The syncretic tradition of Goan art
Goan art has developed from a universalist tradition that has
defied narrow boundaries of culture and religion.
By Vivek Menezes
vmin...@gmail.com
August 20, 2009 was a proud day for democracy in
India, as our little state of Goa showed the way to
the rest of the country on the nagging, confounding
issue of freedom of expression and its inevitable
clashes with religious sentiments.
In the same week that the high-profile national Art Summit in
Delhi quietly perpetuated its disgraceful, craven ban on
Husain's artworks, it was marvellous to witness the robust
exercise in democracy that took place on the winding
Calangute-Candolim beach road, as Subodh Kerkar defied
threats to his life and went ahead with his public exhibition
of line-drawings, sculptures and installations of Lord
Ganesh.
Much credit is due here to Dr Subodh Kerkar, an irrepressible
showman who has built a mature international career for
himself without leaving his beloved Goa.
Despite pressure from politicians who should know better, and
likewise ignoring ugly anonymous threats to his life and
livelihood, Subodh stood firm where artists and institutions
across the country have chosen capitulation and retreat.
Credit is also due to the Goa police, particularly SP Bosco
George, who handled this sticky situation with clarity and
restraint, while allowing both sides the space for expression
that is guaranteed in the Constitution.
Credit is also due to the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and its
allies. They exercised their right to assemble in protest --
and showed up in impressive numbers to do so -- while
conducting themselves with impeccable dignity. This peaceful
protest by more than 200 men and women leaves no doubt that
the HJS and its allies can be sincere about their complaints,
and are willing to engage in the democratic system to make
their point.
They do have the right to be offended by Subodh's artworks,
and to act on their objections in the manner guaranteed by
law. On August 20, 2009, it was clear that the HJS and Subodh
Kerkar could and would peacefully exercise their rights
without disrupting each other, and all the players involved
thus set a real benchmark for the functioning of Indian
democracy. It is an example that the rest of the nation must
emulate and learn from.
The most interesting thing about Subodh Kerkar's ceaselessly
prolific artwork has always been their rootedness in his life
experiences in the profoundly syncretic village culture of
Goa. This grounding in the Goan reality, nonetheless informed
by wide-ranging global awareness, makes Subodh an inheritor
of the magnificent tradition of paradigm-busting Goan artists
who created what the critic Ranjit Hoskote calls "an
invisible river" which has immeasurably enriched Indian art.
The very best pieces in Subodh's newly opened exhibition bend
your perceptions to allow the appreciation of an alternate
reality; it can take a beat or two before the twist makes
itself felt. This is the case with the single best work here
-- an emblematic piece of Goan art that should be in the
State Museum -- where the familiar, glowing contours of a
traditional Catholic family altar embrace a spare silhouette
of Ganesh. This is the syncretism of Goa writ in wood and
brass, layered with the history of conversion, and the dark
period of the Inquisition when the Hindus of Goa like
Subodh's own ancestors were driven to venerate easily
concealed cut-out images of Lord Ganesh.
This deeply sincere piece is Subodh Kerkar at his
instinctual best, and could only have emerged from
within our precious Goan culture, where orthodoxies
inevitably become blurred and useless, and the
boundary walls between ostensibly competitive
religious traditions are low, if they exist at all.
The impact of Subodh's lovingly adapted altar inevitably
brings to mind another medical student-turned-artist, the
mysteriously overlooked early modernist, Angelo da Fonseca.
It was the cusp of the 1930s. Heady nationalism had already
inflamed the imagination of his generation of Goans, so the
extraordinarily gifted young da Fonseca didn't just want to
be an artist, he wanted to be an Indian artist. Thus he
headed to Shantiniketan, to "become a sisya of the best
Indian artists of the century." It was a transformational
experience at the feet of the Tagores, for whom da Fonseca
was a prized pupil; for the rest of his life he stayed true
to the Shantiniketan tradition, which had at its core what
the eminent, inimitable Dr Jose Pereira describes as "an
eclectic vocabulary" that sought revival of the great
artistic traditions of the India.
In a soon-to-be-published landmark essay on da Fonseca's art,
Dr Pereira describes "a conflation of forms and techniques
from every source in the subcontinent, beginning with the
fifth century murals of Ajanta, and continuing with the
palm-leaf and paper manuscripts and the cloth paintings of
Tibet, Nepal, Orissa, Rajasthan and Bengal, even the murals
of Sigiriya in Ceylon: nothing 'indigenous' or 'oriental' was
excluded, not even Persian and Mughal and Chinese and
Japanese paintings." He notes, "only European realism was
taboo. This panoply arrayed against the West suited Fonseca
admirably in his efforts to create a wholly indigenist
Christian iconography."
Not unlike Subodh Kerkar today, Angelo da Fonseca
found himself confronted by implacable enemies who
claimed that he was hurting religious sentiments.
He was eventully hounded out of Goa for his Konkani
Madonnas and sadhu-looking saints, and, to his
lasting bitterness, he even faced censure from his
own family. Thus, da Fonseca was forced to leave
Goa for simply imagining Mary in a sari - a
harrowing experience from the 1940s that is echoed
in 2009 when Subodh is hounded for imagining and
painting Ganesh in the manner of Michelangelo.
But there is a lasting lesson from Angelo da Fonseca's
experience of "hurting religious sentiments". The artworks
have lived to be assessed anew. And today, Angelo da Fonseca
is on the cusp of being restored to the very top of the
ladder of early Indian modernists. His paintings comprise a
marvellous treasure chest that equals the best that any
artist from any part of the world managed to achieve in the
same era.
To the lasting benefit of Goans, much of the main body of his
work has been painstakingly gathered together with the
assistance of his widow, the gallant Ivy da Fonseca, and has
under near-miraculous circumstances been brought home to Goa
and the Xavier Centre of Historical Research where it will be
displayed in a series of galleries dedicated to the masters
of Goan art.
View the paintings by da Fonseca on this page -- both surely
accused of "hurting religious sentiments" when painted long
ago. But they are the opposite of offensive today. These
paintings are revealed to be an inestimable contribution to
Indian culture -- but even more than that, they are powerful
evocations of the Goan perspective, the Goan way of worship.
They remind us that bigots have never been able to hang on
here -- their divisive tactics have never found fertile
ground in Goa. Our history is long and complicated, but the
underlying theme has always been assimilation and tolerance.
Goans are natural universalists.
No one embodies this underlying theme better than
Dr Jose Pereira, whose accomplishments in an
extraordinary range of fields includes study at the
JJ School of Art between 1947-1951, where he was
classmate to the recently deceased master artist
Tyeb Mehta. Though yet little known for artistic
accomplishments, it turns out that Dr Pereira is an
important pioneer in the context of Indian art
history, and his surreal vision of Indian Christian
iconography is entirely worthy of comparison to the
now world-famous reinventions of Hindu iconography
by Mehta (whose Mahishasura sold for US $1.6
million at auction in 2005).
Besides the paintings depicted here, which have also been
preserved for safekeeping at the XCHR, Dr Pereira's
masterwork of fresco buono on the ceiling of the Borda chapel
perfectly illustrates the marvelously layered Goan artistic
vision. One section illustrates a passage from a Digambara
Jain religious masterpiece of Sanskrit literature from AD
959. Dr Pereira says, "the novelist's name was Somadeva --
[he] paints an elaborate picture of a large cow-pen. It is
thronged with travellers who are happy at being offered
buttermilk; in fact they become thirsty for milk at hearing
the continuous sound of milking. Old women, decked with
flowers, sing and churn butter as cows and bulls mate; the
bleating of kids breaking free of halters reminds them of
their own children. The kids, for their part, are frisky, and
mix with the puppies. Cows, crowned with flowers and grass,
flow with milk at the sight of the calves, while bulls burn
with jealousy as they watch the calves mate. The members of
the cow-pen's owner's family milk the cows, churn butter,
offer buttermilk to travelers, and watch cows giving birth."
It is an astonishingly evocative image of classical India,
written in Sanskrit 1000 years ago, by a 'sky-clad' Jain, now
depicted in a devotional artwork on a Catholic church in Goa.
There could be no better representation of the unique,
all-embracing artistic tradition of Goa. It is too precious
not to be defended at all costs - it is what makes us what we
are. And there is no one else like us.
Which brings us to these stirring, beautiful paintings of
Lord Ganesh that are sitting on gallery walls in Miramar, and
deserve far greater attention than they have so far received.
The artist responsible for these lovely paintings is Vamona
Navelkar, who himself embodies the best traditions and
history of Indian art, and is nothing less than a living Goan
treasure.
Vamonbab is gentle, serene and generous, despite a lifetime
of knocks and bruises that would have crushed a lesser man.
He radiates serenity, though he is too often ignored and
passed over for recognition -- in this way he has been a true
martyr for his art, very much like Angelo da Fonseca. But
make no mistake, Vamonbab is a man of fierce principle -- he
gave the Herald permission to use these gorgeous images of
Lord Ganesh with these words: "I am a devotee of Ganapati; to
me he embodies love and compassion. These are universal
traits which have relevance in Mexico and Portugal too, and I
have therefore used aspects and elements of Mexican and
Portuguese culture in these paintings, which I have dedicated
to Ganapati, along with thousands of others that I have done
like these over the years."
From the Rashtrakutas to Angelo da Fonseca to Dr
Jose Pereira to Vamona Navelkar to Dr Subodh
Kerkar, this debate and battle has never been about
individuals or specific artworks. Instead, it is
about a culture that has developed over centuries;
and which now looks like it is going to be tested
all over again. If history is a guide, the forces
of reason will prevail - just as they did on the
evening of August 20, 2009. For the time being, we
can remain proud of our precious Goa and its
culture that still has so much to offer the world.
First published in HERALD (Goa), August 23, 2009.
