Plain tales from the hills Swapan Mullick Darjeeling, 23 January: It may have been a coincidence that when the Chief Minister was building bridges with hill leaders, a team of painters based in Darjeeling were busy producing images of life that have been used in stories and films which are a perennial source of interest to the people in the plains. In this case, the images were reproduced on paper at the behest of the Inner Wheel Club of Darjeeling that brought the paintings and drawings to Kolkata for a show at the Gaganendra gallery. Compared to the elegantly mounted and thought-provoking canvases that are offered by students of the Government Art College, the show from Darjeeling had a simple and spontaneous touch. The Sherpa boy enjoying a smoke or the labourer coping with a “life of struggle with his cart loaded with goods to be transported are typical scenes in the hills. The painters, who are primarily self-taught, are mostly from a background where it is easy to produce pictorial impressions of a lepcha hut, a toy train or a winter fire. Every painting had a story to tell and, while the language was simple, the visual ideas had a warmth that was capable of reaching out to the people anywhere. Twelve painters were included in the show that had around 72 paintings. It was interesting to find that many of them had been picked up by visitors in Kolkata as part of a nostalgic attachment to the hills that takes thousands of tourists to Darjeeling every year. Mrs Nandini Mahtab, who runs the organisation that put together the show, confirmed that the proceeds would go to the painters to help them develop their artistic skills. In the past, artists from Kolkata have spent a few days in Darjeeling to exchange ideas on a canvas with their counterparts. In the process, some promising painters in the hills have taken it up as a profession. The results of the Kolkata show should provide encouragement. While the painting fraternity in the city had reason to be impressed with familiar images like that of the famous clock tower, film enthusiasts may have been drawn to a painting of a hill road that revived charming memories of Satyajit Rays Kanchenjunga.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 19:06:32 +0000
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