‘The Universe has come out of Ananda (supernal delight),’ says the Upanishad. This delight includes and transcends all joys and sorrows in NGMA Delhi’s ‘ Quest for Freedom’. Adwaita Gadanayak, Director General NGMA, wanted to celebrate 70 years of Independence with works that breathed the nationalist spirit and fervour. Paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures give us images that awaken our political consciousness at large.
Nandalal Bose’s temperas
The New Wing at the NGMA boasts of a series of Nandalal temperas that bring alive the past. “ Nandalal and his associates produced around 400 posters for the Congress convention at Haripura, held in February 1938, ” reflects Gadanayak . “ These posters were all produced on handmade paper with pigments ground from local earth and stones, and mounted on straw boards; none were printed or mass-produced,” he affirms.
They depict genre scenes within arched niches, and these appear like windows into vignettes of Indian village life.
To imagine that they are executed in 1937; commissioned by Gandhi for the Indian National Congress Party meeting 1938, Haripura – these are a benchmark in Indian history. An esraj player, a veena player, women doing their chores, Nandalal brings an authenticity and sincerity through his choice of materials and techniques, underlying devotional motivations, and by ensuring its quality as non-derivative from Western models. The best pair of works are a woman milking a cow and a monk at a potter’s wheel. The fluidity of contours and the weaving in of colour tones in the images that personify the rural idyll are a lesson in the roots of modernism.
Archival images
Associated Press Chief photographer Kulwant Roy’s images revel in the proximity he had to India’s nationalist leaders and also shows his passion for capturing moments that were both iconic as well as full of the milk of human kindness and compassion.
Kulwant Roy’s photograph showing Jawaharlal Nehru being given a send-off by the ladies at Willingdon Airport, now known as Safdarjung Airport
Of course, Gandhi in different moods and different places is a fascinating matrix of moments but there are some more rare images that catch your gaze. The Maharaja of Kapurthala and Sardar Patel are a picture of earnest conversation. Imagine an age when there were no zoom lenses, nor the sophistication of light meters, or even flashes and contact sheets to facilitate perfect shots –everything was just for the fraction of the moment.
But Roy took riveting photographs of his subjects. Of great candour and naturality are Gandhi stepping off a third-class railway carriage, Sardar Patel speaking to the dwindling royalty of India with a smirk on his face, and the many images of the handsome Caesarian nosed Nehru. Obviously Roy had a yen for what constituted the ‘ decisive moment ’ and he knew how to seize it to give us images of momentousness and immortality.
Drawings of Freedom Movement
A series of pencil studies by M.R.Achrekar give us a glimpse of 100 years of the Indian Freedom Struggle and tell us about the shades of extremism in the face of exploitation. The drawings are like a dramatic monologue of upheaval and great unrest and the anguish of death and destruction. A drawing of great poignancy and deep angst is that of chieftain Veerapandiya Kattabomman hanging from the branch of a tree and a host of people looking up at him.
M.R. Acharekar’s sketch of Katta Bommon, who was captured and hanged publically
Acharekar, who belonged to the film world, is known to have explored new areas of expression like photography and lithography. He started a lithopress in Bombay and was noted for his brilliant career with an early success at various exhibitions at home and abroad. While he was a great portrait artist, it is the collective aura of unity that makes these drawings worthy of scrutiny.
Expressionist sculptures
At the entrance of the show is sculptor Ram Sutar’s monumental bust of Mahatma Gandhi. Known for his monumental image of the seated Gandhi in front of the Parliament, this bust is a brilliant example of the power of a portrait. The sculpture captures Gandhi’s lustrous moustache, his eyes his eloquent lips and his monarch like forehead. The work is the epitome of the spirit of freedom of India’s impassionate representative for satyagraha and ahimsa.
V. Ram Sutar’s sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi
Yet another Gandhi image is a small image of a walking minstrel by the Polish Fredda Brilliant. Then there is Ram Kinkar’s famous small maquette of Gandhi’s Dandi with a skull at his feet. It is an exemplary evocation of a man who created his own path through his ideology. However, it is Ram Kinkar’s cement portrait of Rabindranath Tagore with his head held in a downward gaze lost in thought that is the piece de resistance – the diversity of the material and the textured terrain visible in the furrowed forehead and brows draw attention to the animated expressionist surface. The downward gaze adds to the temporal and contemplative qualities that speak to us about Ram Kinkar’s response to the pictorialism of a portrait.
Sculpture of Rabindranath Tagore by Ramkinkar Baij
This bust is an exercise in reverence, it personifies Tagore as Gurudev – the thinker, the poet, the radical and the story teller. Look deeper there isn’t any exuberant praise expressed by the sculptor Ramkinkar Baij, who was then at the height of his artistry, but it does reveal to us the primordial role awarded to the human body in his oeuvre, far beyond simple questions of anatomical accuracy. There is also Sankho Chaudhry’s Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan a portrait that stands as an example of the source of inspiration in which Sankho combined an ideal human strength of character with the integrity of nature. This mélange of works from the NGMA collection creates a resonance of the spirit of patriotism, fearlessness and myriad sacrifices within the mind and heart of the viewer.
(The exhibition is on till September 17 and will travel to NGMA, Mumbai and Bengaluru.)
