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mother and child: article on Ganesh Pyne by Anjan Sen

MOTHER AND CHILD

INCEPTION :::

The picture originates in the belief that the tree is the symbol of the father. The setting is of a Bengal village: a leaf hut, the darkness of the night, a bird perched on a young tree, the luminosity of the lotus bud emerging out of a dark pit (pond). Mother and child are introduced in these surroundings.

ELEMENTS :::

The metaphors of the mother and the child are respectively Durga and Balagopal. The icons of worship are often given folk-forms. The familiar form of a rustic mother - in a red-bordered sari - and child are imposed upon the picture, but the sacred connotations are enforced by the use of bright colours. The festive designs (alpana) are drawn not on the steps but on the wall of the hut itself.

FORMS/STRUCTURES :::

The painting is essentially symmetrical. The main structures - the two trees, the contours of the hut - all have an upward sweep. But this movement of the straight lines is tempered by the use of circular and semi-circular motifs.

COLOURS :::

Deep brown, black, bright yellow and orange, whitish yellow; many shades of green.

MOOD ::: Fear and silence. The beauty of the surroundings is focussed on the panic stricken eyes of mother and child.

DISCUSSION :::

The traditional conception of mother and child has been used in this work by Ganesh Pyne. Celebrated alike in primitive art, sacred architecture, miniatures, terracotta, in different ages European art, in the paintings of Jamini Roy, this motif has found shape in various phases and modes of artistic representation and has been formed variously in accordance with the time and the individual artist. But this painting, "Mother & Child" originates from the great tree whose trunk is visible on the right hand side of the drawing. On the left is a young sapling. Within the structure, the old tree and new signify the father and the child. The forms of in the centre - no matter what we call then Durga - Balgopal or Jashoda - Nandadulal - are essentially significations of the mother and child, seated on the steps of a hut. To the left we see a bird perched on the sapling - a symbol of the Nilkantha. The wall of the hut is embellished with a decorative design. So much for the external elements of the painting: we may now attempt to enter into the deeper structures of the picture.

The painting presents two conceptions, that of father and son and mother and child, simultaneously. The forms typical of folk art have been broken, in other words restructured, by Pyne and presented in his own pictorial idiom. If the structuring of every day language is characteristic of literary language, the reshaping of familiar forms is a sign of pictorial language.

In the drawing above we see that the appearance of the "mother" is similar to the familiar forms of Durga and Jagaddhatri. When the artist started work these popular shapes were in his mind. But in the course of his painting the shapes were re-formed and changed and the individual mother - figure takes shape - in the process of structuring. The same is true of the figure and face of Balagopal. We may attempt to understand the work in terms of the tree and the human form, the arrangement of parallel lines, the parallel placement of forms.

As poets break the sentence, the structures of language, and arrange them in different ways, Ganesh Pyne too, has in this picture broken and restructured known forms and scenes, and rearranged its elements in a different and individual manner, For example, the alpana has moved up from the ground to the wall of the hut. The familiar, everyday motif takes its place in the artistic placement of lines.

The red of the sari and the gold complexion, characteristic of the pratima, the bright blue colour of the child reminiscent of the infant Krishna are possessed of iconic significance. If the Nilkantha is the harbinger of joy, how do we explain the apprehension on the faces of mother and child? Is it time? Why are they afraid?

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