.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Well known for her poignant deliberations on the human figure, Anjolie Ela Menon’s subjects elicit an unusual empathy from her viewers. Wryly remarking on her persistent commitment to figuration in her artistic practice, she once asked, “In India can one be otherwise?” (Artist statement, Anjolie Ela Menon: Through the Patina, New Delhi, 2010, p. 15).
Menon’s figurative imagery ties together the various threads of cultural influence that have shaped her identity. Born into a progressive Brahmo Samaj family in 1940, she had several Muslim and Christian relatives, and went on to receive a European education. As a result, while her figuration is rooted in a multicultural Indian ethos, it simultaneously reflects academic styles of the West. The artist’s subject matter began to see a gradual shift after she married into a traditional South Indian family, and began to paint portraits inspired by their annual visits to the Guruvayoor temple in Kerala.
From the 1980s onwards, Menon frequently painted portraits of Brahmin priests, attempting to capture the spiritual experience and austerity of Indian temple environments. The present lot depicts a young Brahmin boy, possibly studying to be a priest, identifiable by his attire and ornamentation. He wears a traditional white dhoti and a sacred thread tied around his arm, believed to ward off evil spirits and protect against negative energies. Menon also paints the ritual markings on his forehead and arms known as tripundara – three horizontal lines drawn with sacred ash believed to symbolize the triad of Hindu deities, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.
Menon’s figurative idiom also owes a great debt to the years she spent as a student in Paris in the 1960s, when she was exposed to Byzantine and Romanesque murals and paintings. Borrowing techniques from early Medieval Christian art, her figures are almost always portrayed in frontal perspective, with elongated bodies and averted heads. In the present lot, the artist adopts the solemn and reverent appearance of Christian icons, adeptly translating it to suit her Indian subject.
The artist’s figures also reflect the deep insight she has into their psyches. What appears at first to simply be a portrait of a young boy quickly veers towards the uncanny and the unfamiliar. His eyes, black and hollow, absently stare into the distance. The background, painted in muted shades of green and brown, features no recognizable markers of place, accentuating the mystical and enigmatic tone of the composition.
Menon’s figurative imagery ties together the various threads of cultural influence that have shaped her identity. Born into a progressive Brahmo Samaj family in 1940, she had several Muslim and Christian relatives, and went on to receive a European education. As a result, while her figuration is rooted in a multicultural Indian ethos, it simultaneously reflects academic styles of the West. The artist’s subject matter began to see a gradual shift after she married into a traditional South Indian family, and began to paint portraits inspired by their annual visits to the Guruvayoor temple in Kerala.
From the 1980s onwards, Menon frequently painted portraits of Brahmin priests, attempting to capture the spiritual experience and austerity of Indian temple environments. The present lot depicts a young Brahmin boy, possibly studying to be a priest, identifiable by his attire and ornamentation. He wears a traditional white dhoti and a sacred thread tied around his arm, believed to ward off evil spirits and protect against negative energies. Menon also paints the ritual markings on his forehead and arms known as tripundara – three horizontal lines drawn with sacred ash believed to symbolize the triad of Hindu deities, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.
Menon’s figurative idiom also owes a great debt to the years she spent as a student in Paris in the 1960s, when she was exposed to Byzantine and Romanesque murals and paintings. Borrowing techniques from early Medieval Christian art, her figures are almost always portrayed in frontal perspective, with elongated bodies and averted heads. In the present lot, the artist adopts the solemn and reverent appearance of Christian icons, adeptly translating it to suit her Indian subject.
The artist’s figures also reflect the deep insight she has into their psyches. What appears at first to simply be a portrait of a young boy quickly veers towards the uncanny and the unfamiliar. His eyes, black and hollow, absently stare into the distance. The background, painted in muted shades of green and brown, features no recognizable markers of place, accentuating the mystical and enigmatic tone of the composition.