(Artist Dr.Raman Kutty)
Paintings get lost. Paintings get found. Lost paintings live
on in digital or electronic images the way dead people live on in photographs.
Dead people leave some traces; lost paintings generally don’t leave anything.
Sometimes artists forget them altogether till they are rudely reminded of their
absence. The knowledge of loss is more painful than the loss itself. If the
artist doesn’t know that the paintings are lost they are fine; but the
knowledge makes them painfully nostalgic. Some paintings are found in the
attics, some in rolls, some in plastic pipes, some inside bubble sheets, some
on the walls of friends’ drawing rooms, some in the drawers of old tables. In
the case of a famous artist retrieval of a lost work or a body of works is an occasion
to celebrate. If he is dead and gone, still there will be some celebration for
it could strike gold in the auction market. But for a poor artist, finding an
old work is finding a prodigal son, broke and wasted, in the old age. Where to
keep him is again the question and also what to do with it.
(Artist-writer Amal Pirappancode)
Many an artist finds it difficult to keep the old works in
order and archived with proper information. Works of art generated during the formative
years of an artist are destined to be lost. They are not really lost; at times
they are abandoned. Artists leave them with their settled and affluent friends,
with a promise to pick them up later, a promise that is never fulfilled. If the
said artists make it at some point of life, suddenly the keepers of the works
remember the treasure that they hold. If the artists don’t make it in the
market, after a few reminders, the keepers would abandon them. If you see a
work of art, pretty much in good condition or losing sheen with time in the
second hand markets, be sure that there is an artist somewhere in the world who
has lost that work to a friend, an erstwhile reluctant but benevolent patron or
someone who has gone awry and needed to pawn a work of art from the family’s
holding. Each lost work is destined to be found somewhere else beyond
recognition by the people who see it, if they have not destroyed by the ruthless
time, insects and human beings.
(Lost painting by Dr.Raman Kutty)
An old work of art thus lost and found elsewhere without the
knowledge of the artist who had made it has its own use value. Those people
with spurious reputation for making fraudulent copies that exactly look like
the original, including the signature of the artist, do buy these lost works
from the secondary markets and make use of those canvases and frames for
painting on the images of some master artist from a particular time period in
his life so that they could pass it on as an original done on an old canvas
that dates back to the image in demand. The frames are equally useful. The new
works done on old canvases are framed in this old wood so that none would even
question the originality of the work. Some of you may be thinking of the paints
that have been used for making the fake image. The frauds do collect old paint
stocks directly from the company discards and use them for painting the fake
works of art. At least twenty per cent of the works that move in the market are
fakes thus made original.
(Lost painting by Dr.Raman Kutty)
Artists who have lost their works in their original format
would never try to make the copies of it. They just do not want to do that because
they consider the image and the passion with which they had done those
paintings sacred. They don’t want to impose profanity on them by painting at the
same on a different surface. Another factor that prevents them from attempting
the same works again is the time that has passed between the lost works and the
types of works that the artists are doing at present. They may not be the same.
Like everything else in the world art styles too change with the ageing of the
artists. The works may look the same but there are minute changes in them. A
singer may be singing the same song for the nth time but each time he renders
it he makes certain changes in it and is recognized only by diehard listeners.
Rendering of a song could be affected by the temperature in the hall or in the
atmosphere, the audience response, the accompanists and the city where the
concert is performed and so on. A painting is never repeated; may be it is
repeated in form with almost likeness but the spirit is never the same. A copy
is a copy is a copy even if it is done by a master artist. That’s why artists
never get tired of painting the same theme because each time they do it they do
it differently though it looks the same for the untrained eyes.
(Lost painting by Amal Pirappancode)
Dead people are dead people but lost paintings are not dead
paintings. Dead people are dead because others see them their dead body. Seeing
is believing in the case of death. A missing person, even if he is dead for
years, is never a dead person simply because the others have not seen his dead
body. There is always a chance of him coming back, may be after a hundred
years. Lost paintings are like lost people. The artists will never believe that
they are dead. If the artist has seen it being destroyed right in front of his
eyes, he would believe that it is dead. If it is simply lost, there are chances
of it one day knocking at his door, if not in the form a canvas or paper roll,
in the form of a courier boy, a journalist or a buyer himself who has come
knocking for getting an authentication certificate and a photograph with the work
from you. You never know what is going to happen to a work of art once lost
coming back to you in the form of a precious bond. Once turned into a market
commodity, a work of art can create wonders for the holders, if not for the
artist.
(Lost painting by Amal Pirappancode)
There are many things in our lives that go missing; a watch,
a pen, a purse, a gold ring, a vessel, a muffler or woolen cap. One day, as you
search for something else, they just pop up from some unexpected corner in your
own house. You wonder why you did not notice it all this while. But with a
beautiful but tired and old smile you welcome it back to your life. The work of
art thus found may look a bit out of place in your studio as it watches the
current body of works that you are doing now. But once propped up on an easel
you could have a silent conversation with it, hold it, look at it, may be cry a
little bit, exactly the way you do when you see a long lost friend again. The
shocker of your life may come when you see your lost work displayed in a
gallery that you don’t have any clue of having contacted or sold to. The shock
would be doubled if you see the same work of art is signed and displayed by
another artist! So long as you don’t recognize your children once lost in a
fair ground they could stand right in front of you as a stranger and even share
a smoke or a drink with you. But the problem floods in when you recognize your
child. It is always better to have their life as they have it now. The moment
you get involved legalities would follow, and your age and demeanor may not be
comfortable in pursuing a legal course. May be you are married again and the
current spouse do not want those middle aged children back in your life! A true
parent is an old parent who looks at his lost child after many years with a lot
of pride if he is doing well, and suffers silently if the child has not lived up
to your expectation.
-JohnyML
(Today I found two artists, Dr.Raman Kutty and Amal
Pirappancode reminiscing about their old paintings irretrievably lost due to
many reasons. Reading their views on it this rumination took me over and I typed
them out for you to read.)
No comments:
Post a Comment