Important Notice

Sakti Burman's L'Ondine bears a similar title to Jean Giraudoux's 1938 play, Ondine. A highly popular play originally adapted from Undine by the German Romantic writer Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, it was translated into English in 1959. The plot revolves around the tale of a knight, Hans, who is sent on a quest and meets Ondine, a water nymph, in a forest and falls in love with her. Ondine wishes to be human, and the marriage that... Sakti Burman's L'Ondine bears a similar title to Jean Giraudoux's 1938 play, Ondine. A highly popular play originally adapted from Undine by the German Romantic writer Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, it was translated into English in 1959. The plot revolves around the tale of a knight, Hans, who is sent on a quest and meets Ondine, a water nymph, in a forest and falls in love with her. Ondine wishes to be human, and the marriage that results is revealed to be a disastrous union of two incompatible beings from different worlds. The title suggests an allusion to Ondine from the play; the conches, the pebbles and the semi-nude forms point to this. It is possible that Burman encountered the play following his move to Paris, after his tenure at the College of Art in Kolkata. Having studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Sakti has ever since assimilated the culture of the city and continues working there. Depicting a widely-loved mythical subject can pose a challenge to an artist. Burman overcomes this challenge through his marbling technique and repetitive motifs. They evoke a mystical, dreamlike feel; his marbling technique was arrived at after years of experimenting. He travelled to Italy in 1958 and his encounter with the frescoes of Giotto, Piero de la Francesca and Simone Martini inspired him to assimilate their monumentality and textures in his works. Writer Kishore Singh suggests that Burman's marbling technique was serendipitous, observing "Instead of just painting over it [the painting] once it had dried, he continued to experiment, and liked…the colouration this resulted in, and ode to a passing age and a sense of gentle ageing that suited his sensibilities. The mural-like effect appeared first within the figures; it would later become part of the background as well." ("All Aboard the Ark of Sakti Burman's Dreamworld", Sakti Burman: The Wonder of It All, Pundole Art Gallery and Apparao Galleries, 2012, pg. 49)

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