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Pantheism
and Picasso, Shiva and surrealism play equally important roles
in the “Modern Indian Paintings” show opening today
at the Hirshhorn Museum.
Though
the forms are out of European modernism - cubism, surrealism
and expressionism - the ideas are straight from Indian life,
lore and experience. The best works merge the forms and ideas
into a distinctively Indian amalgam; the worst descend to imitation,
vacuous abstraction and folksy kitsch.
All of
the above are well-represented in this revealing show, hastily
assembled from the collections of the National Gallery of Modern
Art in New Delhi to mark the visit of Indira Gandhi, prime minister
of India. The 50 paintings by 47 artists date from 1930 to the
present.
But the
point most vividly made is the continuing struggle of serious
Indian artists to recombine the native and the new into works
of originality and power. If the show as a whole suggests that
modern Indian painting is not yet fully mature, there are mature
artists at work: Mohan Samant, musician and painter, is represented
by a highly textured abstract work made of paint thickened with
marble dust to conjure an ancient sandstone wall covered with
calligraphic marking; ....
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