Mithila Arts Gallery

In the previous post I wrote that  Gunjeshwari Kumari’s painting ‘Terrorism’ is not unique in its theme but is special in how the artist chose to portray that theme.

A good example of what I had in mind is Bharti Kumari’s  ‘Osama bin Laden Terrorizes the World ’ .

A pale blue medallion is set off by the burnt orange color of the paper. Within the medallion, Osama, wearing a finely embroidered shalwar kameez and with hands held high, orchestrates the terror acts that surround him.  The World Trade Center in flames on the upper left, below is the attack on the Indian Parliament, other bombings and acts of terror on airplanes and trains fill the rest of the picture space. All this is framed by a narrow border of masked figures and guns.  The painting is a beautifully designed and finely drawn history of headlines, a catalogue of terror acts.

Gunjeshwari’s painting is quite different.  The focus is on the personal.  Here there is only one story: the capture and execution of some soldiers, and the grief experienced by their family members.  The burning bus and crying child just add to the personal sense of loss. While Bharti Kumari steps back and portrays terrorism from a global perspective, Gunjeshwari Kumari wants us to experience the living individuals that constitute the headlines.

The style of the paintings also reflects this difference. The Osama piece almost glows at times with the white of the paper showing through the hatching and stippling colors.  Look at the Indian parliament building, for example, or especially the central blue oval with Osama.  As our eyes move over the work, we enjoy the color, admire the technique and try to match an image with a remembered headline. On the other hand, Gunjeshwari’s terrorism piece is not as finely drawn. The line is a little thicker, the whole effect somewhat flatter. There is no glow to the piece, but the story slowly draws us in and we react to it.

I finish with a photograph I took in Jan 2010.  It’s Bharti Kumari completing her painting at the Mithila Art Institute in Madhubani, India.

Note that the border was left for last and that the faces have not yet been filled in. If you open this link to the the Mithila Art Institute and scroll down a bit you can see Audrey Stein’s close up shot of Bharti’s hand finishing one of the faces that is blank here. You also get a good look at the nib pen she is using to get those fine hatching lines in her work.

I didn’t think I would open the site with this painting.  I thought something rather traditional and quiet would be more appropriate for a beginning.  But the work kept coming back to me so I decided to go with it.  In addition, it’s a very good piece and given India’s own long experience with terrorism not an unusual subject in Mithila art.

  A terrorist in black, his signature Mithila eye showing through the mask, straddles the red globe of the earth.  He immediately gets our attention and sets the theme of the work.  But it is the four smaller terror scenes on the left side of the painting that are the heart of this piece.  And what is unusual here is the emotional quality of these scenes – they are not a distanced telling of an act of carnage or murder.  Look at the blindfolded soldiers about to be executed while forest animals quietly look on:  the grieving wife and mother receiving the body of husband, son:  the bus in orange flames, body parts scattered around, a child crying next to her dead mother.  The artist creates empathy through these small vignettes of personal tragedy and loss.  We suddenly become more than viewers and experience an emotional connection to what we see.

I have seen other Mithila paintings on terrorism but they lack this emotional component. They may be beautifully designed or well drawn but the personal connection is missing and it is this that gives Gunjeshwari Kumari’s work its quiet power.