| In the words of Mr. Keshav Malik, This three part exhibition is likely
to be historic in two senses of the term: in one that it includes works
by some of the pioneers of contemporary Indian art, say, those like Jamini
Roy downwards, to some of those who are foremost in the field among the working
painters. The other usage of the term is even more crucial, namely, that the
works selected are either from among the finest of each of the artists compositions,
or that it represents the artists concerned in such phases or periods as
are unfamiliar to the general public. Such works come as especial moments
of surprise and delight. The merely over familiar, even though good works
have been sought to be kept out for the simple reason that the human eye
needs to be refreshed by fresh facets of an artists personality, the personality
which if it be true to itself must keep growing, evolving, moving away from
its gained ground of being. Here you observe some of the artists in their
earliest phases, others who hugely surpass their own intrinsic or circumstantial
limitations. Still other artists, as are content to play the same tune, are
here seen playing with a full, uncloying conviction.
Thus it goes, and it also goes to show the once trickle of Indian
art and artists at its inception; becoming a broad stream, and which grows
vaster, wider and deeper with the passing of the years. There are no stereotypes,
no conformities in the genres pursued among our painters, they all, collectively
as singly express the truth of art strictly by their own lights. And that's
the way it ought indeed be ; for, after all, our national personality is
a fascinating mosaic of multicoloured hues. Only artists help keep such a
spiritual trait of being oneself-alive in a period of time, when the machine
mind reproduces and enjoins set types of models for the public to follow.
Our artists, on the other hand, explore all the four corners of their being,
and their key anxiety is to keep the roots of life green. They are rooted
in personal experience. It is for this that this, what we described as an
'historic' exhibition, is a record of encounters with quite other than surface
reality. It makes news, while the so called news of the morning paper is
blown away with the wind of time in no time.
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