Important Notice

“In the tribal villages and Baneshwar, I found an ideal world that satisfied all my aesthetic needs… the little Bhil villages gave the prodigal son who had left Kerala a second homecoming.” - A RAMACHANDRAN
Beginning in the 1980s, A Ramachandran embarked on a new phase of his career that was a marked shift from his earlier engagement with human suffering and the existential concerns of 20th‒century modernism. His practice grew into a... “In the tribal villages and Baneshwar, I found an ideal world that satisfied all my aesthetic needs… the little Bhil villages gave the prodigal son who had left Kerala a second homecoming.” - A RAMACHANDRAN
Beginning in the 1980s, A Ramachandran embarked on a new phase of his career that was a marked shift from his earlier engagement with human suffering and the existential concerns of 20th‒century modernism. His practice grew into a lyrical celebration of life and the abundance and of the natural world. The faceless, torsioned figures of his earlier paintings were replaced by sensuous human forms entwined with luxuriant vegetation and fauna, rendered in a richly saturated colour palette. Reinforcing a perception common in traditional Indian art, these works suggest an inextricable interconnection between man and nature.
After years of living amid Delhi’s urban sprawl, a visit to the Bhil villages around Udaipur in the late 1970s rekindled memories of Ramachandran’s childhood in rural Kerala and his formative years at Santiniketan where students were encouraged to immerse themselves in their surroundings and sketch the Santhal communities living nearby. Reconnecting with this way of seeing, he found artistic inspiration in the Bhil community whose way of life remained intimately connected with nature in a manner largely absent from urban existence. In his words, “I put all my creative energy into understanding their life and environment and in that process I found an island away from the turmoil of urban life where I could shelter like a child playing under the cot.” (Artist quoted in Ella Datta, “Face to Face Art Practice of A Ramachandran: A Dialogue”, Face to Face: Art Practice of A Ramachandran, Mumbai: The Guild Art Gallery, 2007, p. 13)
The present lot is indicative of the close relationships that Ramachandran developed with the members of the Bhil community whom he observed and sketched, sometimes over a span of several years. Writing about its subject, a tribal girl named Savita, he recorded her features in great detail: “...aged fourteen when I first studied her. She… had an oval face, broad forehead, slightly Mongoloid eyes and golden pupils. She had a flat little nose, punctuated with a pin, a twisted bow‒like upper lip and a lower one which opened like a palash flower. Her sharp chin had a cleft supported by a long, graceful neck.” (Artist quoted in R Siva Kumar, A Ramachandran: A Retrospective ‒ Volume II, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2003, p. 112)
He paints her in the style of a deity, drawing on the iconography of Kurma, the second of the Hindu god Vishnu’s ten incarnations (Dashavatara) in which he assumes the form of a giant tortoise. During the Samudra Manthan, or Churning of the Ocean of Milk, the devas (gods) and asuras (demons) joined forces to obtain the nectar of immortality. When Mount Mandara, used as the churning rod, began sinking into the ocean, Vishnu took the form of Kurma and supported it on his back, allowing the churning to continue. Despite her iconic stature and mythological moorings, Ramachandran refrains from idealising her form, unlike many of his other depictions of Bhil women. “...she is painted almost as in a portrait where close familiarity makes even a blemish interesting… [such figures] are not seen from the outside or merely as people with individual physical features; they also seem to have a mind and inhabit a personal world.” (R Siva Kumar, pp. 112, 138) The artist also weaves himself into the composition, humorously painting himself as the tortoise in an amalgamation of fantasy and realism. Using this device he becomes an omnipresent narrator, bringing the stories of the Bhils to the viewer. He explains, “Here I offer myself as the seat for all these people, the tribals.” (Artist quoted in Rob Dean and Giles Tillotson eds., “A. Ramachandran in Conversation With Rob Dean”, Modern Indian Painting ‒ Jane & Kito de Boer Collection, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, 2019, p. 235)
Though wholly contemporary, Ramachandran’s compositions, colours, and themes are deeply informed by his engagement with Indian art history. His practice draws upon diverse visual antecedents, including the fluidity of Kerala temple murals, the calligraphic line of the Ajanta murals, and the bold, vibrant palette of Rajasthani miniature painting. In the present lot, the figure is enclosed within a decorative border of aparajita (blue pea) flowers, recalling the ornamental floral margins of Mughal miniatures as well as the ornamental motifs found in the Ajanta murals. Traditionally offered to both Vishnu and the goddess Durga, the aparajita flower signifies protection, prosperity, and good fortune. Ramachandran employs such patterning—a defining feature of Indian aesthetic traditions—in a distinctly contemporary idiom. Mimicking the repetitive rhythms found in the natural world, the recurring patterns across the figure, the Kurma avatar, the surrounding foliage, and the floral border unify the composition, reinforcing the interconnectedness of humanity, nature, and the divine.

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