Painting an Indian grammar

Paniker, about the pioneering artist of the Madras Movement, follows a chronological order to reveal layered insights about the eponymous artist, the man and his legacy. Conceived and compiled by S. Nandagopal, who is a sculptor and Paniker’s son, for launch in the 50th year of Cholamandal Artists’ Village, it also reflects the history of modernism in South India. In all, 106 works of K.C.S Paniker (1911-1977) are wonderfully reproduced from the Paniker Museum in Thiruvananthapuram, National Museum, Delhi, the Raj Bhavan and private collections.

Essays by art critic Josef James, closely associated with the Madras Movement,comprise a substantial portion starting with his enigmatic query, “What is a picture?” To enter the world of Paniker, James asks us to read his esoteric analyses to demystify Paniker’s struggle to find a modern Indian expression to which he could intensely and fully belong. Even in early works since 1938, a luscious presence overrides clarity of scene: James explains how Paniker continually rejected all identifiers — form, shape, image and finally even sensations. In 1954, Phaidon press co-founder Ludwig Goldscheider, impressed by Paniker’s one-man show in London, acknowledges the peculiar dilemma of the modern Indian artist to navigate between east and west. Goldscheider prophetically notes how Paniker has come out unbroken through the ordeals of Western teaching maintaining his Indian essence honestly. Paniker’s breakthrough comes in 1963, with his ‘Words and Symbols’ series, employing writing to make a direct visual effect, explained in his essay ‘Chitramezuthu — The written picture’. Historian Rebecca Brown’s unusual perspective places post-colonial art and architecture on one platform, comparing Le Corbusier, a Westerner arrived in the East, and Paniker, an Easterner exposed to the West, both attempting an original Indian expression.

Dynamic persona

Paniker’s essays, letters and photographs at the end give us glimpses of his dynamic persona. “The best things in life, the things men go into raptures about, are only the small parts of dreams some have dared to dream,” he writes to painter Krishna Rao in 1966, while he embarks whole-heartedly into Cholamandal, his vision for a space where his fellow artists could thrive. Panikeris an exceptional journey of an uncommon trailblazer stepping into the armour of individuality, shedding centuries of anonymity, grappling with western precepts and enduring the fire test to come into his own as a visionary, an intellectual and a genuine modern Indian artist.