Ram Kumar (b. 1924)

Minor surface abrasions in upper left quarter of painting. Small surface abrasions along lower left edge of painting visible in catalogue. Colors of original slightly brighter than catalogue illustration.
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'My work is now guided by a concern with plastic qualities. I am more deeply involved with the form than with content.  When one is young and beginning, one's work is dominated by content, by ideas – but as one grows older, one turns to the language of painting itself.  I have grown detached – I want to find the same peace as mystics found ...' (Ram Kumar, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 117).

In the 1960's, Ram Kumar's paintings abandoned the city in favor of the more nostalgic landscapes of his childhood, the forests and rivers of the Himalayan foothills. These landscapes are the final stage in Ram Kumar's journey toward achieving absolute purity in his paintings. 'Like a dedicated ascetic, Ram Kumar had to undergo the final rite of purification by renouncing not only the human-body which he had done earlier, but also its habitation on the earth, the city, and make the decisive leap into nature itself.' (N. Verma, "From Solitude to Salvation" in Ram Kumar: A Retrospective, New Delhi, 1994, p.7).

Over the course of the late 60's the forms within Ram Kumar's paintings become condensed and by the end of the decade the elements of his landscapes had been reduced to barely recognizable elements juxtaposed in shifting vertical and horizontal planes. He turns away from his focus on Varanasi and during this deconstructionist phase all fleeting elements of man-made structures disappear entirely.  In relation to this move away from identifiable forms in his painting Kumar states 'perhaps a human face or a recognizable image shuts all doors to an observer as far as the basic essence of a work of art is concerned.  Only the superficial image remains on the surface which has very little to do with art.  As in classical music words are insignificant.  In art image is distraction.' (Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 201).

Paintings from this period document the artist's steady progression towards complete abstraction and involves a cleansing process of all elements of  'distraction'.  'Ram Kumar translates the landscape into a system of lines, planes, blocks; their machine edged logic, entering into dialogue with texture and tone, governs the distribution of significant masses over the picture space.' (Ranjit Hoskote, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 38). The current work straddles the boundaries between abstract and realism, depicting the landscape through layered planes of muted browns, whites and deep ochre. Color and complexity of texturing determine the mood of the painting. The somber tones still echo the sense of  loss and decay present in his early canvases, yet their inherent lyricism and calm reveals a profound sense of inner illumination and perhaps a greater confidence in the artistic process itself. 'These "abstractions" are...like a shifting beam of light... passing through the entire space of the painting, from one segment of reality to another, uncovering the hidden relations, between the sky, the rock the river. The sacred resides not in the objects depicted, but in the relationships discovered.' (Nirmal Verma, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 27).