Have
come back from a long tour of Manali, Dharamshala and Dalhousie.
All
these places in Himalayas have a vastly different scenery than Mumbai
city where i reside. What are the thoughts when one leaves for a long
painting tour and what are things we bring back?
There
are certain obvious things we look for and some not so obvious.
A
different place has a different scenery which will make any landscape
by any artist look different than what he does in his own town or
village. He may use different palette and different sizes and all
that. A seashore dweller will run to mountains.
And
there are more subtle norms. Each place has a individual soul and
character which we aim for. The atmosphere and light of a place in
Himalayas has to seep in to your work. Architecture also adapts to
that atmosphere so does our works.
But
all these thoughts do occur to any sensible painter of landscape
sometime or the other, though not in as many words! But i honestly
believe that landscape is not in the scene but in the mind and heart
of the painter. Otherwise how can paintings from a same spot by
different painters differ so vastly and two works by same painter on
same spot differ too! And though spots do change there is a
characteristic brand of each artist which shows through. So why we
run to far away places?
Boredom
of painting same city is obvious answer and obviously mediocre n
wrong! Otherwise Russian artist Nicholus Roerich who after settling
in Naggar near Manali, would have gone somewhere else after few
years, say Mumbai!!! But he didnt and we run each year! To search?
Then why not search inside? My honest answer will be to look for an
impetus. A different locale will not only pose technical and timing
problems which include sleep and food timings :-), but also of
compositions and treatment. We all aim to make new breakthrough of
some kind.
So
i felt two ways to do this. One is to carry the compositional
experiment you did in Mumbai to a vastly new locale like Dalhousie
and try to paint those locales in that 'new' way. It will not only
polish off rough edges in your new styles but also bring out new
facets. And make you confident that your experiment was not spot
specific. It was heart specific and inside you and not in a city.
And
secondly when you visit a new place, search for new visual imagery on
paper. When you encounter a different place and find a new compostion
or maybe a technique, then go deeper. Find the thread which doesnt
depend on that scenery but it depends on your understanding of
landscape as an art form and bring it back. If you find a new path
which leads you to your own backyard, your own studio, then the trip
was worth it!!!
