Page 24 - Eye of the beholder

18
realiSM aS a lanGuaGe
HEMENDRANATH MAZUMDAR [1898-1948]: PENCHANT FOR REALISM
“There is a perfect balance between the divine and earthly dimension in Hemen Mazumdar’s works, which emerges from a very personal poetic vision that creates a new and singular aesthetic”. C. Corni
He was part of a new generation of academic painters that challenged the nationalist Bengal School of painting led by Abanindranath Tagore in the early decade of the 20th century. With Jamini Roy and Rabindranath Tagore, Hemen Mazumdar became one of the pioneers in the emergence of “modern Indian art” from the geographical locus of Bengal. This was made possible through their respective visions that had the inspiration from the tradition of Indian folk art, European modern expressionism, and western academic realistic style. Mazumdar gave Indian modernity new iconography of women partially draped in a saree or walking home after a dip in the river with the wet garment clinging to her revealing her sensuous contours as well as her skin. There was an elegant charm and enigma about the partially revealed and concealed body draped in a saree that was as evocative and provocative with poetic effect. This visual imagery became integral to Mazumdar’s artistic vocabulary marking a signature style of his works. Representation of women in Indian visual art fully or partially clothed was a ubiquity on the sacred walls of temples across the country as well as in Indian miniature tradition. But under the colonizers with Victorian values girding the society, Mazumdar’s semi nude nubile would have been considered unorthodox and immoral, but nevertheless a ubiquitous feature of much European art of the 19th century. According to Partha Mitter, “Mazumdar’s polemical attack on the ideological foundations of the Bengal School, which he contended, was out of touch with contemporary India. Believing in the universality of naturalist art, he insisted that only direct observation of nature could provide an objective standard. Mazumdar waged relentless war against the Orientalist till the end of his life”.
Born in a village of Gachihata in today’s Bangladesh, Mazumdar had shown a predilection towards art from a young age, and took a decision to join the Calcutta School of Art in 1910, which he did much against his father’s desires, who belonged to a landowning family in Bengal. Unhappy with the pedagogy of the art school Mazumdar discontinued and later joined the Jubilee Academy that laid particular emphasis on academic realism, but his quest for acquiring knowledge in drawing and painting remained unfulfilled and dissatisfied decided to educate himself. He thus learnt figure drawing through books and prints that were easily in circulation at this time in Calcutta. In the 1920s, he had the fortune of meeting Atul Bose, and Jamini Roy and the three became close friends, making their ends meet by executing odd artistic jobs.
Having understood the pulse of his Bengali patrons, Mazumdar who was intensely and insightfully imaginative carved the image of the seminude nubile and youthful women which he rendered in his personalized style, engaging with the language of realism to realize his intentions. Unlike Ravi Varma who manipulated the oil medium to arouse tactile sensation in the viewer through textures of silk saris and lustrous gold and gems embedded in the jewellery, rendered with absolute clarity through his felicity of the brush strokes, Mazumdar’s works stand at the opposite polarity. He marginalized opulence, had judicious choice of ornaments adorning the body as large ear rings or a neck piece that attempted to draw attention on the