Not going

Something that gives me special joy these days is the sighting of a sparrow (Passer domesticus). But that is quite rare, as the bird is almost 'extinct' in city spaces. The reasons may be many, from rock-pigeons finding crannies in apartment blocks more convenient nesting places and thereby driving the sparrows out from their close-to-human haunts, to kolam becoming a lost art, thereby depriving these small fellas out of an early morning snack at the doorways of our houses. 

Despite not having been sighted in most of India's big cities for a long while, the range of this bird is quite vast and it therefore continues to be listed as a "Least Concern" by the IUCN in its Red List. 

This painting was on display at an exhibition last year. Even if it is not the sparrow itself, it is such a wonderfully done likeness that I left the place beaming!

Pass me the card

We have seen cheaters at card games, but not like this. Bridging the real and the make-believe, the 3D gallery at the VGP Amusement Complex makes for an interesting half-hour or so of viewing. All the works here - mostly paintings, but there are a few other installations, as well - are fashioned as trompe l'oeils. Paintings that seem to be more than what they are have been around for quite a few centuries, but they continue to intrigue and amaze us. 

The trick at this gallery is to make sure you become part of the exhibits. Without the real life interaction, they are quite bland. But almost always there is a crowd milling around; even if you are not amused by the pictures, the reaction of visiting children will certainly leave you with a smile. 

Every picture tricks the eye, to twist something that René Magritte might have said. And it is interesting that the Magritte Museum is itself something of a trompe l'oeil!

Colour in the court

A courtroom is not the first place that one thinks of when it comes to beauty. But beauty does make an appearance in all kinds of places, and a courtroom is no exception. 

This one is from the Madras High Court. It was a holiday for the Court and therefore it was easier to spot the stained glass on the lunette (I believe that's what it is called) above the door. I think I would have been too captivated by the drama around the door - it leads to the Court Hall - 1, where the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court sits. 

You may also find it difficult to figure out the beauty of the lunette - the corridor is quite well shaded from the sun. And being a holiday, there was only the one tubelight along the way, distracting from the stained glass, as it were. But you don't have to take my word for it. Visit the Court and you will see not only this, but also beautifully tiled ceilings and other stained glasses - including a few over the CJ's seat!

Treachery of images

I learnt a new word during this week. Magritte. Derived from the name of the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, it refers to something that is not what it seems. The story is that Magritte painted a pipe, and titled it "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). He was right of course, for it was only a painting of the pipe and not the pipe itself. 

So, the picture up here today is of a police station. Or is it? Okay, I'm not getting all meta here. The J4 Police Station in Chennai is indeed the one at Kotturpuram, as it says on this board here. But this is not it. This building is somewhere off Cart Track Road in Velachery. The board has been placed there because it is acting - acting as a police station. 

Yes. Part of a movie. More about the movie for another post, but then, isn't every movie a treachery of images? If you've watched the Malayalam Drishyam, or its Tamizh version Papanasam, you will agree with that! 

Artists and subject

One of the attractions at the Mylapore Festival was the chance to get your portrait sketched. That's normal. There were a few artists who would also make a caricature. All of them had enough patrons; there was a queue waiting to have their portraits - or caricatures - drawn. And then, in the midst of all those artists, was a circle of artists who were doing something that seemed quite odd. All of them were focussed on sketching just one person - what is it that they were doing? Or, who was he?

Old news

What look like logs of wood are actually rolled up newspapers. Thousands of them, we are told. The artist is Manish Nai and this is his way of reminding us that there can be beauty in discards, and there are many ways of re-cycling stuff.

Take a look at it, next time you are at the Phoenix Market City. And you might also like to suggest some name for it - the artist has not given it a title!

Four-in-one

In the annexe to the Art Gallery at Chennai, there are a few paintings of the British Governors of Madras. They are not arranged in any particular order and there are four of them put together in one corner of the first floor. 

Here they are, from left to right: Field Marshal George Hay, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale (1842-48), Lord Harris (1854-59), Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier and 1st Baron Ettrick (1866-72) and Robert Bourke, 1st Baron Connemara (1886-90). 

What happened to those who held office in between these gentlemen's regimes? Some of them have their paintings hung at the Fort Museum - and there are probably others whose tenures were eminently forgettable - maybe their paintings have been turned away to face the wall somewhere! 

Display

At the Cholamandalam Artists' Village, visitors are not allowed to take pictures of the works inside the galleries. That is a big disappointment, but to make a mess of Keats, "...those unseen are brighter...". But they do allow you to take pictures of the exhibits and installations outside, and here is one of those. 

This one, by Keizo Ushio, and goes back to 1990. Titled 'Seven Thoughts', this granite sculpture took two years to be completed. Most likely, Ushio gifted this to the Cholamandalam Village in 1990, when he was invited to the 2nd International Sculpture Symposium in South India that year.

I am drawing a blank right now, but what do you think Ushio's thoughts were?

Hidden treasure

By rights, this building should have celebrated its centenary with great pomp and show five years ago. Its foundation stone was laid by the grandson of the lady whose name it bore; called the Victoria Memorial Hall, it took three years to build. Prince George (later King George V) laid the foundation stone on January 24, 1906 and it was open to public on March 23, 1909. Henry Irwin, the architect who is usually remembered in the context of Indo-Saracenic style, took inspiration from Mughal and Rajasthani designs for this building. The canopied turrets and the Jaipuri-Jaina windows got this building to stand apart from its neighbours.

The first occupant of the building was the Victoria Technical Institute which had until then been functioning from the museum itself. The VTI operated from this building until 1951, when it was taken over by the government. It continued to be associated with arts and crafts, for it now housed the National Art Gallery. There was quite a lot of art there, with paintings from the Mughal period, rock art, traditional Indian paintings and quite a few paintings from the British era. Most of those works were moved to the new art gallery building right next to this, sometime in 2003; for by then, the Victoria Memorial Hall had been deemed unsafe for use.

Last year, a renovation project was announced with much fanfare. Apart from putting up a metal screen/barricade around the front of this building, not much more was done on the renovation front. In some ways, this is quintessential Chennai: grand ideas and beautiful structures. But somehow, they stay hidden, not thrusting out in-your-face, but knowing that there is beauty here, even if you have to come over all the way to this corner of the museum and have the patience to look beyond the barricades!

Gokulashtami

The ninth avataram of Vishnu was the one who knew of his Godliness right from his birth, unlike the earlier avatarams who were completely ignorant of their divine spark. Krishna knew that he was a God and was not exactly shy of showing off. Stories about his childhood are legion and these stories are recalled today, as much of the country celebrates his birth with much festivity today.

Most of the celebrations in Chennai are of the "at home" variety. The common theme is the outline of the boy Krishna's footsteps as he trails them after knocking down the pots of butter - and then there are all the eats to be had, the music to be listened to, all of which celebrate Krishna's carefree boyhood rather than his life as an adult. 

For this day, here is a painting of Krishna with Yashoda, his foster-mother. There are several representations of this duo, but this is not one of the more common ones. But it is by Raja Ravi Varma, the man who single-handedly gave a face and form to most Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. This oil-on-canvas can be found in the Chennai museum, along with a few others of Ravi Varma's canvases. Go on, enjoy the day!

Movement memorial

In 1852, the government took over the Madras School of Arts, that had been established by a surgeon, Dr. Alexander Hunter, a couple of years earlier. More than a century later, the second Indian principal of that establishment - which was by now known as College of Arts and Crafts - was instrumental in creating a movement of painters and sculptors that sought to combine modernism with local influences of myth, legend and art heritage. That principal was Kovalezhi Cheerampathoor Sankaran Paniker. His fellow teachers, and several students pursued this artistic ideal and that group became the vanguard of the Madras Movement. 

Many artists of that movement were extremely individualistic and it seems to me something of a miracle that they held together for long enough for their work to come under a 'category'. But they did and their work, recognized as and identified with the Madras Movement is feted around the world. They came together to form the Cholamandalam Artists' Village in the late 1960s, but it was only in the last decade that the artists have ventured to create a Centre for Contemporary Art. 

Housed within that Centre is the KCS Paniker Museum of the Madras Movement. It has works from almost every significant member of the Movement. Most of Paniker's own works, however, are not here; they are not with the Cholamandalam Artists' Village, either. They are not even anywhere in Chennai, for the Government of Madras (as it was in those days) did not take up Paniker's offer to donate his works to the state; and so they moved away to the Art Gallery at Thiruvananthapuram!

Art centre

In the 1960s, when K.C.S. Panicker started what came to be known as the 'Madras Movement', he also recognized that the artists of the Movement needed to be able to sustain themselves without having to sacrifice the leisure to pursue their art. And so was born, in 1966, the Cholamandalam Artists' Village. It was indeed a village, where the inhabitants turned out art products, which were then marketed to provide them a livelihood. Over the years, the Village has thrived; it is one of the very few artists' communes across the world that has remained successful across generations.  

In 2009, the Village inaugurated its showpiece to the world. The Cholamandalam Centre for Contemporary Art displays several works by the vanguard of the Madras Movement. The redbrick building houses paintings and sculptures; and there are many more sculptures and installations in the grounds as well. In fact, some of them have blended right in with the environment that you are surprised at what turns up. (Remember the sleeping cat? And one installation, being under a Ficus, has the ariel roots finding pathways through its grooves, now)

More about the Madras Movement later. The ban on taking pictures of the displays inside means that one has to find other ways to show what is there. But hey, if you are up early today, go for a drive on the East Coast Road. And on the way back, stop at the Centre - they open at 10am, so you can also stop here on your way to brunch along the ECR. So now, you have no excuses left for staying away from here!

Painting

At the hotel that was earlier known as Chola Sheraton; now labelled My Fortune

Old view

Have you ever wondered about what Madras would have looked like in the middle of the eighteenth century? If so, all you have to do to satisfy your curiosity is to walk along to the Fort Museum. Apart from all those statues - that of Cornwallis being the most in-your-face - there are quite a few paintings showing various facets of the fort. 

This one seemed especially nice; the ships coming in from the sea appear to be firing their cannons. But the fort itself seems quite unperturbed by this aggression. Notice the gate of the fort. It opens out almost into the sea itself; at high tide, the sea was right there at the gate - even now that eastern gate is also referred to as the Sea Gate. 

Maybe everyone in the fort knew that the 'Madras Roads' would not allow the ships to get close enough to inflict any serious damage!

  

Different inside

The St Thomas Garrison Church has quite a bit in common with the St Clement Danes in the Strand, London. In the first place, both churches are closely connected with the armed forces: the one in Madras was raised to cater to the military establishment between the Mount and Pallavaram and the one in the Strand is now the Central Church of the Royal Air Force. Both buildings have had some restoration done due to aircraft. Luftwaffe bombers gutted St Clements during the London Blitz; the steeple of the Garrison Church had to be reduced in height to enable planes land at the Meenambakkam airport.

Such similarities should not surprise us, because the Garrison Church was designed on the lines of St Clement Danes. However, the replication of the design seems to have been confined to the outside, unless the original was unrecognisably altered during its restoration. A significant difference is that the altar does not have a grand reredos, preferring to keep it simple with a small altarpiece. 

That altarpiece too, was not painted by any famous painter, or even a 'professional' painter. The work of Major John Robinson, it shows Jesus asking Thomas to touch his wounds. On the evidence of this painting, and a lack of any leads towards the Major's martial exploits, he was probably quite a peace-loving military officer!

Pieta

Saw a news item today about MF Hussain dreaming of returning to India; it is sad that an old man (he is 94 now) is being denied the simple pleasure - his basic right - to visit his country, thanks to some fringe elements and he has to 'dream' about something that every one of us takes for granted.

The news item reminded me of this photograph of a Hussain, from the collection of Sara Abraham, a Chennai-based collector. Hussain didn't title this one Pieta; in fact, I don't think he titled it at all, because many of the paintings in this (rare) exhibition of her private collection were personal gifts to Sara, rather than something she acquired from the market. MF Hussain had sent over two new paintings for Sara's 80th birthday last year - at least there are way for his works to come back here, even if it is difficult for the man himself!

Artistic asymmetry

When you stand directly in front of what was once the main entrance to this building (that's the middle arch, now partially walled up), you will be struck by the lack of balance between its two sides. Though this perspective does not show it up that prominently, you can still make out the differences between the two sides. Without doubt, it was done deliberately by Robert Fellowes Chisholm, when he designed it almost one hundred and fifty years ago, because it appears to be something that might well have been cutting edge in the 1860s - and this is a building which needed a cutting-edge design.

Founded as a private institution by Dr. Alexander Hunter in 1850, the Madras School of Arts was taken over by the Government within two years. Though Dr. Hunter continued to be in charge, the institution was renamed the Government School of Industrial Arts, with an Industrial department that turned out building material and accesories, while the Artistic department focussed on drawing / painting, engraving and pottery. Over time, the School included other specializations like photography, sculptre and extended into metal-working. Though the Madras School was not the first formal school for art in India, it was a formidable counterpoint to the Bengal School, producing some of the famous artists and sculptors of the time. Rather ironically, its first Indian principal, in 1929, was Devi Prasad Roy Choudury who had studied his art in the Bengal School and then broke away from it. The Madras School has also had its share of break-aways, the most famous being the Cholamandal Artists village, founded by KCS Panicker, a former principal of the College of Arts and Crafts (as it is now known) along with some of his former students.

It is easy to pass by this building, right on Poonamallee High Road, without paying much attention to it. But the next time, look out for a unique feature of this building; the fish-scale roof tiles (you can see them if you click on the photo to enlarge it), which are rarely to be found anywhere these days!

The man himself

With so many instant celebrities around these days, the term 'living legend' has been much abused. In the case of Shri S.Rajam, however, it is the most apt description of the man, because any other attempt to describe him only serves to narrow the definition. He is a painter, but more than a painter; a singer, yet more than a singer; composer, writer, teacher, researcher, a man of many parts, each of which would be a fulfilling life by itself. Yet, going into his 90s, Rajam shows no sign of slowing down. The voice may not hold out for a full concert today, but it is still clear enough to hold down the listener. The eyes sparkle with life, with the joy of being; they are sharp enough to discern, without spectacles, the subtle shades that he colours his paintings in. The energy that he radiates will liven up even the most weary pessimist.

With teachers like Ariyakudi Ramanujam Iyer, Papanasam Sivan and Madurai Mani Iyer, Rajam's musical talent blossomed early; at thirteen, he began giving public performances. By the time he finished school, he had not only given several stage performances but had also acted in three movies - the first being 'Seetha Kalyanam', produced by Prabhat Studios of Pune (R.V.Shantaram, one of the founders of Prabhat, was trying to offset the losses incurred by the first Indian colour film, Sairandhri and offered produce a Tamizh film with the same sets and props). Rajam played Rama and his sister Jayalakshmi played the role of Seetha - this casting offended many and they strongly castigated the father, Sundaram Iyer, for allowing his children to play the roles of husband and wife! (Incidentally, that movie also had Sundaram Iyer acting as Janaka, while two more of his children, Saraswathi and Balachander, acted as Urmila and as a child musician in Ravana's court, respectively)

Maybe that was a factor in Rajam moving onto art; he joined the Government of Madras School of Arts and Crafts. With his immense talent, he completed the six year course in four years. He developed his own style, blending his love of music with classical art to give visual form to musical notes, picturing the flow of several ragas and of course, countless portraits of Carnatic music composers and Tamizh poet-saints across the ages. That his work is still very much in demand is evident from the stack of semi-finished paintings on his table!

Listen to Shri Rajam talk about life in those days or watch him sketching in a notebook.

A picture of the trinity

Everybody knows of the Trinity. No, not the ones of religion, but those of Carnatic music. And if you know of them, I'll bet that even as you read this, you will be seeing them sitting together, Dikshitar with his veena, Thyagarajar and Syama Sastri with their tamburus, the former facing us and the latter showing us his left profile. I'm sure I've won the bet, for that's how most of us, especially those who haven't read up on Carnatic music to any great extent, have known of this trinity. Even on the (separate) postage stamps released to honour these individuals, the images of Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri are exactly the same as you'd see on the pictures of the Trinity.

So why is Thyagaraja different? Part of the reason could be due to the growing influence of a versatile gentleman named Rajam. In 1961, when Thyagaraja's stamp was released, he was around 42 years old; while he was well-respected for his music and his art, the latter hadn't reached that stage of universal recognition where everyone knows the painting but has no clue as to the artist! By 1976, when Dikshitar was accorded the honour of a postage stamp, the image was the one that Rajam was also basing his work upon, for that meant quick recognition. In 1985, when the stamp on Syama Sastri was being prepared, Rajam's painting was used as the basis for the stamp (but credit was apparently not given). The story goes that an unknown artist had begun work on a portrait of Sastri, but could only complete it till the neck before composer's death. It was Rajam who gave it a body and, in the 1940s, brought together the three greats when the Music Academy commissioned him to paint the Trinity.

Since then, Rajam has made literally hundreds of the Trinity paintings; last week, when some of us had a chance to visit him at home, he showed us a pile of the same paintings that he was working on, among others. As he sketched an outline for us, it was indeed an honour to see the image of the Trinity coming into shape before our eyes!

Next to Godliness

The gambit of using religious imagery to stop people from dirtying some spots has been around for a long while. Chennai has always been a reasonably God-fearing city so it is no surprise to see a sign like this, asking people to not dirty the wall and to refrain from putting up slogans or posters on it. The imagery of the three major religions broadbases the appeal (and maybe to remind folks that all roads lead to God, or something like that?).

Chennai, as I said, has always been a God-fearing city. People here are considered more devout than the norm. One big reason for this could be the greater prevalence of visible 'caste-marks' such as the tuft of hair at the crown or the use of naamam on the forehead among the Hindus. Even senior executives in various offices, or senior public service officers used to be very comfortable sporting some such marks; in my experience, such display is only on some festival day in other large cities of India.

Whatever that may be, the appeal here seems to have worked. This part of Jagannathan Street, just off Nungambakkam High Road used to be far more messy. I don't know when this mural came up, but it has definitely made the place much cleaner!