About
As and when any of us has had the privelege of closely observing the person of an artist, as of experiencing his works over the decades, it is not all that easy to speak of him, or his work, in a brief, hasty note. This is especially true in the case of the late K.S. Kulkarni who was reticent by nature even though his activities on behalf of art and art education took him far and wide.
As a start, then (that is before making any comment on his works in the present show) what immediately comes to my mind are certain possible object lessons culled from a life well spent:
For one thing, a work of art is as good as its creator. It cannot be more so. And in this behalf Kulkarni comes out with flying colours.
Good art speaks the truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth. Clearly, Kulkarni endeavoured to be artfully wise, and to tell the truth as he understood it, not only concerning the superficial and sensational aspects of the life drama, but also what lies deeper. Certainly the chosen of Kulkarni's works testify to that.
In the very nature of things not even a master's works are all golden grain-chaff is inevitable. This painter had his share of that last. But looking at this show, we feel that all is pardoned him. Such indeed was the depth of the man, and this is witnessed in the best of his creations. He conducted himself well in the long chronicle of his artistic acts, and even as head of several prestigious art institutions. Also, never was he a prisoner of the day's art dogmas. This indeed was the key truth about the artist, and the truth was incarnated boldly in his robust and angular paintings and sculptures.
One can say that the most potent command which can be laid upon any artist is: wait. Well Kulkarni preserved his silence at all cost. In all essentials, he waited patiently, and that despite being prolific. He waited rather than profane the purity of a single canvas or sheet of paper with any thing less than what was perfectly appropriate and seemly, that is to say, with anything less than what was true.
Kulkarni never achieved success at the cost of merit. Having known him long enough, I could safely say that he was totally identified with his activities. This is rather rare in our success prone times. He never ever, I think, settled into a populist mould driven by crass ambition. And I assert this even when I did not always react to certain of his works. But still everyone of us reacted to his person with the requisite warmth. Kulkarni did not fear criticism, since his was an educated mind, that is apart from being an artistic one. He therefore shunned mediocrity, but which has been rampant in this later part of the expiring century. Also, he never did show animus towards fellow artists. Evidently he was a democratic man at heart.
Being a mature person, Kulkarni was in the habit of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no when the situation so demanded. To express simulated sympathy for everybody was not his practice. He invariably wished for real understanding, that is a genuine conversation without flattery. He detested chatter and gossip (and thereby came his love of deep music). He held his tongue. This was because he knew that real thoughts emerge out of silence alone.
In other words Kulkarni was not ever idly inquisitive about the rather sorry local art scene, even though he was concerned. His creative imagination had to be protected from spiritual enervation. That, for art to him was not just the reproduction of the oddments out of life. It came out of silence, out of an imagination that was charged and fused. He knew that without imagination you merely ended up by having stupid details on one side and empty dreams on the other. His work therefore was rarely vague or romantic, it rather came out of endless restraint, plus silence. No wonder he took to meditation, completing his best work only when he felt it was a privelege to do so at all.
Thus Kulkarni's true artistic perceptions emerged veiled, the consequence of secrecy and a laconic discipline. But then he did not treat art as esoteric religion - a mistake he never made even when he honoured the divine principle in creation. And it is so he remained his own man to the end.
Kulkarni was interested in all the arts, especially music - for him music related sound and time, and so subtly pictured the ultimate edges of human communication. Now though the arts form a circle and not a pyramid, music is an outer defensive barrier for self-expression, and whose elaboration was a condition of all the other modes of articulation. That music pointed to silence, was again an image which Kulkarni seemed to use in his own work. Like all thoughtful artists he dreamed of a silence which makes the human creature long for the great ocean from which it initially emerged.
Well, some such, are the said object lessons, I seemed to receive from a friend and a mentor.
But now to come to these powerfully conceived, freely drawn works of an early period, is to realize the master that Kulkarni was in his inspired moments. These works are a continuation from a still earlier phase, though minus much colour. So, monastic as they are each one is a distinct personality, each one as though crying out the message of life. Each being a blend of semi-abstract figures, flora and fauna, or some other sparse detail. Simplicity is the most striking part of the genre. The works are not as often, dully uniform, but varied. And yet the essential inner unity of the lot is palpable, an exciting juxtaposition of shapes, their tension and strain nerve-tingling. Subtle as each one of them is in treatment, they are far from being perversely obscure. But still the painter never allowed any concessions to our presently lazy art viewing habits. Each of these works being, evidently, a serious debate between the powers of light and darkness. The light - metaphorically speaking of course - is finally the victor. There is a clear intellected grid behind the emotive expressiveness. Thus comes singularity plus spontaneity. But spontaneous artists have had to learn to be spontaneous. Kulkarni had to undergo a long process of such learning, and unlearning, in order to know what his true order of spontaneity was and to tell with sureness what such spontaneity dictated. Spontaneity stood for life, or the sheer potency of the source of life.
The living principle itself was Kulkarni's key concern. Yes, he was driven by the need to achieve the fullest consciousness of being alive. He needed all the strategems of art or craft- from east or west - to arrive at an organic wholeness, the fuII-throated music of being. There is therefore an urgency in several of these compositions, that is, the quality of livingness.
- Keshav Malik
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