Pleasurable and anxious: the art of Justin Daraniyagala
Jagath WEERASINGHE
Modernism in art is a world phenomenon. It is not an artistic
acquisition specific to western civilization, although its rudimentary
formulations can be traced way back to the Renaissance in the 16th
century Italy. Modernism in art, as we know it today acquired its
definitive configurations in the last decades of the 19th century and
the first two decades of the 20th century. From a world perspective, the
visual lexis and the compositional structures of the modernist art in
the west achieved their complex and revisionist particularities in an
historical space that arose from the western encounter of the
non-western societies. Modernism in art is both a result and a construct
of colonial encounter/ confrontation of the Occident with the Orient and
vice-versa.
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* 204 pages
* Large format
* cloth bound hard cover
* library edition.
* 183 illustrations including
* 150 colour plates
* Printed on matt art paper,
* Published by Arjun Daraniyagala, |
While the modernist artists in Paris were busy defining the basic
tenets of modernist art with cues, inspirations and motivations received
from many non-western art traditions such as Japanese, African and Asian
art, a similar process in the visual art was taking place in Sri Lanka.
A process, as in Europe, which had arisen from the historical space that
ensued from Sri Lanka's encounter and confrontation with the non-Asian:
the West. The Buddhist mural painters of the Gampaha and Colombo regions
who painted visually vibrant, thematically dynamic, and stylistically
different murals in shrine rooms of Buddhist temples such as
Karagampitiya Subodharamaya in Dehiwala or the Galkanda Rajamaha
Viharaya in Gampaha were registering a far-reaching transmutation in the
mural art tradition of the island. Their murals marked the beginning of
a different style within the Buddhist muralist tradition, definitively,
while retaining the history of the tradition within it, both visually
and thematically to a considerable extent.
Can we name this 'new' style in Buddhist muralist art 'modernist'?
Probably not, since such a categorization doesn't express the social and
political complexities of this 'new style' in the Buddhist muralist
tradition. Modernist art requires the artist to be conscious of their
art to be modern. Nevertheless what is important for our discussion is
the fact that the colonial encounter/confrontation charged a new vision
in visual art in the island, and looking back from the vantage point of
the 21st century one can see that this encounter/ confrontation actually
gave rise to four distinct art trajectories in the last decades of the
19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. The 'different
style' in the Buddhist muralist tradition, which I have already
mentioned, is one such trajectory (actually this can be called a
sub-trajectory within a larger and a wider movement of changes) and the
other three can be defined as following: the easel painting tradition
that made constant stylistic references to British academic realism and
that which was largely the prerogative of the English speaking elite of
the time; the consciously nationalist modernist artists who were
inspired by the Bengal school of art of India; and the consciously
modernist and radical artists of the 43 Group. While all the four
trajectories can be seen as 'modern' in some form or the other,
depending on how one looks at modernity in visual art, what is
absolutely clear is that the first truly modernist group of artists in
colonial Sri Lanka were the artists of the 43 Group, because they were
conscious about their position and the role in the art making world of
Sri Lanka as 'modern artists', and they posited their artistic and
creative personae as anti-establishment and anti-colonial. Their
politics in art making was diametrically opposite to the tastes
promulgated by the colonial 'ruling block' of the time. Defiance and
non-compliance, I'd argue, is necessarily a defining ingredient of being
modernist in art.
The 43 Group was an eclectic composition of artistic styles and
temperaments. This is a quality that makes them a politically
interesting grouping of artists. The rationale that bound them together
was the imagining of the nation by way of a range of artistic styles and
thematics that dwelled out side of the taste and command of the colonial
'ruling block'. This also made them the most innovative group of artists
to emerge in south Asia in the middle decades of the 20th century. The
artists of the 43 Group presented us with a range of styles that were
selectively inspired by modernist developments in art of the School of
Paris and produced an indigenized expression of modernism in art of
great ingenuity. The 43 Group is a distinctly Sri Lankan achievement in
art that could encapsulate the intellectual and emotional depths of
social, political and cultural consciousness of the time they lived and
worked.
We are not a society that publishes much on modern or contemporary
art. We really are very poor in that! Not publishing on Sri Lanka's
achievements in modern and contemporary art is almost akin to an
intellectual crime we commit on the future generations of artists and
art students of the country. Sri Lanka still doesn't have a proper
public collection of 20th century paintings. We are the only nation in
the region that doesn't have a museum or a gallery for modern and
contemporary art. The 'silver line' that occasionally punctures this
murky situation is the publishing of well researched, well documented,
and beautifully designed books on the 20th century artists by a few
committed individuals who have realized the value and importance of
presenting the achievements of 20th century art of Sri Lanka to the
public and the future generations. It can't be emphasized enough on the
importance and need of such publications on Sri Lankan art in a country
where there is no proper public place to see art. Several good and
interesting books have been published on the artists of the 43 Group.
Monographs have come out on George Keyt, Ivan Peries, Richard Gabriel,
George Claessen, and now a new book on another 43 Group artist Justin
Daraniyagala has come out. These publications make it possible for us to
see the Sri Lankan achievements in the 20th century, at least in print.
The monograph on Justin Daraniyagala, a publication of 204 pages and
150 color plates, is a kind of challenge to the readers. The image in
the dust cover of the volume is itself a challenge. An elongated
blackish figure of a woman with closed eyes stretches across the cover
while the head of an old man in profile looks at us (?) from behind the
blackish woman. What an unexpected way to present Justin! Women in
Justin's paintings are generally beautiful, pleasant and anxious, but on
the cover of the monograph we meet a different woman altering our
perception of the artist. The life and works of Justin Daraniyagala that
we encounter in the pages of this volume will further alter our
understanding of this great master of 20th century Sri Lankan modernist
art.
The manner of narration deployed in the monograph demands an engaged
interaction with images and the text since the story of Justin
Daraniyagala is narrated by three different authors and the images are
presented within thematic groups; not chronologically.
Three narrations by three authors with three different relationships
to the artist: a researcher, a friend and another artist. They relate
their encounters with the artist and his work from three different
temporal loci. Shernavaz Colah, who is also the editor of the volume,
takes us through every stage and phase of Justin's creative life/
career. She paints a detailed canvas of the artist's life. Neville
Weerarathne's narrative takes us briefly into the artist's life by way
of describing his intimate alliance with the 43 Group of which he was a
founding member. Weerarathne presents us with snippets of Justin's
intelligent and critical personality. Ranil Daraniyagala engages with
Justin's work soon after the artist's death in 1967. Then there is a
whole chapter by Justin himself on appreciation of painting. This
chapter of the book is a window that allows us to see the mind of the
artist through his own words. Justin's ideas and thoughts on art making,
as revealed in this essay is erudite. He has internalized the basic
theoretical tenets of classical modernist art and in his paintings one
can see how he has deployed those theories and techniques of art making
in a challenging manner. The narrative structure of the volume demands
the reader to be creative, critical and engaging. The complexity of
Justin Daraniyagala's work and life, I would say, demands such an
approach.
The volume's first chapter, titled Justin Daraniyagala, the artist
and the man 1903-1967 by Colah illustrates different phases of Justin's
life. Here she successfully links the different phases of the artist's
life and his thoughts and ideas on art with his paintings. While
meticulously narrating the artist's life through different phases of his
life, she contextualizes Daraniyagala's work within the broader art
historical backgrounds: both traditional Sri Lankan and the avant-garde
in Europe and India. Colah's finely descriptive and illustrative text
allows the reader to walk with the artist through his life and work. Her
essay, while being consciously celebratory of the artist's life and
achievements, opens up small windows for us to sense the anxieties of
the artist and the avant-garde art world of Colombo at that time in
history. The anxieties that lurked beneath the surface of Colah's text
gets clearer and substantiated in the essays by Weeraratne and Justin
himself. The inability and the reluctance that the mid 20th century
art-consuming audience of Colombo had shown in grasping the artistic
achievements of artists like Justin Daraniyagala (or Ivan Peries) was a
historical failure on the part of the art audience of that time. But,
what strikes a particular chord in me as a practicing artist is the
persistent and continued inability of Colombo's art-consuming audience,
even today to grasp the achievements of the avant-garde or the art that
is different!
Ranil Daraniyagala's essay, 'Justin ', written in 1968 and reproduced
in this volume presents us with a solid and reliable text to mark the
contours of Justin's highly complex artistic career in terms of its
chronology and thematics. If not for this essay by Ranil, we would not
be in a position to order Justin's work in some chronology (Students in
art history should be most indebted to the editor of the volume for
reproducing it here.) Ordering an artist's work chronologically helps
one to understand more closely the trajectories that the artist had
taken and dropped at different points of his career. Justin's art in
terms of its style and themes are highly varied. He has been working in
and experimenting with several styles. Ranil's essay helps us to grasp
Justin's highly complex body of work within a certain framework that is
both chronological and thematic.
The catalogue of paintings in the volume gives a comprehensive
account of his work that shows Justin's stylistic navigations. He has
always been seeking and changing. The surprising discovery that one may
encounter in this volume is that Justin had pushed his style and method
of painting to an extreme that had resulted in a totally non-figurative
and abstract painting. This is an intriguing aspect in Justin's career.
That's a Justin we had never known before. It is true that his work is
built on a strong understanding of abstraction, but seeing a complete
abstraction by Justin is a challenge to our understanding of this great
modernist master. This is one aspect of Justin's artistic career that
remains a total puzzle, which none of the authors have addressed.
Perhaps, that's because engaging with a subtle and difficult issue like
this requires a very different approach to art history, which is out
side the purview of the present volume.
It would not be a bad idea to briefly compose my thoughts on Justin's
abstract work at this point. Generally speaking, the 43Group artists
were figurative artists in a wider sense. In other words they were not
that much attracted to abstraction as an end in itself. But George
Claessen of the 43 Group has been different.
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