“To me, creative art demands transforming raw material from surroundings observed deliberately or by chance into an integrated whole.” — N S BENDRE

N S Bendre was a leading light of the modern art movement in India as a painter as well as a mentor, providing crucial guidance to artists like M F Husain, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jyoti Bhatt, and Shanti Dave among others. He was an avid believer in the power of pedagogy as his own work... “To me, creative art demands transforming raw material from surroundings observed deliberately or by chance into an integrated whole.” — N S BENDRE

N S Bendre was a leading light of the modern art movement in India as a painter as well as a mentor, providing crucial guidance to artists like M F Husain, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jyoti Bhatt, and Shanti Dave among others. He was an avid believer in the power of pedagogy as his own work had been shaped under the benevolent tutelage of Yashwant Deolalikar at the State School of Art. A passionate proponent of drawing en plein air, Deolalikar would trek miles with his students before they came upon a suitable location. It was during these excursions that Bendre sharpened his powers of observation, recording all naturally occurring shades of the day and season, sometimes painting and sketching by a hurricane light after dusk. Delolalikar taught him “to observe the behaviour of light at different hours of the day and night... Eventually, they learnt to observe the complementary and supplementary colours in nature and the presence of all the hues of the spectrum in the light and shade... Their main interest was light. They developed pronounced impressionistic leanings that influenced their palette and also introduced a directness in the handling of colour, discarding hard edges.” (Ram Chatterji, Bendre: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 8, 12)

These lessons were critical in Bendre developing his own style of Pointillism, the painting technique pioneered by Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac where many small dots were grouped together in patterns to create forms. This painting was made in 1989, a few years before the artist’s death, using his Pointillism to render a nature scene, with birds cooing on branches against a sea of dotted green. Highly sensitive to light, Bendre innovated with established norms to create a technique that illuminated the frame with an ethereal glow. His son, artist Padmanabh Bendre, shed light on the notable distinction between European Pointillism and Bendre’s saying, “Unlike Seurat’s scientific method whereby he started by applying darker colour dots onto the canvas and then moved to lighter shades, dad’s technique was different in the sense that he had a more emotional and visceral response to his subjects and he worked backwards, from light to darkness.” (Shaikh Ayaz, “NS Bendre: The Compulsive Sketcher,” Open Magazine, 19 November 2021, online)

Not convinced of the Cubist necessity to create unpleasant images in order to evoke a reaction from the viewer, Bendre was a strong proponent of agreeable harmony. He stated, “There is already a lot of misery in this world; I do not want to add to it. I paint because I derive pleasure from painting and I try to give pleasure to others. That is my philosophy of art.” (N S Bendre, “My Painting”, Ram Chatterji, Bendré: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendré Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 64)

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