TYEB MEHTA-The Arch Modernist
TYEB MEHTA-The Arch Modernist
“If you have an orange red and you put a particular blue, effect will be greater” said Kindnsky. Same treatise struck him from his student days. Tyeb Mehta’s gamut of art is essentially the very essence of this statement. He could create his language even with playing against harmony of colors while confronting this problem intuitively.
Tyeb Mehta was born in 1925 in rural Gujarat, in western India, and was brought up in the Crawford Market neighborhood of Mumbai, in Dawoodi Bohras. Tyeb Mehta spent an initial period working as a film editor in a cinema laboratory. His interest in painting however took him to the Sir J.J. School of Art from where he received his diploma in 1952.There, he met the seminal circle of Indian modernists, the Progressive Artists Group.
One finds, his prime concern is to explore the colour, surfaces, and harmonies; the images seem almost incidental. Though figures are no less decisive; they are transformation of essence with existence of what and how he feels, sees and reacts for any subject, situation and symbol. To look at his painting, one may ignore the figures and then can see the figures in relation with each other.
He draws with a red chalk and paints matt colors to create opacity. Matt colors give desired density and saturation. He prefers to paint in the first instance and painting another layer of color is extremely unwanted, probably never attempted.
The falling human figure, the buffalo-demon of Hindu lore, the rickshaw-puller is constant theme in his work. They all convey controlled violence. The trauma of the Partition was the initial inspiration. "That made me choose my image," he says. In the process, he developed a style and pictorial language, which remains. "I don't work on events but prefer to create an image which becomes a metaphor," he says.
His Kali is potbellied and squat. Her arms are flailing and her mouth is a terrifyingly gorgeous gash of red. The art critic Yashodhara Dalmia credits Mr. Mehta with making the mythic modern. She calls him an "arch modernist." About his image Kali, Mehta explains “I have lived with the Kali image for more then 3 years. It is a primordial image”. In Santiniketan he had felt the presence of Kali everywhere. Images of Santiniketan keep emerging from his memories and he is ready to bring them to the Canvas. He stayed in Santiniketan, in 1984-85 and returned to Mumbai with significant changes in his work.
He painted the Triptych in 1985, and he did the Kali 1988. For all these three years he waited to paint Kali. Kali’s devouring powerful mouth come forcefully in this painting. He is succeeded in bringing the essence of destruction fear and fierce together.
His, the Triptych is based on ‘Charak’ festival – a spring season festival of Santhals in Santiniketan. In the first panel there is a celebratory feeling of the group; which though organically linked together, is individuated. The flying figure on the top is moving with great speed, in opposition to the still cohesion of the group below. So they are in opposition and yet they seem to be linked together. The middle panel contains a feeling of well being and balance with man placed within the universe. There is the woman with the Lamb and an androgynous figure, which reminds one of many tribal societies where the ancestral figure is a fusion of the male and female. But this very compassionate feeling comes from the man located within the universe; later gets disrupted in the last panel. It seems to represent the dark and opposite side of the universe. The people around the rope look desolate, while the flying figure on top has turned into a withered green. The woman with multiple images looks very sad. So the “Triptych” is virtual play of life against death. Dull yellow green color conveyed this emotion very honestly.
“The essential inspiration was the presence of stout short women in white at the festival[1]”. This is one of his rare paintings where a large group of people are together. He is not against narrative but more concerned with the form, other elements of painting and the way they are used. Mere conveying a narrative is absolutely uncalled of.
Another frequent motif: The Rickshaw puller, used by Mehta, with different angles, from mid centre to close up. It transforms with each new angle and remotes it self from immediate connotation of the image.
The trussed bull became his favorite figure. Not a bull in repose, but a tied-up, writhing, mutilated bull. "I was looking for an image which would not narrate, but suggest something which was deep within me, the violence that I witnessed during partition,[2]" Mr. Mehta said. "Have you seen a bull running? This tremendous energy being butchered for nothing." He shot a three minutes film called “Koodal” at the Bandra slaughter house. Those three minutes are the most poignant sequence of the film depicting the very act of slaughtering bull –a forceful animal. The powerful with tied legs thrown down, it is an assault on life itself. His film “Koodal” won the Film fare Critic's Award in 1970.
His work, language and approach to art is universal. Human emotions like anguish and frustration are reflected in his initial works - images broken with diagonals. Diagonals are used as pictorial elements his paintings, he uses it as a means to with falling figures. These two together creates a feeling of frozen horror which is increased by the dislocation of the body. At the same time, because the color spaces have been dividing, there is a feeling of distance.
A close friend of the Progressive Artists Group with considerable stylistic affiliation he left for London where he lived and worked between 1959 and 1964. He visited the U. S. on a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1968.Mr. Mehta's own list of his influences includes the ancient sculptures of Elephanta off the coast of Mumbai, European Renaissance painters, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee and Barnett Newman. Certainly, painters of his generation studied them all.
Apart from several solo exhibitions Mehta has participated in international shows like Ten Contemporary Indian Painters at Trenton in the U.S. in 1965; Deuxieme Biennial Internationale de Menton, 1974; Festival Intemationale de la Peinture, Cagnes- -Sur-Mer, France 1974; Modem Indian Paintings at Hirschhom Museum, Washington 1982, and Seven Indian Painters at Gallerie Le Monde de U art, Paris 1994. He was awarded the Kalidas Samman by the Madhya Pradesh Government in 1988. Mehta's preoccupation with formalist means of expression have led to matt surfaces, broken with diagonals and imagery which while expressing a deep anguish is specifically painterly. "He has reused the modernist method in a wholly inventive and original manner, where the conflicts in his environment, the political and social events in his environment, are expressed with a great subtlety of means. It's always personal and public at the same time." Yashodhara Dalmia
[1] “Tyeb Mehta Beyond: Beyound Narrative painting” An Interview with Yashodhara Dalmia,Art Heritage 1989-90
[2] “Tyeb Mehta Beyond: Beyound Narrative painting” An Interview with Yashodhara Dalmia,Art Heritage 1989-90
“If you have an orange red and you put a particular blue, effect will be greater” said Kindnsky. Same treatise struck him from his student days. Tyeb Mehta’s gamut of art is essentially the very essence of this statement. He could create his language even with playing against harmony of colors while confronting this problem intuitively.
Tyeb Mehta was born in 1925 in rural Gujarat, in western India, and was brought up in the Crawford Market neighborhood of Mumbai, in Dawoodi Bohras. Tyeb Mehta spent an initial period working as a film editor in a cinema laboratory. His interest in painting however took him to the Sir J.J. School of Art from where he received his diploma in 1952.There, he met the seminal circle of Indian modernists, the Progressive Artists Group.
One finds, his prime concern is to explore the colour, surfaces, and harmonies; the images seem almost incidental. Though figures are no less decisive; they are transformation of essence with existence of what and how he feels, sees and reacts for any subject, situation and symbol. To look at his painting, one may ignore the figures and then can see the figures in relation with each other.
He draws with a red chalk and paints matt colors to create opacity. Matt colors give desired density and saturation. He prefers to paint in the first instance and painting another layer of color is extremely unwanted, probably never attempted.
The falling human figure, the buffalo-demon of Hindu lore, the rickshaw-puller is constant theme in his work. They all convey controlled violence. The trauma of the Partition was the initial inspiration. "That made me choose my image," he says. In the process, he developed a style and pictorial language, which remains. "I don't work on events but prefer to create an image which becomes a metaphor," he says.
His Kali is potbellied and squat. Her arms are flailing and her mouth is a terrifyingly gorgeous gash of red. The art critic Yashodhara Dalmia credits Mr. Mehta with making the mythic modern. She calls him an "arch modernist." About his image Kali, Mehta explains “I have lived with the Kali image for more then 3 years. It is a primordial image”. In Santiniketan he had felt the presence of Kali everywhere. Images of Santiniketan keep emerging from his memories and he is ready to bring them to the Canvas. He stayed in Santiniketan, in 1984-85 and returned to Mumbai with significant changes in his work.
He painted the Triptych in 1985, and he did the Kali 1988. For all these three years he waited to paint Kali. Kali’s devouring powerful mouth come forcefully in this painting. He is succeeded in bringing the essence of destruction fear and fierce together.
His, the Triptych is based on ‘Charak’ festival – a spring season festival of Santhals in Santiniketan. In the first panel there is a celebratory feeling of the group; which though organically linked together, is individuated. The flying figure on the top is moving with great speed, in opposition to the still cohesion of the group below. So they are in opposition and yet they seem to be linked together. The middle panel contains a feeling of well being and balance with man placed within the universe. There is the woman with the Lamb and an androgynous figure, which reminds one of many tribal societies where the ancestral figure is a fusion of the male and female. But this very compassionate feeling comes from the man located within the universe; later gets disrupted in the last panel. It seems to represent the dark and opposite side of the universe. The people around the rope look desolate, while the flying figure on top has turned into a withered green. The woman with multiple images looks very sad. So the “Triptych” is virtual play of life against death. Dull yellow green color conveyed this emotion very honestly.
“The essential inspiration was the presence of stout short women in white at the festival[1]”. This is one of his rare paintings where a large group of people are together. He is not against narrative but more concerned with the form, other elements of painting and the way they are used. Mere conveying a narrative is absolutely uncalled of.
Another frequent motif: The Rickshaw puller, used by Mehta, with different angles, from mid centre to close up. It transforms with each new angle and remotes it self from immediate connotation of the image.
The trussed bull became his favorite figure. Not a bull in repose, but a tied-up, writhing, mutilated bull. "I was looking for an image which would not narrate, but suggest something which was deep within me, the violence that I witnessed during partition,[2]" Mr. Mehta said. "Have you seen a bull running? This tremendous energy being butchered for nothing." He shot a three minutes film called “Koodal” at the Bandra slaughter house. Those three minutes are the most poignant sequence of the film depicting the very act of slaughtering bull –a forceful animal. The powerful with tied legs thrown down, it is an assault on life itself. His film “Koodal” won the Film fare Critic's Award in 1970.
His work, language and approach to art is universal. Human emotions like anguish and frustration are reflected in his initial works - images broken with diagonals. Diagonals are used as pictorial elements his paintings, he uses it as a means to with falling figures. These two together creates a feeling of frozen horror which is increased by the dislocation of the body. At the same time, because the color spaces have been dividing, there is a feeling of distance.
A close friend of the Progressive Artists Group with considerable stylistic affiliation he left for London where he lived and worked between 1959 and 1964. He visited the U. S. on a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1968.Mr. Mehta's own list of his influences includes the ancient sculptures of Elephanta off the coast of Mumbai, European Renaissance painters, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee and Barnett Newman. Certainly, painters of his generation studied them all.
Apart from several solo exhibitions Mehta has participated in international shows like Ten Contemporary Indian Painters at Trenton in the U.S. in 1965; Deuxieme Biennial Internationale de Menton, 1974; Festival Intemationale de la Peinture, Cagnes- -Sur-Mer, France 1974; Modem Indian Paintings at Hirschhom Museum, Washington 1982, and Seven Indian Painters at Gallerie Le Monde de U art, Paris 1994. He was awarded the Kalidas Samman by the Madhya Pradesh Government in 1988. Mehta's preoccupation with formalist means of expression have led to matt surfaces, broken with diagonals and imagery which while expressing a deep anguish is specifically painterly. "He has reused the modernist method in a wholly inventive and original manner, where the conflicts in his environment, the political and social events in his environment, are expressed with a great subtlety of means. It's always personal and public at the same time." Yashodhara Dalmia
[1] “Tyeb Mehta Beyond: Beyound Narrative painting” An Interview with Yashodhara Dalmia,Art Heritage 1989-90
[2] “Tyeb Mehta Beyond: Beyound Narrative painting” An Interview with Yashodhara Dalmia,Art Heritage 1989-90
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Very nice and intrestingss story.