Lot Essay
Rameshwar Broota has been the subject this year of a prestigious retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. What this landmark exhibition epitomises is that in a career already spanning over five decades, Broota’s oeuvre has investigated, interrogated and experimented with one key existential thesis: Man. Drawn to fundamental questions of existence and morality from a young age, Broota became well versed in philosophical texts as the Bhagavad Gita and so began a perennial search for understanding and communicating man’s moral, physical and phenomenological place in the world. It was as a teacher at Triveni Kala Sangam Art Centre from the 1960s that “Broota's central subject [became] man, through whose tensions and aspirations, lusts and endeavours, the greater issues of life are mediated. God is indifferent or distant, the human 'other' is absent; the solitary man becomes the site for conflict and resolution." (G. Sinha, ‘Edge of the Precipice: The Art of Rameshwar Broota’, Rameshwar Broota: Recent Paintings, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2001, p. 23)
The 1980s were a critical period for Broota as it was during this time that his monochromatic Man Series emerged. Man 14 was executed in 1982 during which period the artist introduced a ridged grid schema into his paintings as a forensic tool for examining the anatomical structure of man. “Broota employed the grid for the first time in his imagery […] the athletic body with its accentuated and well-shaped torso comes close in feel to the solidity of sculpted forms, but the artist really wants to draw our attention to the body […] under duress, with inflamed veins ready to burst out the skin, furrows on the forehead and the sensuality of the body taking a toll.” (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2015, p. 10)
Broota’s paintings bear the physical scars of his innovative and labour-intensive creative process. This is “Broota’s excavation of the male figure […] he developed a method in which he applied many thin coats of paint beginning with silver and including raw sienna, burnt umber, shades of bluish black as well as pure place, and incorporating linseed oil to preserve the suppleness of the surface for the scraping phase.” (S. Bean, ‘Midnight’s Children: The Second Generation.’ (Midnight to the Boom, Painting in India After Independence, New York, 2013, p. 138) He then took a shaving razor and with virtuosic precisions scrapped and worked the surface to create texture and exquisite relief like details.
“[Broota] was aware that any wrong movement of the blade was enough to ruin the surface […] To stay within the contours of the form, Broota worked with meticulous control and visual insight, creating sensual soft volumes and expressive textures highlighting sharp edges, veins and vestiges […] Broota has spoken about how he used to have nightmares, gripped with mortal fears, imagining making cuts on his skin rather than on the canvas." (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, pp. 25-26) Broota blurs the definitions of painting and becomes part sculptor, part archaeologist, exhuming his subjects from the medium itself.
Though rendered with painstakingly meticulous detail, Man 14 is paradoxically ubiquitous. Broota’s, “bare-bodied man can easily walk into many cultures, without belonging to a specific history or geography, leaving behind shackles of caste, class and religion to transcend the boundaries of space and time." (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, p. 22) Man 14 cuts a forlorn figure - this tragic Uomo Univerasale is a hero, a villain and a victim. Broota's beggared creation does not betray whether he is our saviour or damnation.
The 1980s were a critical period for Broota as it was during this time that his monochromatic Man Series emerged. Man 14 was executed in 1982 during which period the artist introduced a ridged grid schema into his paintings as a forensic tool for examining the anatomical structure of man. “Broota employed the grid for the first time in his imagery […] the athletic body with its accentuated and well-shaped torso comes close in feel to the solidity of sculpted forms, but the artist really wants to draw our attention to the body […] under duress, with inflamed veins ready to burst out the skin, furrows on the forehead and the sensuality of the body taking a toll.” (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2015, p. 10)
Broota’s paintings bear the physical scars of his innovative and labour-intensive creative process. This is “Broota’s excavation of the male figure […] he developed a method in which he applied many thin coats of paint beginning with silver and including raw sienna, burnt umber, shades of bluish black as well as pure place, and incorporating linseed oil to preserve the suppleness of the surface for the scraping phase.” (S. Bean, ‘Midnight’s Children: The Second Generation.’ (Midnight to the Boom, Painting in India After Independence, New York, 2013, p. 138) He then took a shaving razor and with virtuosic precisions scrapped and worked the surface to create texture and exquisite relief like details.
“[Broota] was aware that any wrong movement of the blade was enough to ruin the surface […] To stay within the contours of the form, Broota worked with meticulous control and visual insight, creating sensual soft volumes and expressive textures highlighting sharp edges, veins and vestiges […] Broota has spoken about how he used to have nightmares, gripped with mortal fears, imagining making cuts on his skin rather than on the canvas." (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, pp. 25-26) Broota blurs the definitions of painting and becomes part sculptor, part archaeologist, exhuming his subjects from the medium itself.
Though rendered with painstakingly meticulous detail, Man 14 is paradoxically ubiquitous. Broota’s, “bare-bodied man can easily walk into many cultures, without belonging to a specific history or geography, leaving behind shackles of caste, class and religion to transcend the boundaries of space and time." (R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, p. 22) Man 14 cuts a forlorn figure - this tragic Uomo Univerasale is a hero, a villain and a victim. Broota's beggared creation does not betray whether he is our saviour or damnation.