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

30 This philosophical framework seeks to clarify how within the changing journey of the human consciousness knowing itself and its relationship with the material world, linkages are created which can explain and justify a history of creative work. Indian modern and contemporary art is the example used to clarify the arguments. 1 The notes which follow constitute an introduction to the study. The ongoing transformation of the human mind can be represented by stages of characterization such as: Stubbornness, Will, Idealism, Imagination and Surrender. These are eternally fluid across time and localities, as the individual continually interacts with their flexible material environment, which in turn can be characterized by: All Else, Pain, Another Logic, Tradition and Playful Wisdom. More than most activities, artistic creativity reflects the journey of self- knowledge, of balancing the inner and outer duties, the seemingly subjective and its objectivity, the fluid and its flexibility, with a genuine depth and sense of freedom. The changes within the inner human resolve, are to a large extent determined by the perceptions regarding the outer environment. Thus the inability or unwillingness to absorb all else through one’s inner stubbornness, can slowly transform stubbornness into will, and absorption into an act of balancing. Suddenly all else may no longer seem inevitably absorbed, and pain suddenly takes on an acute awareness and sense of burden, so that maybe to continue a balance is all one can achieve. Similarly, the transformation of a dogged will into idealism, implies balance transformed into a different discipline, as pain seeks a more cerebral grasp, as if a logical warfare can systematically be waged within. There is the belief that the rhythm within can coincide with the material logic propels human co- existence, allowing a different kind of hope and expectation to enter the mindset. The stubbornness can emanate from infinite sources, as it seems to be a pre-existing aspect of consciousness. The need and ability of such an inherent force to play with uncertainty becomes the motivation for most artists. They are unable to break away from the desperate need to know oneself, and more than that, to be true to the search of knowing oneself. Mystical and in constant awe, as if a child, in continuous wonder with the fascination of each small deed and idea, and yet grasping the very depths of pain, mortality and its aftermath, such are the clear preoccupations of Rabindranath Tagore (Refer to Lot 1) and Ganesh Pyne (Lot 5 & 212), one a creative genius inspite of his technical naivete, the other an artistic genius inspite of his technical brilliance, whose trickery so easily overwhelms many artists with lesser emotional honesty. Stubbornness also reveals itself through the dark introspective integrity of artists such as Jeram Patel (Lot 158), Ambadas (Lot 6), C.Douglas (Lot 8) obsessed by the need to find the roots of existence, while Rameshwar Broota’s (Lot 9) introspection reveals the monumental power of evolution, uncontaminated by the lesser forces of the daily environment. The introspective energies revealed in the work of Biren De (Lot 2, 162 & 171), has its stubbornness rooted in the eternal dilemma of fusing contradictory forces, whether it be male and female, the erotic and spiritual, the silent and the absolutely anxious which cannot help but burst forth. The tension of this fusion can only be sustained by a stubbornness which realizes that neither polarity is real, and that one is indeed pursuing that by which neither India: the Passionate-detachment Curatorial Note / A Philosophical Framework Stubbornness Absorbs All Else Inner Will Balancing the Pain Idealism Disciplines and is Disciplined by Another Logic Imagination Gracefully Plays with Tradition Absorbed, Balanced, Disciplined, so as to Surrender to a Playful Wisdom. 1 This framework was first presented by myself in 1997 as the basic structure for the Festival of Indian Contemporary Painting: The Intuitive- logic (March-April 1997) organized by HEART in collaboration with NGMA (New Delhi & Mumbai), Bharat Bhavan (Bhopal), British Art Council, Cymroza Art Gallery, Gallery Chemould with Max Mueller Bhavan, Pundole Gallery, Prithvi Gallery & Chitrakoot Art Gallery (Calcutta).