(Painting by Jyothiraj Mayappilly)
A work of art functions in the minds of the viewers as
certain points of evocation, mainly of familiarity as well as curiosity. If one
of these evocations doesn’t take place in the minds of the spectators, a work
of art remains as a mere object before their eyes. An object raises its value
as an aesthetic object through its ability to find resonances in the minds of
the people who come to encounter it. A work of art also could be ‘enjoyed’ for
its sheer ‘advertised value’ which in turn evokes familiarity. For example, a
majority of the people who talk volumes about the masterpiece, ‘Potato Eaters’
by Vincent Van Gogh hardly have seen its original. However, the moment a
similar image is presented through other mediums, thanks to the sheer ‘advertised
value’ of it they start ‘admiring’ it. Even if a work of art doesn’t have any
cultural affiliations with the viewer therefore cannot expect the evocation of ‘familiarity’
in him, still he could ‘enjoy’ it if it could evoke some sort of curiosity
about it. To cite an example, I would take the most celebrated work of art by
Picasso titled ‘Guernica’ instantly generates a curiosity about it among the
viewers because the disparate images or rather (a carefully dispersed heap of) broken
images evoke a sort of curiosity that from there takes the viewers to the
familiar ‘war images’ that they have witnessed in their literature or
contemporary events. Evocation of familiar feelings or knowledge is possible in
the case of a work of art depending on the literature that has been built
around it. That’s why we often say that art history and related critical literature
are important for the proliferation of the ‘image’ of a work of art along with
its intended meanings which in turn would give rise to many more
interpretations in different cultural scenes.
I would like to ‘read’ a work of art done by a Kerala based
artist Jyothiraj Mayapillly against the back drop. I came across this image in
the Facebook and I was amused to see it. Even if I have not seen the original
work (the way I have not seen the originals of many works of art in the history
despite the fact that I deal with them in my writings as referential points and
as cultural examples), thanks to the familiarity of the theme and the
simplicity with which the images are rendered (or rather the whole painting is ‘built’)
I find this work worth interpreting. This work has a family in it. Because
there is a ‘family’ in it, even if it is not a family that could be seen all
over the world, anybody from any part of the world could ‘understand’ this
painting. This in a way ‘reassures’ the belief of the human beings that they
build in and around the ‘society’. As the basis of a society is determined and conditioned
as a ‘family unit’ anywhere in the world ‘family’ is concept that is revered
even if that family is mired in disputes, disagreements, torturing and hatred.
Family soothes one exactly the way a man lost his way in the desert is
comforted by the sight of a mirage. One knows that it is a mirage yet he finds
it so attractive and compelling therefore worth striving. In Jyothiraj’s
painting, as we see a family, ‘a happy
family’ without any past or future discord visible, we are reassured the way
when we see a painting of the Holy Family of Jesus Christ, Santhal Family by
Ram Kinkar Baij and so on.
(Santal Family by Ram Kinkar Baij)
Interestingly, this family is not a typical Kerala family; I
would say, this family is a family conjured up by the artist himself. This
family could exist in the imagination of the artist. Let me explain why; the
landscape against which the family is depicted is not a real landscape but an
emblematic one. That is the case of most of the works of art. A work of art
brings to the painting what is necessary in a painting; it could be done by way
of editing out what is available and present in the actual landscape and also
by picking and choosing certain elements from the given landscape that would
make the setting look complete in itself. Except those artists who are staunch
landscape painters who travel around the places and make paintings directly
from the ‘nature’, artists who create landscapes sitting in studios imagine a
landscape or base their landscapes in an existing photograph or picture and
then make sufficient alterations therefore the work of art looks ‘nothing more
nothing less but just enough’. In Jyothiraj’s untitled work we see this ‘just
enough’ landscape as the family on the move is flanked by a palm tree
(obviously a coconut tree as the setting is in Kerala) and a plantain tree with
a banana bunch hanging from it. Barring these two trees and a few saplings down
the plantain tree, only a green patch suggests that the landscape is lush and
green.
This family doesn’t exist because it cannot exist. But it
could exist in the imagination of the artist and it could grow into the minds
of the others who view it. This family is an unreal tableau because we do not know
their whereabouts. When we do not know someone and we encounter them quite
unexpectedly they may look quite magical. So I would say here is a magical
family and I would also say that the magic is because there is nothing real in
it and it merely an illusion. Look at the moon that has risen far in the sky.
Scientifically speaking the ‘side’ that we see in this painting should have
been in the ‘dark’ as the light source is behind the images. But these ‘people’
in the painting are illuminated by a frontal light as we see them in full
light. Now look at their shadows. Considering the shadows, we could deduce that
the light source that illuminates the painting comes from thirty to forty five
degree angle from the left side of the painting. A moonlit night cannot have
two moons at once in the sky. So the artist actually sets up these people in
this emblematic landscape. It does not come as an artistic fallacy but in
magical realism the artist does not stick to events that could scientifically
therefore logically proved.
Here is a family unit that is coming back from a village
fair after buying whatever they have found interesting there. They look content
and they do not need to go back and cook food at home. So their pace is
leisurely. The children are caught up with the toys that they have just bought
from the fair. Under the moon and against the romantic setting, the husband and
wife exchange glances while engaged in an animated talk. What intrigues me is
the dhoti that the man is wearing. This style of dhoti has never been the
fashion or habit of the Kerala men at any point of time. The men from upper
castes (especially the Brahmins who did the temple related activities) wore
such kind of dhoti. But the complexion of the man or that of any member of the
family gives a hint to think that they could be from upper caste. Besides, the
man is not wearing a sacred thread across his body. From the clothes of the
woman what I understand is that they belong to the lower middle class or the
peasant caste. All of them are barefoot and the man does not wear a shirt. From
the clothes of the children too I understand that they wear such clothes only
on rare occasions. Here, they had gone to a village fair and they are on their
way back. They had set out for the fair in the morning itself and they had
anticipated intense heat or heavy rain as the man has an umbrella hanging from
his right shoulder. Definitely they are not coming from a temple because they
do not wear any sandal paste mark on their foreheads. This leads to another
reading. Are they Christians therefore devoid of religious marks on their
bodies? But a Christian is supposed to go to a church wearing his best clothes
that includes a shirt. Generally Christians do not go to the church bare
bodied.
(Mahatma Ayyankali)
Now I am going to make a sort of sociological reading of
Jyothiraj’s painting. As they are wearing very clean clothes (white) and they
do not carry any religious mark on them, they must be from a Dalit family that
is involved in agriculture. The toys in the hands of the children show that
they belong to the contemporary times. Though the whole setting could make us
misread it as a scene from 1940s or 50s or even before that, the presence of
the toys gives us a clue to understand it as a contemporary scene. Five decades
back you could never have bought such toys from a village fair. This family is
emblematic of an ‘awakened’ Dalit family in Kerala. The Dalit social reformers
of the late 19th century and the early 20th century had
insisted that all the Dalits should get educated and they should gain wealth
through setting up business. Leaders like Ayyankali strived quite hard for
spreading education among the Dalits, even if he was absolutely illiterate. He
also insisted that Dalit should wear clean clothes because untouchability came
from the idea of ‘cleanliness’ of the physical body (as Atman was neither clean
nor dirty!). Till early 20th century the Dalits were not allowed to
wear clean clothes (even if they bought fresh clothes they had to smear it with
mud and dirt before wearing it in public). In the painting we see the family
has bought educational equipments for the children. That means they are ready
to take any pain to educate their children. The happiness on the children’s
face show that they are contented and are very hopeful about the education that
they are going to get. They are futuristic as they are playing with a
helicopter and a robot. Interestingly, the artist has not pushed a ‘doll’ into
the hands of the girl. She is also going to grow up into a mechanical engineer,
come whatever may.
Jyothiraj Mayapilly is very romantic in this painting. I
have noticed this romanticism in other paintings also. This romanticism happens
mainly during the times when the strong hold of the mediatic realism and hyper
realism wanes. Starkly realistic paintings had killed the possibilities of
imagination. Maximum what the mediatic realist artists could do was creating a sort
of surrealism in their works. Romanticism has the possibility of creating
magical realism for it runs parallel with realism and also at times collapses
the dryness of realism. As an art genre Realism had tried to depict what the
mainstream art had avoided in those days (latter half of the 19th
century) but that realism had also resisted the possibilities of turning them
into magical realist works. Jyothiraj’s work is romantic as he looks inwards to
device a time and space but there he creates a sort of realism which is quite
magical. When I look at this work again I am reminded of one of the famous
Kalighat paintings where we find the family of lord Shiva coming back from a
village fair.
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