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“In his most recent works, the artist negotiates afresh, the counterpoint between city and landscape that has long exercised him: to shuttle between these poles is to know and traverse the discontinuity between home and world. The city, shored up from silt, vulnerable to the river`s sullen tides and periodic floods, would appear to symbolise the life of the grihasta, the householder trammeled by duties, circumscribed by ritual, susceptible to... “In his most recent works, the artist negotiates afresh, the counterpoint between city and landscape that has long exercised him: to shuttle between these poles is to know and traverse the discontinuity between home and world. The city, shored up from silt, vulnerable to the river`s sullen tides and periodic floods, would appear to symbolise the life of the grihasta, the householder trammeled by duties, circumscribed by ritual, susceptible to anxiety. The landscape, on the other hand, with its drifts of ice and sand, its hills misting into the horizon, suggests the open breath of the cosmos, where the sanyasin, the renouncer, may wander at will” (Ranjit Hoskote, “Parts of a World: Reflections on the Art of Ram Kumar” in Ram Kumar: Recent Works, Saffronart and Pundole Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 2002, p. 8).

In this piece, from 2002, it is the open landscape that dominates the canvas. Rocky hills in the foreground and verdant plains rolling into the distance overshadow the manmade houses and temples. The architecture, reminiscent of the artist`s earlier Benares cityscapes, is consumed by the landscape, a fading reminder of the worldly ties renounced by `pilgrims` like the artist, who search for transcendence in the purity and openness of nature.

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