Artists never become outdated for the subjects they engage with continue to be relevant in different time periods. Jamini Roy’s discourse on rural India created through his powerful rendering of the subject assumes significance in the wake of the flux that surrounds us. Last year was Roy’s 125th birth anniversary, an occasion which went off silently except a few exhibitions in Kolkata. But two months ago, the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) celebrated the modernist with a massive exhibition, “Jamini Roy (1887-1972) Journey to the Roots” curated by senior art historian Ella Dutta, who also released a monograph on the modernist.
Now, filmmaker Debabrata Roy is ready with a film on his famed grandfather, which will be screened on August 30 at India International Centre. Called ‘The Art of Jamini Roy’, the 55-minute film, deals with the evolution of his art. “So 80 per cent of the film is his paintings, some of them very rare and unseen like his copies of Van Gogh, Picasso, Tibetan thangkas. Jamini Roy’s way of understanding world art was through these copies,” says Debabrata, who made another film on Jamini Roy years ago, which got damaged. “I have retrieved some rare archival footage of him painting from that film which shows him paint but not speak. I was 29 when he died and I had recorded him painting. He wasn’t a very dramatic personality. He was almost like a sage. From morning till night, he was painting. Painting was his life and that’s how it comes out in the film.”
According to Debabrata, there are hardly any films made on the modernist, who rejected academic realism of the West, the style he excelled in, and went back to the roots. The film shows the process he went through to acquire a folk idiom. “I have shot extensively in Sushnia Hills, in his native place Bankura. He took direct influences from the terracotta temples of Bishnupur so there are lot of shots of these temples in the film.”
As for the absence of any interviews in the film, Debabrata says he feels it would have only hampered the flow, which is why he has done without them. “Why do I need to have interviews when I am showing so many of his paintings? It says it all. I have simply used a voiceover and Santhal music for the background score. ”
A book “Jamini Roy — His Life In Art”, by art historian and critic Sandip Sarkar, has also been written recently.
(The film, “The Art of Jamini Roy” will be screened at India International Centre, Lodi Estate at 6:30 p.m.)
