A revisiting of an unsung modernist

The book covers aspects of biography: Venkatappa’s move to Bengaluru towards the end of his life was marked by a series of acerbic court cases.

On the cover of this comprehensive volume on the artist K Venkatappa is his watercolour of Chamundi Hills, Mysuru. Delicately rendered, yet substantial, this image leads us into the volume, establishing the artist’s fine skill, revealing his control over ‘modern’ art techniques, and inviting us to engage with his connection to nature and place. Situating the artist in the Mysuru landscape, it alludes to the tension between region and nation that is examined in the volume. K Venkatappa, described by series editor Monica Juneja as a ‘long unsung modernist artist’ who ‘traversed the worlds of artisanal tradition and modern art practice’, had the State Art Gallery named after him. This volume seeks to contextualise him in the changing social and political times in which he lived.

The introductory essay by co-editors Pushpamala N and Deepthi Achar provides the socio-historical context within which to examine Venkatappa’s art, underlining the disparate worlds he inhabited as an artist. It discusses the relationship between art and state authority during a time of competing colonial, princely and national powers and highlights a contemporary bid to privatise the State Art Gallery long after his passing.

The volume is organised in five sections to provide a logic with which to view the complexity of the artist’s life. It examines the impact of politics, economics, nationalism, and changing social mores and contexts on art in the 20th century. Aspects of princely Mysuru emerge through different essays: caste ramifications of the court painters (although Venkatappa came from the traditional Chitragara community, his life was separated from theirs), the realities of court patronage, art produced for the court and attendant challenges, and the place of photography. Critical to the understanding of the transition to modernity is a review of philosophical movements led by artists and thinkers that arose in resistance to the pedagogic dominance of Western ideas. It draws attention to Venkatappa’s importance in the ‘visual exemplification’ of Abanindranath Tagore’s manifestation of a decolonial Indian aesthetic — a ‘new artistic anatomy’.

The book also covers aspects of biography: Venkatappa’s move to Bengaluru towards the end of his life was marked by a series of acerbic court cases. Of note is the one against the Mysuru Court with regard to the decommissioning of his bas reliefs. At the same time, he developed a ‘creative kinship’ with intellectual giants from different disciplines — scientist CV Raman, poet James H Cousins, botanist and writer BGL Swamy.

Essays by Chandan Gowda, RH Kulkarni, Suresh Jayaram, Mamta Sagar, Srajana Kaikini and other scholars embedded in the regional context examine Venkatappa’s art with a critical eye. They draw parallels and comparisons with other Karnataka stalwarts, and comment on his personality — uncompromising, strict, litigious, ‘self-conscious’. Venkatappa’s responses to daily life and to readings of his work in his lifetime, recorded in letters and diaries (preserved in the Karnataka State Archives), further enhance our image of the man: detailed, meticulous, frugal, with a strong sense of self.

Many of the theses in the volume find rationale in Pushpamala’s essay on Venkatappa’s bas reliefs commissioned by the Court. The essay includes a history of the commission, commentary on bas reliefs as a prevalent art form, the ‘construction of the Indian masculine’, and a perceptive description of the reliefs themselves. The closing chapter by Janaki Nair addresses how Venkatappa might have perceived a gallery in his name for a public of the future. Raising questions about the meaning of public art spaces, she suggests that this book must ‘become an inaugural step’ towards recasting spaces to view and engage with visual art. This volume, rich with illustrations and containing writings spanning genres from fiction to philosophy to art historical commentary, is a critical read for any student of art history. Using K Venkatappa’s life and work as a case study, it allows the reader to travel through India and Karnataka’s many cultural and political transitions across the 20th century.