In the landscape of Indian art, A Ramachandran was a voice that was undaunted — whether it was his determination to discover a vocabulary rooted in India at a time when most artists were looking at the West for guidance in the 1960s, or turning to more lyrical renditions inspired by nature in the ’80s, after he had already gained repute for his radically socio-political works.
“Every work of art has an existence of its own. It has to live that life — it may commit suicide, live long or go places,” he said in an interview to The Indian Express in 2018. The 2005 Padma Bhushan awardee said, “Everyone may not agree with me on everything, but I am following the path I believe I should.”
On February 10, that journey saw its end with the passing away of Ramachandran in Delhi. Aged 88, he was suffering from kidney ailments. “He was truly an artist of the nation and his demise is a loss to the nation, not just the art community,” said artist Paramjit Singh. Also colleagues for almost 30 years at Jamia Millia Islamia, the two played a pivotal role in working towards the establishment of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the institution. “He revalidated tradition in our contemporary times and was able to assimilate his larger understanding of the mythological, literary, aesthetical as well as the musical in his art practice, with a universal appeal and resonance,” said artist Rajeev Lochan, former director of National Gallery of Modern Art, who also worked with Ramachandran at Jamia from 1980 to 1991.
Born in Attingal, Kerala, Ramachandran often recalled being captivated by the temple murals that he saw as a child in Kerala. Little did he know that the scribblings he drew on the walls of his home were just the beginning of his portrayals as an artist. Well-versed with the writings of authors such as Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Saadat Hasan Manto and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the postgraduate in Malayalam literature decided to pursue a scholarship on Kerala mural art at Santiniketan after a chance encounter with Ramkinkar Baij’s iconic sculpture ‘Santhal Family’ in a book. “That was the first time I saw a work that had the qualities of an Indian sculpture, and I was awed by how a great work can touch you even as an image. It was then that I decided to go to Santiniketan,” recalled Ramachandran in an interview to The Indian Express a few months ago. The subsequent experiences and learnings were life-long lessons. While the emphasis on free expression by teachers such as Benode Behari Mukherjee and Baij was to become a principle he imbibed, the “miseries of life” that he was exposed to through the hundreds of refugees at the Sealdah station (Kolkata) reflected in his early paintings. If in ‘Kali Puja’ (1972) the terrorising figures responded to the Naxal movement, ‘End of Yadavas’ (1973) warned of an apocalyptic future.
The incentive of receiving a regular stipend by Delhi’s Kumar Gallery in the ’60s brought him to the Capital, but Ramachandran continued to challenge convention. With influences spanning from Indian miniatures to Ajanta paintings, Kerala and Mexican murals to nature, the subtle layers of his art required intricate re-readings. His decision to abandon politically explicit works after witnessing violence on the streets of Delhi during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots might have been met with abundant criticism from within the art community, but Ramachandran was unfazed. “I was accused of taking modern Indian art 200 years backwards. It was as if I had done a criminal act. My works were described as decorative, and people said my colours were gaudy and cheap. I was suddenly an outcast and was rarely invited for exhibitions,” recalled the artist in the 2023 interview.
Though he had found his protagonists in the Lohars of Jamia Nagar in Delhi and the Bhil tribes of Rajasthan, whom he visited multiple times over decades, it took some years for his vibrant natural settings and his nayikas to gain recognition from connoisseurs.
There was also resistance when as one of the commissioners of the Lalit Kala Akademi Triennale in the late ’70s he selected folk and lesser-known artists for the showcase, and in 1993, when he co-curated one of the earliest monumental exhibitions of Raja Ravi Varma outside Kerala, with art conservator Rupika Chawla, at the National Museum in Delhi. “Many modernists were critical of his (Varma’s) works but look at his work now; he is getting his due,” said Ramachandaran.
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Art historian and critic R Siva Kumar, who has curated several exhibitions of Ramachandran’s works — and gave a special talk on the artist during his last exhibition, which was a retrospective of his sculptures organised by Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi in October 2023 — said, “Though it is largely believed that his early period was strongly modern and later he moved away, one must realise that his work always had traditional elements, and when in the later period he is painting the Bhils and the lotus ponds that he encountered in Udaipur, he is also addressing their world view and much more. For instance, the lotus pond becomes a metaphor for what is happening across the world with regard to ecological degradation. He did not proclaim these insights but there are aspects of his work that are vastly overlooked.”
Paramjit Singh recalled how Ramachandran would approach difficult situations with grit and humour. “He had a great sense of humour and knew what exactly to say in a particular situation… An excellent singer as well, in the 1960s, when we were living together in a barasati in Lajpat Nagar, we had several sessions where he would sing Bengali and Kerala folk songs to Hindustani music to even Rabindra sangeet,” said Singh.
While his 2005 book Painted Abode of Gods: Mural Traditions of Kerala is considered among the most comprehensive efforts to document Kerala mural traditions, Ramachandran’s legacy includes the several children’s books he illustrated with his wife-artist Chameli, and the teachings he imparted to his students. Artist Manisha Gera Baswani, who studied art in Jamia and also pursued her National Scholarship (1991-93) from the Government of India under his supervision, said, “He allowed us to find ourselves in a manner only a great guru can. My encyclopedia in so many ways, about life and art, he always said, ‘don’t make art your burden, make it your celebration’, and that advice will stay with me forever.”
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