Important Notice

“I don’t create dream paintings. Whatever I have experienced in this world, I paint.” - N S BENDRE

An artist, teacher, and intellectual, Narayan Shridhar Bendre was a pioneer of modern Indian art and an influential mentor to several prominent modernists including Shankar Palshikar, who went on to head the J J School of Art in Bombay, Jyoti Bhatt, Shanti Dave, and G M Sheikh. Born in Indore in 1910, he received his initial art... “I don’t create dream paintings. Whatever I have experienced in this world, I paint.” - N S BENDRE

An artist, teacher, and intellectual, Narayan Shridhar Bendre was a pioneer of modern Indian art and an influential mentor to several prominent modernists including Shankar Palshikar, who went on to head the J J School of Art in Bombay, Jyoti Bhatt, Shanti Dave, and G M Sheikh. Born in Indore in 1910, he received his initial art education in 1929 at the newly opened State School of Art under the tutelage of D D Deolalikar. Bendre and his classmates were trained “... entirely through their observation of nature, never through books... They were taught to observe the behaviour of light at different hours of the day and night and were made to work even in the light of the hurricane patterns they carried. This was their introduction to an impressionistic palette that almost discarded black. They also became conscious of the fact that line did not exist in nature-it was an invention of the artist for the purpose of delineating form.” (Ram Chatterji, Bendre: The Painter and the Person, Mumbai: The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, 1990, p. 8) These teachings formed the foundation of his artistic career.

After graduating from Holkar College in 1933, Bendre travelled widely across India, including South India, Lahore, Kashmir, and later Shantiniketan in Bengal, during the 1930s and 1940s. His subsequent exposure to American art movements and European masters, such as J M W Turner and John Constable, on a trip to the United States and Europe between 1947 and 1948 prompted him to adopt a new idiom which broke away from his previous style. “He felt convinced representation was not the ultimate goal for an artist. Emphasis had to be laid on ultrasensorial factors. To achieve this, it was essential to arrive at an integration of all forms, an interrelation of chosen elements. And for this, distortion was essential-no movement or action was possible without it.” (Chatterji, p. 41) He experimented variously with Abstraction, Cubism, and Expressionism, and incorporated and adapted these influences into his own style rooted in Indian formalism. His choice of subject matter included classically Indian themes such as birds and animals, quintessentially Indian landscapes, and figures in village settings-especially women whom he painted with great sensitivity.

Painted in 1987, just a few years before his death, the present lot is a fine example of Bendre’s Pointillist style which he first began practising after retiring as Dean of M S University, Baroda, in 1966. In his words, the primary aim was not a naturalistic depiction but “to catch the original impact of the total image conceived.” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 19) Comparing his technique to French Post-Impressionists, the artist’s son Padmanabh remarked, “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, online)

The work is a lyrical example of Bendre’s scientific understanding of light and shadow and careful balancing of colour harmony to create a tranquil scene. Avoiding harsh lines (a choice that recalls his early art education with Deolalikar), he paints with a flat perspective and avoids shadows, instead conveying perspective by the gradual elimination of detail. It also exemplifies his belief in presenting a joyful visual experience through his art. “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.” (The artist quoted in “My Painting,” Chatterji, p. 64)

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