Brush with Women

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Re-imaging the Indian Woman
The past three decades have seen the women artists succeeding in reinventing the Indian woman, writes Nirupama Dutt

IT is the artist who gives a face to the gods and many times also to the human beings. The image of the Indian woman so celebrated painting, theatre, literature and cinema owes much to the great painter Raja Ravi Varma (1848 to 1906). It was Varma who gave a form to Sita, Damayanti, Shakuntala, Mohini and many others. Prints of his paintings still grace temples including the little pooja alcoves in homes. These images had an impact on early cinema and theatre and the image of the beautiful and fair woman wrapped in silk and loaded with ornaments became the popular image of the Bharatiya nari. The power of his creations was such that many painters like Dhurandar of Maharashtra and G. Thakur Singh and subsequently Sobha Singh were greatly influenced by him.
In modern times we have seen the swing of taste and this style falling out of favour and the emergence of the lyrical bare-bodied women by M.F. Husain, the voluptuous damsels made by F.N. Souza and lank nudes by Jatin Das. These are the women made by men. But the past 30 years have also seen the emergence of the women artists in large numbers all over India and they have made a mark by re-imaging women.
Mother and child
What is the basic difference between women made by men and women made by women? Woman as represented by men is an issue that has generated a lot of scholarly works the world over. Commenting on a male artist painting a female nude, world-renowned art critic John Berger made a relevant point. He said: "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure."
Closer home, leading artist Anjolie Ela Menon puts the women's vision in perspective by saying: "We view the female figure and the preoccupations of our gender with empathy as distinct from the voyeuristic nature of the male gaze." If we get to the work of the first lady of the Indian canvas, Amrita Sher-Gil, we see that she was not able to subvert the male gaze or the phenomenon of spectatorship. The women painted by Amrita seem to be offering themselves for gaze. After Amrita's early death in 1941, there is a long gap in which there were hardly any women artists on the scene. Amrita with her Indo-European parentage and European training in art was in a way a unique 'occurrence'.
Besides the folk artists, art training for the average urban Indian woman was an accomplishment for the matrimonial market. Accomplishment meant knowing how to cook, sing, embroider and paint a little. It was only in the 1970s of the last century that a virtual flood of women artists appeared on the scene, equipped with degrees in art and ready to take up art as a vocation. The rise of the woman artist coincides with the rise of the women's movement. And from among these women we have today artists who have made a name for themselves home and abroad like Arpita Singh, Nalini Malani, Arpana Caur, Gogi Saroj Pal and many others. And the next generation has given many more women practicing in different areas of art with the way made easier for them by the pioneers.
Interestingly, Bombay-based Nalini Malani took up a virtual fight with Ravi Varma in a very famous water colour of hers called ‘Re-thinking Raja Ravi Varma’ in which the musical beauties of the painter were pushed to the margin by flesh-and-blood women. And the centre space was taken by a supportive mother figure. The clear message was that women were no longer content to be the Barbie dolls of male fantasy.
Sohni
Ask Arpana Caur what she thinks of the women as painted by Ravi Varma and her reply is, "Those women were not true to life at all. They were painted dolls and bedecked with ornaments like a Christmas tree. They were not working women like you and me."
If Nalini re-thought Ravi Varma, in recent times we have seen Arpana re-invent Sohni of the Sohni-Mahiwal fame with a sure hand and heart. Sohni as depicted by Sobha Singh is a popular image and till some years ago the print of this painting used to be found in nearly every Punjabi middle-class home. This was Sohni beautiful and bedecked drowning with ecstasy in the Chenab. Arpana in her series of paintings on the theme, shows Sohni as a strong brave and earthy woman who defied the social norms and remained true to her love. Taking a cue from an eighteenth century miniature painting by Nain Sukh, Arpana has painted a brave woman battling against the waters of the turbulent river Chenab and meeting her end. Sohni is the very embodiment of female energy.
Gogi's portrayal of woman has been very bold and strong. In her ‘Aaag ka Dariya’ series, she shows the woman crossing the river of fire of her existence by carrying a small female form in her hands. The woman thus takes the responsibility for herself and her daughters. What is very interesting is that women as painted by are contemporary woman artists are not static beings just content to sit or stand pretty. They are active beings shaping their destiny as also the world around them. If nothing else, they are at least brooding! In her beautiful series ‘Embroidering Phulkari and Memories’, Gogi's nayika does not embroider phulkaris merely to be stored in tin trunks but she embroiders the phulkari motifs on her own being and the environment around her.
Anjolie who has painted brooding nudes, Madonnas with children and also female empowerment as Shakti says, " ‘She is me’ is often implicit, at least metaphorically, in the work of most women artists." The autobiographical narrative, as it were, runs parallel to the fabric of painting.