Page 146 - Pundole's Auction M0015

82 a halo-like mass of intertwining lotus leaves and flowers in
soft, subdued tones of red and green. The idyllic scene of
PROPERTY OF AN ESTEEMED COLLECTOR mother and child is juxtaposed against the sober colours
and geometric patterns of the lower half of the canvas,
A. RAMACHANDRAN highlighting the two parallel worlds of the young woman.

b.?1935 The features of Ramachandran’s women, including the
figure here, are highly idealised. The inspiration for this
Young Mother and Green Chillies ‘ideal form’ came during the many hours he spent in
Rajasthan, sketching the members of a Bhil family, the
Oil on canvas head of which he became extremely close to. One of the
2004 daughters, a young fourteen year old girl, became his muse.
60 × 36 in. (152.4 × 91.4 cm.) The artist explains, ‘She was one of Dhowaraji’s children
and had an oval face, broad forehead… eyes with golden
Signed and dated ‘RAMACHANDRAN / 2004’ with pupils. She had a flat little nose, punctuated with a nose pin,
artist’s stamp lower right and inscribed and further a twisted bow like upper lip and a lower one which opened
signed ‘YOUNG MOTHER AND GREEN CHILLIES / like a palash flower. Her sharp chin had a cleft supported by
RAMACHANDRAN / 2004’ on reverse a long graceful neck. All these features together with a
slender adolescent body fitted well into my search for the
??30,00,000?–?50,00,000 ideal form.’ (Rupika Chawla, Ramachandran Icons of the
Raw Earth, Bangalore, 1999, p. 38)
$ 44,775?–?74,625

LITERATURE:
Rupika Chawla, A. Ramachandran Bahurupi, New Delhi, 2009,
p.?147, illustrated.

Ramachandran’s two most engaging subjects are the lotus
pond in all its beauty of flowers, leaves and curling tendrils,
and the Rajasthani maiden characterised by her strong
facial features and lean, shapely body. The current work
was created in 2004, the same year that K. Bikram Singh
and Sudhesh Unniraman produced a documentary titled
Lotus Pond: The World of Ramachandran on the artist’s life
and work.

The inspiration for Ramachandran’s female is the Bhil
women of Rajasthan. They are always shown in bright,
colourful clothes, heads draped with printed odnis, usually
worn for the sole purpose of covering up any part of the
body that is exposed. Their roles vary, from the carefree
girls who embody all that youth and childhood offer, to
young women on the brink of attaining maturity and
assuming responsibilities, to serene mother figures with
their newborns safely ensconced by them.

The current work depicts a young mother sitting calmly
with a sleeping baby cradled in her lap. The reality of her
everyday life is represented in the form of a basket of green
chillies placed on a woven, cotton mat placed in front of her.
She sits serenely, her brightly printed blouse and skirt offset
by the contrasting yellow odni with bold, blue flowers. In an
instinctive, maternal gesture, she holds the baby with one
hand while the sleeping child clings tightly onto the fingers
of her other hand. Both mother and child are surrounded by

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