In an exceptional use of contrasts, an idyllic scene painted in shades of translucent blue, effortlessly lets the warm sun trickle in, as a man atop a bull gazes into the distance. He stands beside a towering, veiny tree. The deft use of shadows, and contrasting colour palettes, makes this watercolour work by R Govindaraj a picture of skill; a fine example of how artists in the Madras school interpreted the 19th Century European technique of Plein Air painting (derived from the French expression, en plein air, that translates to ‘in the open air’).
Today, this beautiful painting has taken over a whole wall on the first floor of Lalit Kala Akademi gallery in Chennai, and is one among the many rarely-seen-before works that date back as early as the 1930s — which is believed to be the first time Madras forayed into the world of pre-modern Plein Air painting.
GD Paulraj, KCS Paniker, S Dhanapal, R Krishna Rao, HV Ram Gopal, K Sreenivasalu, GD Thyagaraj, GD Arulraj, R Govindaraj and PB Surendranath are the artists who captured the outdoors, in all its immediacy and transient glory, with distinct expressionism. Works by early Bengal School artists such as Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose are also on display, alongside figures of Bombay’s Modernist movement like SH Raza, Walter Langhammer, MS Joshi: a rare sight in Chennai.
A work by Walter Langhammer
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special arrangement
It is difficult to chart a linear, chronological narrative to this style of painting in the Madras school. Ashvin E Rajaopalan, curator of the show by Ashvita’s Fine Art gallery, says that the idea of such a curation arrived while researching the Bombay school, and specifically SH Raza. “For the purpose of the curatorial narrative, works have been put together from museums, private collections and our own art collection. That said, it is not entirely commercial,” says Ashvin.
“The Piramal Museum of Art [in Mumbai] has about 200 watercolors that build this story from the Bombay perspective. That’s when I stumbled upon GD Paulraj. When I started researching Paulraj, I realised that he has appeared in Illustrated Weekly issues as early as the 1940s. Then I found his two brothers [GD Thyagaraj and GD Arulraj]. From there, I started looking at people like Krishna Rao, while I already knew of Paniker’s watercolors.”
Ashvin believes that this story, interestingly, hinges on the early techniques of printmaking. “Watercolor was the preferred medium for colour printmaking. Along with the emergence of colour itself, there was this rise of watercolors, which were done quickly. These also gave a photorealistic finish, possibly an influence from photography,” he speculates.
One of GD Thayagaraj’s works on display
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Paulraj was one of DP Roy Chowdhury’s first students. Five years later, Paniker and the first cohort of the Madras School emerged. It is through this channel that the Plein Air style trickled into Madras, says Ashvin. Though a formal conclusion is hard to make, it is from the likes of Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose that this style reached Madras when Roy Chowdhury took charge as principal of the Government College of Fine Arts.
“It could be that the watercolour is a Bengal medium, and drawing like this came from Bengal because of the wash technique, but Paulraj definitely had a genius moment between 1930s to 1950s,” reminds Ashvin. “In Bombay, NS Bendre and Hebbar painted in the same way, but only five years later.”
Its spotlight on a specific strand, lost somewhere in the noise, is what makes this display different. While the works in itself are exemplary manifestations of pre-modern expressionism, what they investigate is largely unknown. Be it Paniker’s swaying trees or bustling markets, or Govindaraj’s deeply moving, earthy rural landscapes, the fleeting urgency of these frames demand a long, close gaze.
Light and Legacy is on display till April 20, at the first floor, Lalit Kala Akademi, Egmore.
Published – April 16, 2025 05:23 pm IST
