In every era of artistic history, there has always been an attempt made by a few artists to provide a new conformation to the art to wrest with the traditional norms, but they had a linkage to their pasts. Be it Caravaggio, who added dramatism and chiaroscuro to inspire the next generation of artists, or Picasso, who used geometry in Cubism to add perspective through different angles, for every image of their innovativeness and creativity, this link of modernity has its roots through the past traditions. In the case of Modern Indian art, the link to modernism was with the ancient realism of South India, which was brought by the legendary Amrita Sher-Gil, an artist who inspired the upcoming generations of artists, including the progressive artists S.H. Raza, M.F. Hussain, and even feminist artist, Arpita Singh. Only a few people know that Amrita was acknowledged as the first Modern-Indian artist who broke the norms of nationalist art led by Abanindranath Tagore and Western academic art to create a sentimental yet provoking art to romanticize Indian art. Having feminine subjects, Amrita secured her subjects from any gaze of the outer world as she embraced the private moments of a woman, whilst she took everything in her self-portrait when she wanted to portray the absurdness of the patriarchial society as she did in Self-Portrait as Tahitian. Hill Women, the painting we are here for is from the late life of Amrita, when she almost started a new style of art.
The backstory of Hill Women starts in the mid-1930s when a handful of distinguished artists made a firm choice to promote the Indian culture and pertain to its sovereignty through their artworks. While Abanindranth and Gagendranath Tagore were busy pitching cultural pedagogy, Jamini Roy explored the Calcutta markets, and a professional exhibition circuit of Raja Ravi Verma was set up on a pan-India basis, Amrita took a new direction in the art. She started progressivism as a reflection of her birth with tints of nationalism sovereignty. However, unlike others, she presented the cultural encounter with a civilizational context, a struggle for self-determination, which impacted her artworks deeply. At this time, she painted Hill Men and Hill Women to represent the rural folk of India.
In September 1934, just a year before she painted this artwork, she wrote her parents from Budapest,
“Modern art has led me to the comprehension and apprehension of Indian painting and sculpture… It seems paradoxical, but I know for certain that had we not come away to Europe, I should perhaps never have realized that a fresco from Ajanta or a small piece of sculpture in the Musee Guimet is worth more than the whole Renaissance.”
Hill Women depicts four rural women of India in traditional attire. Amrita showed the figures of this painting with an enduring and indeed haunting face, instead of relying on the perfectness of beauty to create an appealing effect. Making the face of her figures plain, stark, and alive, one of these holds an earthen pot, a symbolic connection of women with fertility. As she combined the techniques of Post-Impressionism with the Ajanta frescoes’ realism, she fused modernism with European art in this artwork. Further, the artwork has a ‘flat-style’ reminiscence of Gauguin’s paintings, which are monumental, impassive, and virtually monochrome. There are a few primary colors in the artwork set against a simple background. It was only later, in 1937 that she used brighter shades of colors to give an extraordinary appeal to her paintings as she did in Bride’s Toilet.
Coming to the meaning of this composition, in my opinion, the first two women at the center who look in despair might be the daughters of the left-sided woman who holds the pot. The pot symbolizes fertility, and as she already gave birth to two daughters, she is now expected to give birth to a boy, which was quite a reflection of the patriarchial society at that time. The woman on the right side leads the painting by her harsh glare toward the one on the extreme left. Amrita painted this narrational composition while giving a psychological stir to the viewer as she kept him engaged with different meanings. The artwork did have a story, but it keeps coming to the viewer with their perspective of the society.
Final Words.
There is excellent movement in the painting through the gaze of the four women. It is interesting to note that Amrita created a distancing effect in the Hill Women. Absorbed in the melancholy, these figures give a state of immobility and a state of equilibrium, which was a stasis achieved by her formalist language. The use of diagonal lines as a stare, the symbolism of the earthen pot, and the use of neutral shades and darker faces are fine characteristics of this composition. But the despair in these faces is somewhat haunting as if it’s a metaphor for the alienation of own self. This vulnerability resemblems a victim of tension and Amrita portrayed it well, leaving a lasting impression on a viewer.
Resource.
Featured Image: Hill Men by Amrita Sher-Gil; Tallenge Store.
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