What is it that makes one a master or hero of his art

I wonder what it is that impels art of a region or of a time period — almost across the board — to be similar It is true of music, visual art, dance, literature and most definitely theatre. I feel that if creative impulse be the sum total of a larger similar aesthetic, visual and aural collective experience, then its manifestation too culminates in a certain parallel that stems from analogous roots. These thoughts were uppermost in my mind at Art Spice Gallery’s ongoing show Of Masters And Heroes, an exhibition of paintings by modern masters and artists of South India: C. Dakshinamoorthy, Pon Ragunathan and P. Perumal, A. Viswam, N. Manoharan, and P. Gnana, who form an exceptional group from the comprehensive, arguable chronology of post-Independence and post-Modernism. The introspective, aesthetic experience that it presents as a collective entity is fascinating. “It is with a conscious intent that this exhibition has been given its rather theatrical title — Of Masters and Heroes — with no genre-specific or medium-specific indications,” says gallery director Babita Gupta. The title is intended to provoke questions. For instance, how do we define a “master” Is he/she one who has attained a unanimously accepted level of brilliance in the rendering of technique with the perfect projection of aesthetics Or is he/she one who has been creating art under a preferred theme and technique for many decades Or is he/she one who is able to rule the commercial realm of art, by being able to sell his/her art for an unbelievable or reasonable price It is a tricky situation of judgment, which is not going to bring about an answer that is irrefutable. However, just like art itself, these questions and possible answers are destined to rely on subjectivity. One cannot deny that subjectivity is as synonymous as creativity is to the understanding of art and art-makers. Singapore’s celebrated artists, Gnana whose aesthetic affair with the cow-imagery has become an international phenomenon, Viswam’s pulsating, vivacious abstracts and Manoharan’s poignant portrayal of the curious goat stand true to magnificence at its core. However, when one talks about Dakshinamoorthy, Pon Ragunathan and Perumal as modern masters, whose “modern” are we referring to There are abundant specificities within the extent of modernity in art — the artist-specific, the nation-specific, the city-specific, the medium-specific, the technique-specific, the genre-specific, the event-specific and even the sentiment-specific. In the context of this exhibition, the term “modern” denotes, not a chronological position to what is believed to be the period of modern art in the conveniently general context (1800 to 1970s, in the European art-historical perspective), but a cautious amalgamation of the genre-specific and the artist-specific standpoint. The modern masters of this exhibition belong to a generation of progressive artists of the late 1950s and the early 1960s in Madras (current Chennai), in many respects the artistic centre of South India. The nature of the modernity in the art that was created in South India (Madras, in particular) during this time was indeed a very focused, scrupulously conceived expression of conventional idioms in a grammar that was relatively new or from a perception that was contextually or conceptually different from the norm. It is in this very spirit that the masters of this exhibition embraced and continue to embrace the modernity in the art that they create so magnificently, bringing about a symbiosis between masterly renditions of technical skill within the framework of religio-mythological iconography and a strong sense of freedom in the re-contextualisation of traditional modes into a modern grammar, that speaks to the viewer in the international arena.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com