Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

THE PASSIONATE DETACHMENT 148 PAPR Lot 178 So.Lon/ 17.06.99 Landscape Watercolour on paper 32 x 44.5 cm. ASP: £ 2,500/ Rs. 170,750 (£1 = Rs. 68.30) Lot 289 Ch.NY/ 20.09.00 Kala Bhavan Watercolour on paper 28 x 19 cm. ASP: $ 3,055/ Rs. 141,065 ($1 = Rs. 46.175) 119 RAMKINKAR BAIJ ( 1910 — 80) a. Parganas Landscape Signed in Bengali, l.l. Watercolour on paper, early 1950s 23.1 x 33.2 cm. (9.1 x 13.1”) b. Mountainscape Signed in Bengali, l.r. Watercolour on paper, early 1950s 25.6 x 35.9 cm. (10.1 x 14.1”) Rs. 250,000 – 325,000 $ 5,320 – 6,915 (Set of 2) “Ramkinkar does a great number of landscapes with a rythmic spatial structure enlivened by judiciously laid washes and hatchings of brilliant colour in between; their varied densities and surface breaks accentuate the movement. Thematically they veer round the Santiniketan landscape, the Nepal panaroma, the Shillong lakes and hillsides; the rhythms vary with the location and the subject. The technique is, to an extent, modelled on Cezanne’s; the overall spatial statement is made with neutral washes, the spaces between are manipulated with colour layers of various stress and intensity forward or backward. But this, despite the linear drama, is prominent”. (K.G. Subramanyan, in LKC #30 1980, p34). “When Ramkinkar sat down with his sketch-pad before this landscape each common spot underwent a change. Each little detail came to throbbing life. The modest trees bristled up with a primitive vigour and the foliage took on a new sheen and vivacity. The sky played hide and seek with the barren earth, now zooming forward with a patch of blue, now going into hiding under a veil of grey. The seasonal nuances came out with great authenticity. In his company we saw nature in a new light”. (K.G. Subramanyan, in LKC #30 1980 , p33). a b