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Benode Behari Mukherjee (1904 - 1980)
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Lot 6
Benode Behari Mukherjee (1904 - 1980)
Estimate : 15,00,000 - 25,00,000

During the years 1936–37, Mukherjee had taken a self-funded trip to Japan and China, the result of which was a series of paintings inspired by the Far East (such as this lot) rendered in the format of albums and scrolls. This painting not only evinces Mukherjee’s response to the aesthetics and culture of Far Eastern calligraphic painting but also demonstrates the concerns of the Santiniketan school (where Mukherjee studied), particularly its eclecticism during the time. According to the historian R. Sivakumar, “the unity of the East was a common theme among the artists and scholars of indigenous modernism.” Scholars and artists such as Kakuzō Okakura, Ananda Coomaraswamy, E.B. Havell and Rabindranath Tagore—all of whom were associated with Santiniketan—“talked of this unity at different levels and depths, connecting it with their readings of the past and their dreams of the future.” Mukherjee’s work came to be emblematic of some of their ideals as well as his own personal vision in creating an authentic, Modern language in Bengal. 


The painting is also indicative of Mukherjee's lifelong interest in nature. Sivakumar clarifies this in the catalogue to Mukherjee’s centenary retrospective exhibition. 


From 1940 onwards the influence of Far Eastern art on his tree and flower paintings became more evident as he began to use the album sheet format extensively. Sometimes we have a whole plant, for instance, a tagar in bloom that fills most of the picture with its white flowers glistening magically against its dense green foliage, or a nayantara, its tender shoots weighed down by its lush leaves and topped by red flowers silhouetted against a bare background. And sometimes we have just a branch of simul in bloom, painted like an arm held up into the sky, or the stem of a sthala padma, its leaves and blooms fanning across the sheet. Whether they show a whole tree or plant, or just a single stem of a branch, the motifs are rendered vividly in colour evoking animation or gesture. In contrast, the ground is always left unpainted, functioning as a neutral middle tone and a notional space. And, against it, the motif is painted in all its individuality in isolation and without overt theatricality...The distinctive, even individual, features of each tree or plant are noted, but the space in which they are presented is left undefined, non-atmospheric, for atmosphere diminishes distinctness and dissolves individual reality into the generality of nature, subjecting it to the accidence of human perception. Thus, by comparison his earlier tree paintings are about the perceiver, while these are about trees as individual beings…


“In Far Eastern calligraphic painting,” Benodebehari would discover “the representational convention that would help him to bring together the real and the abstract,” and “the intellectual rigour and graphic precision” which he admired.


Gulammohammed Sheikh, R. Sivakumar, “Benodebehari Mukherjee: Life, Context, Work” by R. Sivakumar in Benodebehari Mukherjee (1904–1980) Centenary Retrospective (New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata: The National Gallery of Modern Art, Vadehra Art Gallery, 2006), 76.

Hammer Price :
12,00,000
+ Buyer premium (0 %)
 0.00
Total
12,00,000
The lot has ended
  • Collection: Oleographs, Lithographs, woodcut prints, etching, and screen- and offset prints Collection: Oleographs, Lithographs, woodcut prints, etching, and screen- and offset prints
Description

During the years 1936–37, Mukherjee had taken a self-funded trip to Japan and China, the result of which was a series of paintings inspired by the Far East (such as this lot) rendered in the format of albums and scrolls. This painting not only evinces Mukherjee’s response to the aesthetics and culture of Far Eastern calligraphic painting but also demonstrates the concerns of the Santiniketan school (where Mukherjee studied), particularly its eclecticism during the time. According to the historian R. Sivakumar, “the unity of the East was a common theme among the artists and scholars of indigenous modernism.” Scholars and artists such as Kakuzō Okakura, Ananda Coomaraswamy, E.B. Havell and Rabindranath Tagore—all of whom were associated with Santiniketan—“talked of this unity at different levels and depths, connecting it with their readings of the past and their dreams of the future.” Mukherjee’s work came to be emblematic of some of their ideals as well as his own personal vision in creating an authentic, Modern language in Bengal. 


The painting is also indicative of Mukherjee's lifelong interest in nature. Sivakumar clarifies this in the catalogue to Mukherjee’s centenary retrospective exhibition. 


From 1940 onwards the influence of Far Eastern art on his tree and flower paintings became more evident as he began to use the album sheet format extensively. Sometimes we have a whole plant, for instance, a tagar in bloom that fills most of the picture with its white flowers glistening magically against its dense green foliage, or a nayantara, its tender shoots weighed down by its lush leaves and topped by red flowers silhouetted against a bare background. And sometimes we have just a branch of simul in bloom, painted like an arm held up into the sky, or the stem of a sthala padma, its leaves and blooms fanning across the sheet. Whether they show a whole tree or plant, or just a single stem of a branch, the motifs are rendered vividly in colour evoking animation or gesture. In contrast, the ground is always left unpainted, functioning as a neutral middle tone and a notional space. And, against it, the motif is painted in all its individuality in isolation and without overt theatricality...The distinctive, even individual, features of each tree or plant are noted, but the space in which they are presented is left undefined, non-atmospheric, for atmosphere diminishes distinctness and dissolves individual reality into the generality of nature, subjecting it to the accidence of human perception. Thus, by comparison his earlier tree paintings are about the perceiver, while these are about trees as individual beings…


“In Far Eastern calligraphic painting,” Benodebehari would discover “the representational convention that would help him to bring together the real and the abstract,” and “the intellectual rigour and graphic precision” which he admired.


Gulammohammed Sheikh, R. Sivakumar, “Benodebehari Mukherjee: Life, Context, Work” by R. Sivakumar in Benodebehari Mukherjee (1904–1980) Centenary Retrospective (New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata: The National Gallery of Modern Art, Vadehra Art Gallery, 2006), 76.

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