MANGALURU: Recently, Shivbagh Bungalow, located in Mangaluru, had four unusual visitors. The once magnificent structure, which played host to several leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, now lies in ruins and that was precisely why the quartet chose the house.
Over the years, the heritage structure slowly crumbled even as the city grew by leaps and bounds all around it. Today, all that remains is the rusted iron gate and a huge compound with wild plants. During their visit, the four sketch artists painstakingly recorded what remains in their drawing books.
“We usually choose to sketch the structure itself, but this time, we wanted to create a memory of what has vanished, right in front of our eyes,” says Kiran Joan, the founder of a group called Mangalorious Urban Sketchers. Kiran grew up in this part of the city and has fond memories of the building, from when it had seen better days. “I would look at it often while growing up. Today, sketching its disappearance is quite a nostalgic experience,” she says.
The group, founded in 2016, has not been meeting often as members come and go. But over the years, they have managed to sketch various spots of interest, including the Old Port to the Sultan Battery. In 2019, the group reunited once more with the purpose of celebrating the urban heritage of Mangaluru.“I created this group for artists who want to relive their experiences of the city through drawing. We want to build a community that meets to draw and by drawing we uphold the historical significance of the city. Each member also has his/her own reasons but I feel this is what we can do for the city and in the process, we add another layer to its history,” Kiran says.
Currently, there are eight artists who make up the group, meeting during their free time to pick a historical spot to sketch. These trips usually last around two hours. While some of them are professional artists like Sapna Noronha and Joan, others come from varied professions.
Daron Mascarenhas is a doctor by profession while Sachin Hirannaiah is a research scholar at NITK – Surathkal. “Art is my passion which comes before my profession as a doctor. So when I heard Joan was sketching again, I eagerly signed up,” Mascarenhas says. “During every expedition, I look at something artistic and learn something new and it is really rewarding”, he adds.
Noronha ran into the duo in an art gallery and soon joined them in their expeditions. Sayyed Farvez and Joanna Vas are two more eager entrants in the group. Most of them have spent most of their lives in Mangaluru and are familiar with the city’s changing skyline. Sachin Hirannaiah is the odd person out as he hails from Mysuru and joined the group because of his passion for art. “I stumbled upon their page in Facebook and contacted them. The entire exercise of sketching Mangaluru’s urban landscape is quite enthralling”, he tells TNSE.
“Mangaluru’s urban landscape is changing rapidly with the development and we want to capture the old beauty before it vanishes. It is like documenting our old Mangaluru,” the sketchers say. As of now, the Manglorious Urban Sketchers have no big plan other than documenting the landscape. “Once we gather enough sketches, we may publish them or put up an art exhibition, presenting the beautiful urban setup we have lost to development,” Kiran Joan says.
Shivbagh’s glory returns, albeit briefly
The sight of four artists, busy sketching away outside Shivbagh, drew a lot of curious glances. At first, the crowd of onlookers were curious as to why the old dilapidated building was getting so much attention. Then something wonderful happened. Jayamala, an elderly resident of the area and an artist herself, brought the group a sketch of Shivbagh, rendered by artist K Vasudeva Rao in 1999. “We have been watching Shivbagh decaying with time. This group brought back old memories and I wanted to show them this sketch,” she says. She was part of a group called Artists Combined earlier and comes from the school of art known as BGM by B G Mohammed. “We are exactly looking for such moments of wisdom,” says Daron Mascarenhas.
The concept of urban sketching
Painting ‘En Plein Air’ (a French expression meaning in open air) was a normal practice for executing rough sketches of landscape subjects in the past. The finished paintings would then be produced in the studio by artists. “Sketching life stories is achieving a freshness, a direct impression recording one’s own unique artistic impression. Urban sketching ‘en plein air’ goes back centuries, largely given the desire to paint light and its changing qualities, more loosely, the achievement of an intense impression of the open air. (Photography has eased this a great deal). But still It’s certainly not like snapping a quick photo or selfie and moving on,” says artist Sapna Noronha.