Lot 24
Benaras
Sold
₹1,40,00,000
Est.
₹60,00,000 - ₹80,00,000
Live Auction
The Fine Art Sale (M0051)
ARTIST
RAM KUMAR (1924-2018)
Description
PROPERTY FROM A NEW DELHI COLLECTION

Oil on canvas
1960s
32 × 19 3/8 in. (81.5 × 49.2 cm.)

Signed in Devanagari upper right

‘In the work of the early 1960s, the close and scrutinising view gave place to a depiction of what Ram felt about Banaras and what he remembered as the essentials of the Eternal city. Banaras was seen distantly and almost indistinctly as a mirage almost, a wedge of intricate structure between expanses of what now appeared to be water and sky. The city appeared to be an emanation. Centuries of pilgrimages and generations of people who sought fulfilment in Banaras, their thoughts, voices, and movement, their total anonymity, the residue of their spirit, their passage through time, made Ram see the image of Banaras as a kind of crystallising memory or as a congregation of echoes. This image of the city formed only a part of the fabric of feelingly rendered pigment, fluid in movement and in suggesting the prospects of water and sky and a prevailing, pervasive mood.’ (Richard Bartholomew, ‘Nature and Abstraction – An enquiry into their interaction’, Lalit Kala Contemporary 23, New Delhi, April 1977, p. 28)

Following a decade of intense paintings that offered insight into the lives of a displaced urban population, destitute and solitary post the traumatic events of India’s Partition (see lot 16 for an example from 1959 of Ram Kumar’s figurative period), Ram Kumar’s canvases of the 1960s abandon the figure in favour of a cityscape, specifically Benaras. Even when painting Benaras, a city he returned to multiple times throughout his life, there were different perspectives that he captured in his works. While some were detailed compositions with identifiable architectural elements showing the crowded multitude of homes built on the banks of the Holy River, other works, as seen in the current example, were pared down, the focus being on the formal structure rather than specific details. Here, rather than focus on the individual structures, the boats on the river, or the steps leading down the ghats, the artist merely hints at built structures and elements of the landscape, relying primarily upon his specific choice of palette. It is almost a precursor of the abstracted landscapes that would follow, with only ‘suggestions of architecture surrounded by volumes of space viewed from different perspectives.’ (ibid.) Employing various shades of greens, blues and browns, the thickly applied impasto provides the viewer with an almost geometric orderliness, masking Benaras’ mystical energy and spirit that lies hidden at the heart of the ancient city.

Ram Kumar’s cityscapes should not be read as landscape studies, as the titles may suggest, but as autobiographical portraits of the artist himself. Favouring the noumenal over the phenomenal world, Ram Kumar provides a reflection of himself through the image of the city.
Condition
The colours of the original are less saturated and crisper than the catalogue illustration. When examined under UV light, a thin band of retouching is visible along all four edges, perhaps caused by rubbing from a previous frame. One area of retouching is visible in the mustard tones of the upper left quadrant, along with a short, thin line in the centre of the painting. The painting has been previously varnished. Overall good condition