Page 58 - Eye of the beholder

By now Gangooly had realized that his affinity and aptitude lay in painting the specialized genre of dusky sky, atmospheric landscapes and river scapes. It eventually became his chosen genre in the 20th century, when he developed his specific style of densely mist laden atmospheric effects of sunrise and sunsets on bathing Ghats, river banks and mountain ranges. He surpassed himself in the picturesque views of the Himalayas and in the village and river scenes of Bengal. He executed many a river scapes. The river Padma was a recurring theme in his paintings as well as the mountain scene from the lower Himalayas situated near Mussorie where Gangooly often spent his holidays, and was known to have executed also the Himalayan mountain views. He painted hundred oils on the sun setting over the river Padma which led him to acquiring the sobriquet “Painter of Padma”. It can be reliably said that no other painter in India at this time possessed the unique quality of an engagement with oil technique like Gangooly. It was specifically his manipulation of the shifting gradation and variations of light, which he not only studied from nature but the transient and changing play of light on the human face too.
As an artist his visibility was made possible by active participation in the exhibition circuits and winning awards regularly. These exhibitions were held at Simla, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The artists who exhibited at these salons or the exhibitions were generally trained at art schools, but not all of them, the exceptions being Ravi Varma who belonged to a princely family of Kerala and Gangooly who was related to the wealthy Tagore’s. The exhibitions hosted at Simla particularly, did not debar Indians but most of the Indian artists could not afford to exhibit outside their home towns. The exceptions were Ravi Varma, J.P. Gangooly and few others and they became the regular prize winners.
Gangooly’s familial connection to the versatile, artistic, literary, influential and intellectual Tagore’s’ served him in good stead. His rising success and popularity could be attributed to the Jorasanko connect and his early teachings from renowned and prominent teachers that paved the way for Gangooly to nurture himself as a painter. Artists specializing in the oil medium and
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