Drawn to Life

Drawn to Life Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal

Drawn to Life Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal

DRawing the line is the oldest form of visual artistic expression known to man, from pre-historic cave drawings onwards. every culture in the world, across continents and time-frames, has a rich store of traditional art which is drawing-based. the ‘power of the line’ to enclose or open up space, create or suggest form, is almost infinite. and the artist uses drawing in an infinite number of ways. Some might draw as practice, to strengthen or develop technique, to keep private visual notes, as experimental and exploratory exercises; others make a drawing as a finished work in its own right. Rini Dhumal does all of the above. One only has to look through her sketchbooks to see this.

Piles of sketchbooks yield a forest of pages covered with drawings that cross years and continents—bold, stark, or delicate and nuanced; washed softly in colour, textured, or simple black and white; dreamlike, fantastical, or keenly observed in documentary detail. as one leafs through them whole worlds emerge. there is history here, and geography, nature and culture. Ornamental or religious motifs, mythical figures half-animal half-human, monuments and places of worship, human life in all its chaos, swirl and spill from these decades of drawings, a flood of memories undammed.

Drawing upon a storehouse of historical details, the splendours of her childhood, and anecdotal references from various travels, she creates a vivid aesthetic in her art-making.

with 178 colour and black & white illustrations

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Drawn to Life Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal

Edited by Ina Puri

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First published in India in 2014 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 706 Kaivanna, Panchvati, Ellisbridge Ahmedabad 380006 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 • F: +91 79 40 228 201 E: mapin@mapinpub.com • www.mapinpub.com Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2014 by Grantha Corporation E: mapin@mapinpub.com Distributed in North America by Antique Collectors’ Club T: +1 800 252 5231 • F: +1 413 529 0862 E: sales@antiquecc.com • www.accdistribution.com/us Distributed in United Kingdom and Europe by Gazelle Book Services Ltd T: +44 1524 68765 • F: +44 1524 63232 E: sales@gazellebooks.co.uk • www.gazellebookservices.co.uk Distributed in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar by Paragon Asia Co. Ltd T: +66 2877 7755 • F: +66 2468 9636 E: info@paragonasia.com Distributed in Malaysia by Areca Books T: +60 4-2610307 • E: arecabooks@gmail.com www.arecabooks.com Distributed in Pakistan by Liberty Books T: +92 21 11 311 113 • E: libooks@libertybooks.com www.libertybooks.com Distributed in the Rest of the World by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd Text © authors Illustrations © Rini Dhumal Photograph of the artist on pp. 6–7, 208 by Mahesh Padia All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-81-89995-53-9 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-51-2 (Grantha) LCCN: 2014956157 Copyediting: Vinutha Mallya / Mapin Editorial Proofreading: Ankona Das / Mapin Editorial Design: Paulomi Shah / Mapin Design Studio Colour corrections: Reproscan, Mumbai Printed at Parksons Graphics, Mumbai

Front cover Goddess, see p.189 (top) Page 1 Untitled, pen drawing, 22.9 x 22.9 cm, 1998 Pages 2–3 The Tiger, watercolour on paper, 30.5 x 22.9 cm, 2001 Pages 4–5 Untitled, pen and ink drawing, 22.9 x 25.4 cm, 2000 Page 9 Animal Temple Figure, watercolour on paper, 25.4 x 24.1 cm, 2013 Pages 10–11 Guardian, watercolour on paper, 30.5 x 22.9 cm, 2001 Back cover Drawings of Fantasy, see p.38 (below, right)

Contents

Foreword

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Drawn to Life

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Drawing the Line

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Fragments of Memory: The Sketchbooks

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Anjolie Ela Menon

Ina Puri

Anjum Katyal

Rini Dhumal

Artist Biography

206

Acknowledgements

208

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Foreword

My long friendship with Rini Dhumal has been very important for me in terms of my own creative practice. As an artist Rini possesses so many qualities that I sorely lack, and has therefore, unbeknownst to her, been a sort of alter ego for me. I envy and admire her rootedness, her ability to draw, her immense sympathy for her students as a brilliant pedagogue, and the way she virtually embodies the lost spirit of Santiniketan in her persona.

Our journeys across the world together have been richly rewarding as Rini brings to each experience an almost child-like curiosity, always sketching feverishly, absorbing every visual detail which is later subsumed in her own inimitable style as grist for her ongoing paintings.

Not only is she one of the foremost Indian graphic artists, but, Rini’s vibrant paintings in oils and acrylic, full of indigenous references and brilliant colour, demonstrate how multifaceted her talents and achievements are.

This is yet another volume, a collector’s piece, which is a testament to the artist and to the woman.

Anjolie Ela Menon New Delhi September 2014

The Prayer Mixed media on Chinese gold board 38 x 38 cm 2014

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DRAWN TO LIFE

Ina Puri

Every great drawing—even if it is of a hand or the back of a torso, forms perceived thousands of times before—is like the map of a newly discovered island. Only it is far easier to read a drawing than a map; in front of a drawing it is the five senses that make a surveyor…. And this scale is then filled with the potentiality of every degree of hardness, yieldingness, force of movement, activeness, and passiveness that you have ever buried your head in or knocked it against.

John Berger

The rays of the sun streaming in were blocked out, and in the pitch-dark caves, the frescoes on the walls were aglow with an intensity that was almost celestial. The figure of Buddha in meditation loomed large eyes closed, fingers delicately composed in mudras. A hush fell over the gathering as the artists almost reverentially took in the spectacle of the magnificent friezes on the Dunhuang cave walls. The spell was broken when the group spilled out into the sunlit area fronting the caves and wandered off in different directions to explore the heritage site. All but one. Rini Dhumal stayed back, her sketchbook clutched in her hands as she scribbled away furiously, capturing the images before they faded from her mind. It had been reassuring within the darkness—the serene Buddha so intensely present before them, but the gentle expression was already ebbing. She knew well how fickle the ways of seeing were, how easy it was to forget! The composition of Buddha, with a thousand alms-bowls arranged in a semi-circular curve around the seated figure, and the sun and the moon in distant heavens, had mesmerized her. She wanted to remember always the intricate way in which the two dragons had twisted their lashing tails beneath Buddha’s lotus throne. She had to sketch her observations immediately…lest she should forget the blue of the sea and the deep crimson of the lotus blossoms. And so her fingers flew over the blank pages, filling them with images of the Jataka tales, the apsaras and Buddha.

Drawings of Fantasy Black felt pen 17.8 x 17.8 cm 1999

Rini Dhumal traces her tryst with drawing, back to her early girlhood when she spent long summer holidays at her grandfather’s ancestral home, a rambling mansion in Itakumari, now in Bangladesh. While her other siblings busied themselves elsewhere and her twin brother sat patiently by the pond waiting for the fish to bite, Rini wandered around the vast house. She befriended the elderly widows the family had given shelter to and begged them to tell her stories of their lives, of when they

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Flight of Fantasy Watercolour on paper 30.5 x 22.9 cm 2001

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Page 18 Kashgar Woman Watercolour on paper 22.9 x 25.4 cm 2005 Page 19 Head Mixed media on Chinese gold board 22.9 x 28 cm 2014 Right Untitled Ink drawing 22.9 x 25.4 cm 2008

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were young brides of the village. She never tired of hearing their stories and, in the quiet of the afternoon, as she sat listening to them, she often sketched in her drawing book the impressions of those tales. They were like fairytales—far removed from her own life in the crowded metropolis of Bombay.

Rini inhabited a secret world even as a child, a world where there was romance and tragedy in equal measure, and love and loss. She yearned to journey to Itakumari; she yearned to lose herself in the stories of the women widowed and abandoned, who had found new lives and hopes when society had almost shunned them. Drawn to lives, Rini began her journey as an artist, documenting the stories of the widowed women she had befriended. Her models/friends cheered her early efforts and encouraged her to find her wings as an artist. Studying art at Baroda, Santiniketan and Paris, Rini honed her skills as a print-maker and painter, receiving recognition for her merit early in her career. Being adventurous, she experimented with other mediums, working with ceramics, textiles and glass, holding successful exhibitions across the country. Yet, despite all her other commitments, she continued to draw whenever she found the time, and even when she had none, pursuing a passion she had always nurtured.

The shadow of myth has always been a part of her narrative; the folklores she has heard over the years have become entwined with her work, as if an organic part of her pictorial realm. The religious icons of Devi, as Durga or Kali, dominate her canvas—their magnificent personas towering over the others. Rini is an inveterate traveller, and her drawings of the iconic deities like Durga or Shiva are sourced from her wanderings across the country. She has spent hours observing the pilgrims in Varanasi as they prayed on the ghats by the Ganges. In the temples, as the evening arti was taking place, she has stood imbibing the incense-scented atmosphere of the pujaris invoking the gods. She has seen the rites and rituals of life and death by the Ganga on her many visits to Varanasi and Gaya. She has travelled across Europe and Asia acquainting herself with churches, temples, mosques and other places of worship to experience how faith impacted lives even as violence tore the world asunder in conflict zones nearby. It has never ceased to intrigue her, the inexplicable ways of the world! Across diverse cultures and faith lines she has stood unobtrusively and sketched her impressions of the people she encountered. In her studio, later, randomly sketched impressions were the skeletons she fleshed out into formal compositions on paper, with charcoal or fine pencils.

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In the artist’s studio, drawings are often chroniclers of time, holding in their stillness the passage of time. In her quiet studio, with its views of an unkempt rambling park, squirrels run amuck in the majestic fig tree as the day turns to dusk.

Within, time stands still; the sepia-tinted postcards hark back to a time when artist

Udaipur Drawing Ink on paper 22 x 25.4 cm 2001

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Untitled Drawing on rice paper 24 x 12.7 cm 2000

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gurus wrote to their students—often scribbling a drawing at the back of the letter.

Somnath Hore’s postcards are stacked in a corner, alongside old albums; there is a strange order in the disorder. The people in the photographs have long died, Somnath Hore too has gone, but Rini is a keeper of mementoes, and treasures her assemblage of memories. The images kept aside for preservation are a reference for her compositions that seek not to encompass time but go beyond it. For Rini, drawings reveal her romantic nature and the wistful hope that the world is not all bleak. The painted moment is when the pictorial realm is more consciously created, with swathes of colour and motifs building up the narrative. Shorn of these facilities the drawing has to make a distinction so that it is not seen as an imitative act but an independent exercise. Rini Dhumal’s draughtsmanship has that command and dexterity that lends her drawings substance and gravitas. Long hours of practice with the charcoal sticks and pencil while sketching random scenes or activity have helped her master the art of drawing. Today, her fluid lines are confident and assured, never waffling nor uncertain. The tableau, bleached of colour, is dramatic and intense; the monk’s tonsured head is caught in profile while the monastery is captured in silhouette. What does he see? Is he yearning for another? The questions remain unanswered. In the next bunch of drawings scattered on the studio floor, dancers are pirouetting and laughing.

In the studio exists an unreal world inhabited by characters both imagined and real, in situations that verge from the exultant to melancholic. The artist’s journey is guided by a map that disregards man-made borders and boundaries—Rini’s fascination for ancient civilisation has led her to travel down the historic Silk Route across China in an attempt to discover the mythic sagas she had only read about. As I engage with her in a dialogue about her practice, her drawings bring back memories of our travels from the Silk Route to Greece when I had actually witnessed her dexterity at the drawing board as she hurriedly captured moments from the bus/train or when we were strolling down market squares/archaeological sites. A wizened old man smiles. A lovely bride poses in the Summer Palace. An urchin begs for alms. The procession of life in its many vignettes is captured in the contour of a figure or an expression that says so much wordlessly. From afar, music wafts across the faraway lands, as a band strikes up a lively ballad somewhere. Meticulously detailed, the drawings emerge finally from the random, fleeting sketches as complete works—an artist’s homage to life.

Kamdenu Indian Watercolour on paper 30.5 x 35 cm 2000

A certain traveller who knew many continents was asked what he found most remarkable of all. He replied: the fact that there are sparrows (les piafs) everywhere.

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Fantasy Watercolour on paper 30.5 x 30.5 cm 2005

DRAWING THE LINE

Anjum Katyal

One: Ten facets of a special relationship Nearly every artist can draw when he has made a discovery. But to draw in order to discover—that is the godlike process, that is to find effect and cause. The power of colour is nothing compared to the power of the line; the line that does not exist in nature but which can expose and demonstrate the tangible more sharply than can sight itself when confronted with the actual object…All great drawing is by memory…Even before a model, you draw from memory…The model is a reminder of experiences you can only formulate and therefore only remember by drawing.

John Berger, A Painter of Our Time1 Drawing the line is the oldest form of visual artistic expression known to man, from pre-historic cave drawings onwards. Every culture in the world, across continents and time-frames, has a rich store of traditional art which is drawingbased. Children begin to draw as toddlers, suggesting an almost innate relationship with the practice. It is no wonder, then, that for the visual artist the act of drawing has been ubiquitous in the complex process of making art.

The “power of the line” to enclose or open up space, and create or suggest form, is almost infinite. And the artist uses drawing in an infinite number of ways.

Some might draw as practice to strengthen or develop technique; or to keep private visual notes; as experimental and exploratory exercises; or to prepare for a sculpture or a painting. Others make a drawing as a finished work in its own right. Rini Dhumal does all of the above. One only has to look through her sketchbooks to see this.

Piles of sketchbooks yield a forest of pages covered with drawings that cross years and continents—bold, stark, or delicate and nuanced; washed softly in colour, textured, or simple black and white; dreamlike, fantastical, or keenly observed in documentary detail. As one leafs through them whole worlds emerge. There is history here, and geography, nature and culture. Ornamental or religious motifs; mythical figures, half-animal half-human; monuments and places of worship— human life in all its chaos, swirls and spills from these decades of drawings, a flood of memories undammed.

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This artist clearly has a special relationship with drawing, with the line. One feels it immediately, even as one knows that she has successfully explored many artistic media and processes over the years, from oil on canvas to printmaking, to ceramics and sculpture. Her sketchbooks bear testimony to what is perhaps a first love. Just as they contain a series of explorations and journeys, we can make our own forays back in time and into her thoughts to create a fuller picture of this relationship in all its facets.

Pocket full of postcards. A young girl feels the magic flow from her fingertips as she traces the pattern of the alpona on the floor of her home. She both creates and follows the line, making motifs appear in an organic stream that seems to lead directly from her mind, through her hands and onto the surface of the floor.

Is this introduction to drawing linked with a deep sense of connectedness to the idea of home, peace and security? To an ease and comfort that stays with her always?

Later, as a student of art, she has teachers who themselves draw, continuously and prolifically. Drawing is something she is expected to do, as part of her training. It feels natural. This emphasis on drawing has disappeared from the world of art today, so it is important to note how integral it was to her preparation to be an artist. When she went to Santiniketan as an exchange student, she was exposed to the drawings and sketches of Rabindranath Tagore, Ramkinkar Baij, Somnath Hore, and of K.G. Subramanyan, who along with Sankho Chaudhuri also taught her at Baroda. “They had such a facility for drawing. They used to carry these little postcards in their pockets, on which they would sketch and draw all the time.”2 So, an attraction that began in girlhood was validated as a legitimate, even desirable part of being an artist, with her teachers and role models confirming the importance of the practice of drawing.

Drawing Pen and wash 21.5 x 25.4 cm 2008

One hundred sketches. The young art student would be told by her teachers—go and draw a hundred sketches. And the day would pass into the night, as she observed and sketched. “I was fascinated by the custom of going to the bazaar and sitting and sketching for hours.” There was a romance to it, a sense of being dedicated to the artist’s task, of being a transformer of reality. “Here was something that I had seen in real life, translated into two-dimensional form, on a flat surface. I loved the idea and the process of it.” The individuality of the artist’s eye, the selection, the frame, was one part of it. The interactivity with the surroundings, where what was “out there” became interpreted by the artist even as the pen or crayon moved across the paper, was a part of it too. And the feeling of being in the moment, of spinning out a connection, both tangible and intangible at the same time, was also a part of it. Moreover, as she worked she could see herself as linked to a long tradition of on-site sketching, and connected to an artistic legacy imbued with the weight and gravitas of famous figures before her. A vast collective, in which each artist’s drawing was as personal and unique as a signature.

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Animal Figures Watercolour on paper 22.9 x 25.4 cm 2005

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Ina PurI is an author, columnist, curator and documentarian. her books include In Black and White, a definitive biography of the painter Manjit Bawa, and Journey with a Hundred Strings, the memoir of santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma.

Padmashree anjolIe ela Menon is among india’s leading contemporary artists and has created a name for herself in the domestic as well as international art scene. her works in oil and mixed media are part of significant museum, private and corporate collections across the globe. anjuM Katyal is a writer, editor and translator who has been Chief editor, Seagull Books, Calcutta. a published poet, she also sings the blues and writes on theatre and the visual arts, and is currently Co-Director, apeejay Kolkata literary Festival.

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART

Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal Ina Puri and Anjolie Ela Menon 208 pages, 178 colour and b&w illustrations 10 x 11.5” (254 x 292 mm), hc ISBN: 978-81-89995-53-9 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-51-2 (Grantha) ₹2500 | $65 | £40 2014 • World rights

OtheR titleS OF inteReSt

Rooted landscapes: The Art of Rini Dhumal edited by ina Puri Mohan Samant: Paintings Ranjit hoskote, Marcella Sirhandi, Jeffrey wechsler, et al indian Painting: Themes, Histories, Interpretations edited by Mahesh Sharma and Padma Kaimal

MaPin PUBliShing www.mapinpub.com

Printed in india

Drawn to Life

₹2500/$65/£40/€50 ISBN 978-1-935677-51-2

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