ICONS OF THE MASTERS

Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Marilyn Monroe are some of the most painted images. We try to find out why

Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Marilyn Monroe are some of the most painted images. We try to find out why
When the Romans converted to Christianity, they depicted Christ as a young Greek god without his trademark beard and crown of thorns. The point being that there are many ways of envisioning an icon. Here we look at three key figures in modern history and delve into why artists are inspired to paint them and how they have lent their unique vision to the images.

Mother of the deserted
Raghu Rai has shadowed Mother Teresa from 1970 to 2000, to get the right shot that would do credit to her near saintliness. He found a compelling desire to photograph her not just because of her selfless work but also for her ideology. “Mother Teresa said she was not a social worker. Her love and compassion was unparalleled. She chose this path because when Christ was suffering, she was not there to serve him. Hence she took care of the poorest of the poor as if she was nursing Christ. She was a strong and tough lady who believed in a no-nonsense approach. If you were dedicated to your cause, she would give you equal space.”

M.F. Husain painted Mother Teresa without ever showing her face, but indicating her presence through the three blue stripes on her white saree and an infant or child clasped in her hands. “I lost my mother at an early age and so the mother image is something I have often found fascinating,” says Husain. Having painted the female protagonist with a lot of awe, Husain says he has always been attracted to powerful women. “As they have rightly said, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. I think Mother Teresa is an exemplary human being and I have been fortunate to have her as my muse,” says the 92-year-old painter, who held a solo show at the Afghan Church in Mumbai, in 2004 that was dedicated to Mother Teresa.

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Another painter fascinated with the Mother is Ajay De, an artist who specialises in images of Mother Teresa. De found he was entranced by the sacrificial image of the Mother “Her life and work has always inspired me,” says the painter, who works primarily in charcoal. “Living in Kolkata I used to pass by her Missionaries of Charity on my way to school. She inspired me even then. I had the fortune of meeting her in 1996. After that I tried to capture her vibrancy and piety, which is why I often show her praying for the ill-fated with her hands folded in supplication. I believe those hands are as expressive as the face of a human being,” says De.

Pop glam diva
“Marilyn is a symbol of the two sides of life, one good and the other bad. She had a traumatic life but we saw her as a superstar with a glamorous side,” says Hindol Bhrambhatt, who had a solo exhibition in Mumbai last week on media icons of his growing-up years. He chose Marilyn Monroe because of the duality of her status as a larger-than-life figure. “On one hand, she was this glamorous beauty who enthralled the world, but she also had an unhappy and tragic personal side,” say Bhrambhatt, who tries to capture this by rendering the figure on wood with a blowtorch. “I believe in the truth of opposites. For every argument, there is bound to be a counter-argument that can be equally valid.”

Chintan Upadhyay chose Monroe not just because she is one of the biggest sex symbols but because “she was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.” Upadhyay also featured other biggies like Humphrey Bogart and Abraham Lincon in his series that premiered at the Ashish Balram Nagpal Gallery in 2003. Upadhyay looked up the Internet and old books for the images and transformed them with techniques that were not exactly photo-realistic. “The idea of the show was to talk about how the media affected people’s minds and consciousness. I put the images into three categories—photographic, graphic and abstract. With Marilyn, I went for a graphic image since she is a well-known figure,” says Upadhyay, who is currently taking a solo to Paris in June.

Father figure
It was the Gandhi series done in sepia-toned photo-realist water colours that made everyone fall in love with Atul Dodiya’s work that premiered at Chemould Art Gallery in 2003. Many renditions of the Mahatma followed—on shop shutters and hoarding-like boards that appeared in shows over the years. The charm of the sepia water colours, however, stayed. “Gandhi was an intimate part of my boyhood. I grew up reading his autobiography in the original Gujarati script,” says Dodiya about his fascination with the Father of the Nation. “I was commissioned to do this particular series to celebrate our 50th year of Independence, but at the time the Babri Masjid demolition, the Mumbai riots and then the bomb-blasts were all fresh in my mind. My painting Lamentation shows Gandhi walking away from us with his hand on a little boy’s shoulder. That is juxtaposed with a Picasso-like image of a little girl with the eyes of Kali.”

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The image of Gandhi stayed on in Dodiya’s head and resurfaces again in many of his consequent paintings. “I began to study Gandhi and his physiognomy. His lean body and visible ribs seemed to me to reveal his struggle to win us independence,” says one of India’s biggest painters.
Another artist to draw inspiration from Gandhi is Akbar Padamsee. His abstract strokes come together to form the face of the Mahatma, looking out at viewers with the calm eyes of an ascetic. Sometime it’s more abstract; one just sees the aquiline nose and the round spectacles. “I am attracted to the figure of Gandhi for its formal qualities as a painter and because of the greatness of the man itself,” concludes Padamsee.