Three Drawings

Leonurdo,Vol. 3, pp. 67-69. Pergamon Press 1970. Printed in Great Britain THREE DRAWINGS Madhoor Kapur* After finishing my studies in English literature at Delhi University, I came to paint in Paris. It was a total change. Visually, I found France cleaner, more organized, more fragile. India is earthier, the colours everywhere are hotter and more intense. The Paris light is different; its long blue evenings and clean car lights fascinated me. I became also more conscious of the technology of our age and its immense impact on Western art and thinking. It is magnificent. But I understand too, why most people cannot believe in an eternal force which unifies and regulates each thing in the universe. In India, I have felt the presence of the belief in this eternity but in Europe I think that it is lost. During the last two years, I have been trying to enlargethe scope of my art work technically; I know that the West is at its best and noblest here, for it offers knowledge in its purest state. I am for this newly shrunk world of computers, multiples and cathartic artistic expression. Figures 1, 2 and 3 show three of my pen and ink drawings, a medium to which I am well accustomed. I make a drawing in one sitting. Although the mood of a drawing may have been built up over a long period of time, I prefer to let it come out in one go. In the first drawing, I began by drawing a man in the centre. Limbs become a ladder, grow wings, multiply, appear at random; a head changes into a hand with extra fingers, another becomes a lotus; a headless body becomes a framelike shape joined to an arm; feet flow into ribbons. The outlines are changed to create metamorphoses and illusions. The arms have become a ladder or a continuation of the landscape and the profile of the landscape *Artistlivingat 71/48 ChanakyaPuri,Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi, India. (Received 18 June 1969.) is parallel to an entering leg, making it another ribbon. The picture gives an impression of movement . Each figurehas too much of onething and too little of another. There is juxtaposition in perspective . The horizontal line is ambiguously a horizon and another picture, half-covering the head of a flying woman. The second drawing is a kind of narrative. It has the head of a woman in the centre and a fainter repetition of it to the right. Krishna, seated in a lotus, fliestowards the central head, which a woman (her face shown in profile) has already reached and become part of. A woman, masked as a boar, follows Krishna, looking back at another woman, masked as a cow, with a candle on her head. In the lower corner is a skeletal chair on a kneeling girl. The candle is repeated and so is the lotus image. In the background are a house, a door showing the countryside and waves. Between the faintly-drawn woman’s neck and her hair is the sea. The third drawing is one of several I have made based on the Hindu myth of Hanumanji, the monkey-god of the Ramayan. When the gods Ram and Laxman were at war with the demon-god Ravan, Laxman was hit by an arrow and killed. To revivehim, Hanumanjiwasasked tofetchthe lifegiving root which grew only on the holy mountain Kailasha. Hanuman flew through the air but upon arriving, was confused by the profusion of plants he saw. He brought the wholepeak, Meru, onhis palm. He seems to symbolize innocence, devotion and power. I have, as I often do, included Hindi calligraphy in the picture. The words, whicharemy own, say: ‘I will make Meru a temple and put it at Laxmanji ’s feet; the root was not found; the eyes remained cool in the dark. Hanumanji returned to mother earth from the sky like the sun’. 67 68 Maclhoor Kupur Fig. 1. 'Metamorphosesand Illusions', tinted pen arid ink drawing, 24 x 32 cm, 1968. Notes: Three Drawings 69 Fig. 2. ‘Krishnaand Women’,pen and ink drawing, 24 x 32 cm, 1968. Fig. 3. ‘AHanumanje Tale’,pen and ink drawing, 24 x 32...