A new series on Mahabharata by Ganesh Pyne

An analyst and an able narrator of human darkness, Ganesh Pyne has studied in-depth, as it were, the ancient endurance of moral ambiguity, throughout his career. In his new solo show at Kolkata based CIMA gallery, the artist has extended the so-called onus of moral responsibility from the viewer to the artist. And this is how he looks to reflect on, the grandness of the mythological epic Mahabharata, and its 'epic emotions'.

Born in 1937, he did his graduation from Calcutta’s Government College of Art & Craft (1959). He has had several solos and group show participation since then. This latest exhibit - as part of his illustrious five-decade-long career - also explores the relationship between art & literature.

Arindam Chakrabarti throws more light on this facet of the works on view in the catalog essay. An accompanying note by the writer mentions:

"The Mahabharata is an epic poem, and Ganesh Pyne renders a pictorial articulation of it in this show, somewhat along the lines of Horace’s Ut pictura poesis – as is painting so is poetry. He is well familiar with several Bengali versions of the text, referring here primarily to Rajshekhar Basu’s translation. The artist has been working on this series for about one and a half years, although his passionate and intellectual involvement with the epic goes back to his childhood days. It's not the violence and the grand dramatic moments in the poem that he has depicted."

Deeply introverted and pensive, he is not 'an artist of symphonies'. As is evident, his reflections are essentially akin to tragic sonatas, revolving around the marginal characters in the poem. The paintings tackle questions of morality, and issues related to illusion and reality. The present series presents him the opportunity to collate the three aspects of his being – the painter, the self-questioner and the reader of literature.

There is an emphasis on the clothes that he paints his characters in. After seeing Peter Brook’s version of the epic, he became conscious about, the costumes. Pyne feels this aspect brings historicity to the grand epic.