KOCHI: Benode Behari Mukherjee, a pioneer in the Indian modernist movement, embraced experimentation in art when his peers clung to traditions. However, in the process of creating a distinctive style, whether in terms of mediums or art techniques, he never left behind the beauty of the simple representations of his surroundings.
This is clear from the first and longest of the artist’s landscape handscrolls, ‘Scenes from Santiniketan’, exhibited at Durbar Hall. ‘Scenes from Santiniketan and Benodebehari’s Handscrolls’, curated by Prof R Sivakumar, is a month-long exhibition conducted in association with Kerala Lalithakala Akademi and Kolkata Centre for Creativity, in collaboration with Rasa Gallery.
Born in Calcutta, the partially blind Benode joined Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan at 13. Nature was his close companion. In the handscrolls, it is the artist’s perception of the landscape of Santiniketan, during his time in the place in the 1920 — sal trees, villages, paddy fields....
“His works have always inspired me. I have have treasured a monograph of handscrolls bought from an exhibition back in 1981,” says Gopinathan Nair, a retired drawing teacher. Besides Benode’s originals from the 1930s and ‘40s, Satyajit Ray’s 1972 documentary on Benode, ‘The Inner Eye’, is also being screened as part of the exhibition, which will conclude on September 25.