The Art of Imitation

Lift, reproduce or quote, call it what you like. But the easy availability of images, on the internet and in publications, has given today’s artist the power to conjure up history and recontextualise it.

	In Angelico Annunciation (left), the angel and the Virgin are infused with a subtle yet powerful energy that Sheikh wanted to tap into in his Talisman (right)
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The certain naive, almost touching quality of Jamini Roy’s tribute to Vincent Van Gogh in the 1960s has been replaced by a more intellectual approach as contemporary artists go about quoting history. But Roy’s version of the artist’s self-portrait was recently cited as important when it surfaced in Osian’s auction catalogue.

Meanwhile Sheikh chuckles at the irony of using computer graphics to quote and play with a 564-year-old image. But ‘‘that is where the challenge and fun lies,’’ explains the Vadodara-based artist, whose love for history dates back to his days as an art student.

	Da Vinci’s Virgin Of The Rocks (left) caught Patwardhan’s eye, so he paid tribute with a copy of the angel in his Witness
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‘‘Once I had mastered this tool, I found that I could recreate and reclaim history by quoting images and forming a new narrative,’’ says Sheikh who also referenced a gopi from a Rajasthani miniature, and a Buddhist thangka to make a secular tapestry.

Mumbai-based painter Sudhir Patwardhan gives Leonardo da Vinci’s dewy-eyed angel from Virgin Of The Rocks a cameo role in his 2003 Witness. Besides a show of his skill as a painter capable of duplicating the Renaissance master’s brush work, Patwardhan quotes history to enrich his narrative.

	Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (left) has inspired many, but Jamini Roy was one of the first to pay tribute
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The central image represents a Romantic artist figure, witness to angst and violence. ‘‘Leonardo and his Virgin… swam into my head since it captures a spiritual quest that was important to me,’’ says the doctor-painter.

In some cases, it’s just unabashed admiration that gets one artist to quote another. Kolkata-based Sanjay Bhattacharya’s Tribute To Dali—a painted collage of the Spanish artist’s famous Mae West couch—is a case in point. Commissioned by collector Harsh Goenka, it tries to evoke all the surreal elements that were dear to the painter. ‘‘It’s so much nicer to have this tribute in oil rather than a boring print,’’ says Goenka of the work.

	Dali’s original of Mae West’s Face (as a Surrealist’s apartment ) (left) is far more flattering than Bhattacharya’s take on the actress
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Artist Yusuf Arakkal quotes Indian master Bhupen Khakhar’s Man With Bouquet Of Plastic Flowers in his Untitled work, though it was his take of Picasso’s Guernica Re-Occurs that won him an award in Florence.

And most recently, it was the toy maker-activist Brijkul Deepak, showing at Chemould Art Gallery, who doffed his hat to Bombay Progressive FN Souza. His soft sculptures titled Souza’s Men are, however, more grotesque and almost intimidating when compared to the artist’s sketches, which are still quite revolutionary. Sometimes making a bad copy is worse than making a bad original.