Reflections and Images, organized by Vadehra Art Gallery, Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay. Awards and Honours Conferred On Anjolie Ela Menon Menon who has been awarded the Padmashree is amongst the most important artists in the current scene in contemporary Indian art. Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon has been honoured from different luminaries worldwide. Isana Murti writes in the portfolio published by Lalit Kala Academy in 2006 ;Anjolie Ela Menon, one of India;s best known artists; that she had her first solo exhibition in 1958

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To study on Social Interpretation of Arpita Singh‘s Painting 2. To study on Work and Style of Nalini Malani

Life Sketch of Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh (1937)is one of the most celebrated artists of the country. Deriving experiences from domestic life, she interweaved various subtle impressions like toys, chairs, ducks, bloom, fowls, plane, blossoms, letter sets and fruits in her art work. As a material creator, her advantage was clear as material, textures, weaving, examples and themes. Her kantha weaving‘s scramble like strokes interlaced in surface example. As a multi-storyteller, she weaved the story and conceptualized on-going issues in a humorous way. Taking the motivation from Paul Klee, Amrita Sher Gil, Rabindranath Tagor;s doodling, she made her own recognized style. Working in thick touches of oil shading and various washes of water shading, she made a mind-boggling set of structures and figures. Contents and content assumed a significant job in making a sort of scaffold, implying about the unpretentious things identified with painting.

Social Interpretation of Arpita Singh‘s Painting

Arpita Singh is known as one of the popular allegorical Indian contemporary women artists. Her art is an impression of regular day to day existence - genuine, fanciful, developing viciousness, social bad form and her perspectives about the situation of women in contemporary society. Her work is additionally known misery of society, nation and world. She remarks about her work,; my time and the general public I live in, have given me parts of various propensities: present day conventional and just as well known. The life around me is tense with logical inconsistencies, antagonistic vibe and removal. These show up as signs in my work. These signs speak to themselves, and do Not represent something different. Being there, on a particular space, they demonstrate another section to me. This sign is my amazement, my disclosure; Arpita Singh‘s unusual sythesis manages social and political topic though an equalization of quiet class rises with parcel of essentialness. Singh;s canvases investigate social documentation of life around her. She constantly preferred to communicate her inward inclination through solid character. Her profound reasonableness and experience of life roused her to think about the different parts of humanity. The ruthlessness of the 1984 Delhi riots had upset her, which discovered articulation in her canvases. She disclosed concerning how her significant other who was an unfortunate casualty in the Sikh people group, had been defenseless at the railroad station while coming back from Amritsar and got deferred for beyond what daily until somebody could spare him.

Paintings and Their Description

Kid lady of the hour Arpita Singh reproduces the painting youngster lady of the hour after Amrita Sher Gil by organizing structures and figures like autos, aero plane, moon, Banners, duck and feathered creatures. Singh has painted a stripped body of a youngster lady of the hour and gave her touchy age. She has meandered out into an existence where she resembles a more abnormal lost among autos and plane and secured women around her yellow ghunghat yet not covering her body totally. Her perplexity is shown through vicious hues against the dull blues and red shading recommends messy night. Environmental factors of painting pass on profound feeling in the subject that conjures the conventional methodology in regards to this issue. White Chair Arpita finished this painting not long after the homicide of India Gandhi in 1985. Pictures of weapon drifting in air; a tall plane helps one to remember the formal scattering of Gandhi's remains over the Himalayas. 22A lady wearing a white sari and a man twisted around her shoulder with look descending at the seat; show the sentiment of distress and misfortune. There is a beat up situated figure in side view whose sight toward two guns from a bend over the lady;s head, make a feeling of risk. A vehicle appears to linger palpably over the seat, between the weapons and a plane. Arpita makes the sentiment of strain by the utilization

Stylistic Features of Arpita Singh‘s Art

Arpita;s water, oil shading and drawing are an indication of her battle, presence, dislodging, and venture which makes an exchange of incongruity. Acclimatized with present day procedure, she utilizes ornamental material themes and realistic medicines. Her initial work in 1969 and onwards made up with little theoretical stroke in pen and ink resemble a woven texture. In Arpita;s own words, she starts art with principal component of arrangement, the line, the dab, and essential structure. At that organize she did;t consider turning into a metaphorical artist. Arpita paints both oil and water shading yet in 70;s she wanted to paint in water shading medium than oil since she felt that there was absence of freedom right now. Arpita treats water shading with more certainty because of size and simplicity to store anyplace.

Fig 1 Indian Art Fair Arpita Singh

Investigation of her work in another stage in 1977 prompts finding a feeling of surrealism and dream. The effect of the artist Henri Rousseau and Marc Chagall is felt in her enumerating of faces, plan work in their dresses, and in the primary character. Arpita takes motivation from the kalighatpata painting in the treatment of the article of clothing, long skirts and drapery. Arpita may have gotten opportunity by breaking the western point of view and associating it to the dream in the later stage which encouraged her production of social situated picture and emphasizd the measurement and volume of her figures in painting. During the 80s, Arpita wonderfully intertwined the figure and texture with musical profound example. In her next stage from 1988 forward, she built up a recognized style by intertwining certain components like the layout of kalighatpata. Nalini Malani is a well-known Indian painter. Exhibitions of his paintings are held both in India and abroad. The art of Nalini Malani holds a special place on the world stage. Nalini Malani was born in Karachi (Pakistan) in 1946. His family moved to Mumbai at the time of the partition in 1947. The family of Nalini was recognised as a refugee at the time of partition. The second tradition had many difficulties to maintain and earn a living. Malani received a diploma from the School of Art in 1964–1969. He is married to psychoanalyst Shailendra Kapadia and has two daughters. Nowadays, Nalini Malani is more than 60 years old, but even today, her image of a simple girl from 33-34 years ago has not changed much, as a young girl is no longer like her, but today there is no change in the tone and nature of conversation. In the sixties, she was a slender young woman who travelled through the offices of Dharmyuga, Sarika and Times of India and other publications, wishing she could get the job of making illustrations for storeys and poems.

Work And Style Of Nalini Malani

Humanities have always seemed to assert their monopoly in all the works of Malawi. Malani ;s art is a combination of bodily rhythms and tensions that have shaped their shapes over the years to create a systematic dictionary. Most of the shapes that Malani portrays have their own memories, often in changing circumstances. Today, Malani challenges the principles of art. They work against the rules in the methods of imagery, and many variations are also found in the medium content of their artistic creation. Malani says I definitely consider myself a painter. The work of painting is the same for me, as it is for a music composer who has a shikki bordesh (harmonium) that helps me to dream. Helps to relate independently, to flow through the reveries and to compose your thoughts, which in turn creates an environment for theatre work and video installation. This is evident from the representation of Malani It is that she considers herself to be a painter first, and her thoughts are also expressed in the form of images that later join with new methods and take on a new form.

Influence

Malani is a deeply committed artist. From a leftist political perspective, she was influenced by her student life. In the 1970s, she lived in Paris with multi-faceted thinkers, writers, artists and others. She recalls that it was a time of political and influential conscience. In 1987, Nalini Malani began producing a series of photos on the subject of Shlohar Chalash. Lohar Chal literally means the place where the blacksmiths live in the south of Mumbai and where Nalini's studio is located. trying to attract the attention of the common man from the series she presented. Subsequently, in 1995, Malani created a work on this subject, entitled 'Tree in blacksmith,; in this picture the tree in the densely populated area of the workers appears very light in dusty light, while in the concrete street the shadow appears to be light blue. The cows are visible on the road as well. He has two other works of note, including one of the Shine Celebrations of Life (1987), which is made in aquarelle, and the other is; In Celebration of Births (1988); which is depicted in oil colours. The work, entitled Celebration of Birth, depicts a naked woman who came to take a floating baby, with two male figures playing shehnai in the background, the whole scene seems like a dream.

Techniques

After that, in 1990, Nalini created one of her most important works of art called ;Old Arguments of Indigenism.; In the artwork presented, Nalini portrayed Farida Kahlo and Amrita Shergill together. In the picture shown, Kahlo and Shergill are shown as dolls. The picture shows that both have no children and the children have been shown in a symbolic way. Farida Kahlo appears to have a smaller Kahlon figure in her lap, while Amrita;s lap has the same shape as a stone idol. Behind Amrita is a man hugging Amrita. The picture presented thus depicts the mental state of a woman. Where she is presented as a suppressed statue due to experiences such as love, childbirth pain.

Exhibitions

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Malani participated in various exhibitions, including Place for People (1980–81) and five collective exhibitions of four Indian women artists (Nalini Malani, Neelima Sheikh, Madhavi Parekh and Arpita Singh) in 1987. It was held between 1989. These exhibitions took place in 1987 at the exhibition of recent watercolours, Bhopal, the Rupankar Museum, New Delhi and the Sri Dharani Art Gallery, and in 1989 at the Shthu The Looking Glass and the Center for Contemporary Art, New Delhi. The exhibition of six artists, Place for People, was shown in Mumbai in 1980 and in New Delhi in 1981. This exhibition presents the genealogical debate formulated by Geeta Kapoor (1943). Malani was the only female artist to be exhibited alongside Jogen Chaudhary (1939), Bhupen Khakkar (1934–2003), Sudhir Pattavardhan (1949), Ghulam Mohammad Sheik (1937) and Vivaan Sundaram (1943). The path of the field of art has opened for Nalini. Nalini Malani became famous in the art world for her narrative motifs and Nalini;s resemblance to artists such as Barodas famous artists Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, Jeramapatel and Vivaan Sundaram. Later, Bhupen Khakkar, a senior painter, and today ;s famous young traumatic experiences of a woman and her social relationships emerge very sharply in the humanities depicted in her work. As an artist, Malani has always sought to provoke dialogue by going beyond legitimate boundaries and transcending conventional narratives. She uses oil paintings and watercolours for two-dimensional works. Her other inspirations are her visions of the realm of memory, myth and desire. The rapid style of the brush evokes dreams and fantasies. Malani;s video and installation work allowed her to move from strictly real space to a combination of real space and virtual space, moving away from strictly object-based work. Her video work often refers to divisions, genders, and cyborgs. Malani is rooted in her identity as a woman and as an Indian, and her work could be understood as a way for her identity to confront the rest of the world. She often refers to Greek and Hindu mythology in her work. The characters of ;destroyed wome; such as Medea, Cassandra and Sita are often featured in her narrative. Her multifaceted work can be broadly divided into two categories: her experiments with visual media and moving images such as Utopia (1969-1976), Mother India (2005), In Search of Vanished Blood (2012); her ephemeral and in-situ works such as City of Desires (1992), Medea as Mutant (1993/201); Although her work speaks of violence and conflict, her main aim is collective catharsis.

CONCLUSION

Arpita Singh responds and passes on her quick agony through perception of rough occasions right now. She compares dream with a sharp feeling of helplessness on her canvases. The components that trigger Arpita;s art are striking surface of her oil and water shading painting and there are constantly shrouded signs that she is spreading toward each path of her canvas and it assists with entrancing the watcher to give information about the various parts of the real world. Gender issues, assault, animosity, brutality, instability, demise, fiasco all are showed through purposeful anecdote, codes and a few other pictorial methods. Nilima;s painting investigates extreme manufacture of a few feelings identified with the lady of the hour consuming issue, partition injury, Kashmir and Gujarat savagery and gore. Propelled by Urvashi Butalia ;The opposite side of quiet;, verse of Agha Shahid Ali ;The nation without post office; and;Every night put Kashmir in your fantasy;, she envisions the verse in her own specific manner, amalgamating different customary impacts of miniature painting, history, legend, old stories and different practices. Anjolie Menon;s paintings, primarily in oil on masonite board, are known for their transparent quality and haunting imagery. She uses the medieval and renaissance styles of painting to

REFERENCES

[1] Chaitanya, K. [1994].A History of Indian Painting: The Modern Period. New Delhi: Abhinav Publication. [2] Chaitanya, K. [1982]. A History of Indian Painting: Rajasthani Traditions. New Delhi: Abhinav Publication. [3] Chawla R. [1995]. Surface and Depth: Indian artists at work. India: Penguin books. 16. Cherry, D. and Helland J. [Eds.]. [2006]. Local/global: Women artists in the nineteenth century. U.S.A.: Ashghate Publishing Ltd. [4] Chitakara, M.G [2012]. Kashmir: A Tale of Partition, Vol. I. New Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing Corporation. [5] Contemporary Indian Art. [1982]. An Exhibition of the festival of India, 1982 The Royal Academy of Art, London, U.K: The Indian Advisory Committee, Festival of India. [6] Cooper, D. [Ed.]. [1992]. A Companion to Aesthetic. U.K.: Blackwell Publisher. Dalmia, Y.[Ed]. [2012]. Contemporary Indian art: Other Realities. Mumbai: Marg. [7] Dalmia, Y. and Sambrani C. et. al. [1997]. Indian Contemporary Art: Post- Independence. New Delhi: Vadhera Art Gallery. [8] Dalmia, Y. and Hashmi, S. [2007]. Memory Metaphors Mutation: Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [9] Dalmia, Y. [2006]. Amrita Sher Gil- A Life. Delhi: Penguin Viking. [10] Dalmia, Y. [2011]. Journeys: Four Generations of Indian Artists in Their Own Words.New Delhi: Oxford University Press, Vol. I and II. [11] Dalmia, Y. [2012]. The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressive. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [12] Dalmia Y. and Sinha G. et al. [2011]. ArpanaCaur: Abstract Figuration. New Delhi: Academy of Fine Arts and Literature.

Arti Goel*

Research Scholar, Sunrise University, Alwar, Rajasthan