Ram Kumar

American Collection, Wisconsin
Sotheby's New York, 18 September 2008, lot 23 

There are scattered losses only along the edges of the work, notably the bottom edge.This work is in overall very good condition, as viewed. The browns appear slightly more saturated in the print catalog.
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Sunyata, the Buddhist theory of emptiness, is often aligned with terminology that invokes a sense of a calm void. A place of extinction that is without the violence that western philosophy inherently attaches.  This is a place that does not offer any implications on any other thing, a true form of non-obstruction.  “The word ‘tragic’ is perhaps a bit out of place in the context of Ram Kumar’s work. It has a western ring and carries suggestions of pity and terror, of the inscrutable workings of fate and of the price that men have to pay for their hubris. To the Indian way of thinking, what makes life so sorry a business is rather the void at the heart of things.  The feeling this engenders is not so much of personal misfortune as of metaphysical anguish.” (S. Lal, ‘Between Being and Nothingness,’ Ram Kumar, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi and London, 2007, p. 9-10)
In Mahayana Buddhism, this void is not separated from the material world. The ability to have this emptiness is directly contingent upon and is likewise bolstered by it.  The balance of matter is a common practice within many of the religions of the subcontinent.  The practice and belief in sunyata can be profoundly witnessed through trajectory of Kumar’s oeuvre from the 1960s onwards.  The ascetic practice is directly evident in the works from this era.  “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 ...” (R. Kumar, ‘Landscapes of the Mind,’ Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 1996, p. 117).
This untitled work from 1969 is a perfect example of Kumar's obsession with cleansing the distractions from the canvas.  Focusing on earthy tones reminiscent of the rolling hills of his birthplace Simla and the Himalayan foothills, Kumar breaks the painting down in to forms and their representation on the canvas.  Just as important as the strokes are the spaces that there is a lack of marking.  Faced with this work, the negative space and color scheme surrounding the form enhances that which can be interpreted in many ways.  “All we can do face to face with this picture is wonder whether what it shows is a treeless expanse swept by a gale or a storm – swept inner landscape of the mind.  The answer does not really matter.  The meaning of the work lies in the verve with which the artist brings the outer and inner realities together.”  (S. Lal, ‘Between Being and Nothingness,’ Ram Kumar, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi and London, 2007, p. 11)
There is
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from the experience,
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been (ibid., p. 15)