Shouldn’t books on art and artists be grand productions? Most certainly. This one, however, is more special than many in my possession. It comes gift-wrapped, or so one imagines. The brown paper that covers it comes artfully clamped with a seal of the artist. You peel it off to find a richly embossed cover with the artist’s painting titled Nager Bazaar. The brown tones of this watercolour, which bring alive childhood memories of a frenetic marketplace in North Calcutta, are in arrant contrast to the multi-hued watercolours that reveal themselves throughout the 300 pages of this hefty, sumptuous coffee table creation.
While the production values are commendable, and swank to the core, it is the rich detailing that gives it a special edge, cross-hatched in its perfection, much like the protagonist’s works. Also in happy sync with the artist’s technique, with the many layers of story telling and the intricacies of execution, this book comes with a just measure of contents that offer a variegated insight into both artist and her art.
There are several perspectives — a delving into the philosophy of Jayasri Burman’s art by Rajiv Chandran, an art critic; a conversational interlude by art curator and friend, Ina Puri, who has journeyed afar with the artist, an unusual twist from media personality Pritish Nandy’s poetic outpourings that accompany her sculptures and the foreword by India’s iconic superhero Amitabh Bachchan that gives it a swagger-start.
The meat of the matter is Rajiv Chandran’s two-part extolment. One is the delving into Jayasri Burman’s “bhavas, thoughts, dreams”—the persona of the artist, linking it all with the Indian philosophical tradition that forms her moorings.
The second part is a sensory take on her art. The placing of Pritish Nandi’s poetic panegyrics on pages facing the sculpture images make for an arresting read. Fabulously rendered are the six pages glorifying her sculptural masterpiece Lila.
Further into the book, one is confronted with the artist’s outpourings, in her own handwriting, with doodles in between, adding to the charm. The translations by London-based filmmaker Sangeeta Dutta are true to the original. And somewhere along leafing through this tome, you will find pithy comments from well-known names like Dr Alka Pande Saryu Doshi and Uma Nair, subtly interspersed.
The glossary of Indian terminology at the end would please an international audience. Not a page is left untended—line illustrations, the gold embossed flyleaves and a Mother and Child sketch from Rajasthan at the absolute end, harking back to earlier journeys.
Gallerist Ambica Beri, who midwifed Gallery Sanskriti which is now celebrating its quarter century, has brought out a classy publication of an epic quality that measures up admirably to the work of a classic contemporary artist.
(Rita Bhimani is one of the veterans in the field of Corporate Public Relations. With a Master’s degree in Journalism, she tackles both her profession and passion with equal panache.)