Narayan Shridhar Bendre

Acquired directly from the artist in India in 1968

There is minor paint shrinkage in the work, visible only upon very close inspection. The painting has been re-lined and is in very good stable condition, as viewed. UV Light: Small spots of retouching are visible under UV Light, notably in the lower half of the work and upper right quadrant.
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Narayan Shridhar Bendre's interest in the genre of the landscape was fortified during his initial training in fine art in Indore, and further nurtured by the sights he encountered on his widespread travels around India and the world. Amongst the artist's formative travels was a visit to Kashmir in 1936. This trip, originally intended as a short excursion ended up lasting almost three years, with Bendre working there as an artist-journalist with the Srinagar Visitors' Bureau. This time had a deep impact on his work and he reminisced about the beauty of the region over the course of his career many times. “He gives prime importance to his visual experience. But he does not resort to naturalistic representation. He interprets it on his canvas in his own terms and offers what he has seen and enjoyed.” (R. Chatterjee, Bendre: The Painter and the Person, The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture & Indus Corporation, Toronto, 1990, p. 61)
In 1948, Bendre visited New York to hold a solo exhibition in the Windermere Gallery. On his journey back to India, he travelled extensively through Europe, where he became acquainted with the works of modernist masters. It was this exposure that encouraged him to experiment with elements of Cubism, Expressionism and Pointillism. He first began experimenting with Pointillism technique after retiring from his post as Dean of M. S. University, Baroda in 1966.
The depiction of a solitary figure in the composition is a direct stimulus from the works of Georges Seurat for whom the treatment of the figure in space was a central issue running all the way through his oeuvre. The Kashmiri girl in this idyllic landscape is reminiscent of Seurat’s anonymous figures often presented with their backs to the viewer as seen in iconic paintings such as La Seine à la Grande-Jatte (1888). An essential characteristic of Seurat’s figures was that they were isolated, still, and withdrawn. 
The scrupulous application of dots reveals that Bendre studied the location, the figures and every miniature aspect of the piece in great detail, gradually honing his composition and figures to a state of perfection. The large façade of the house bears down with all its weight on the petite girl in the foreground. The distance is given by the tree in the foreground and the background. By employing these tools, Bendre has managed to suggest both space and enormity. The range of proportions and dimensions has been marvelously rendered from the large to the small, from the heavy to the light, from the radiant to the shadowed.
Colours are subtly and masterfully employed, lending an overall harmony to the setting. “The basis of the Pointillist movement of the Neo-impressionist painters was largely drawn from scientific research on colour and perception during the 19th century. Of critical importance was the idea that two juxtaposing colours that are close together, or even overlapping, have the effect of portraying an entirely new colour when seen from a distance.” (Georges Seurat, 'Figures in Space' in ArtObserved.com, http://artobserved.com/2009/11/go-see-zurich-georges-seurat-figure-in-space-at-kunsthaus-zurich-through-january-17th-2010/-.) In this case, we see dots of blue and yellow, when combined by the eye, form mixed hues of brown and mauve. 
Bendre once mused, "In this world, one comes across many things, natural and man-made, which are worth painting: trees, birds, water and landscapes, houses and city scenes. Man is the center of my universe along with his emotions, his love, his social intercourse, his surroundings." (N. Bendre, ‘My Painting,’ Bendre, The Painter and The Person, The Bendre Foundation for Art and Culture, Toronto, 1990, p. 63)