An Outstanding Art Critic > G. Venkatachalam
SANJAY PETHE
Born in 1895, Govindaraj Venkatachalam started his career as a journalist. He was for a time special art contributor to New India, a daily newspaper which was being edited by Dr. Annie Besant. He was also Assistant Editor of two art journals, Theatre and Roopa-Lekha. Between the years 1924 and 1928, he was Secretary to an International University, The Brahmavidyaashrama, at Adyar. In that University Venkatachalam worked as a lecturer on 'Art and Culture'.
| Along with Dr James H Cousins the Irish poet, Venkatachalam organized exhibitions of Indian Art all over the country and lectured at several University Centres and Art Clubs. A regular contributor to various journals in India, America and Japan, he was the author of many well-known books on Indian life and art like The Mirror of Indian Art, Modern Indian Painters, Travel Diary of an Art Student, Daughters of the Dawn, Pen Pictures and Sketches, Unheard Melodies, etc.
In these writings the true personality of G Venkatachalam comes out in bold relief. As a lover and critic of Indian Art, he was indeed a unique personality. While we can learn the finer points and underlying intricate philosophy of Indian Art from men like Ananda Coomaraswamy, O C Gangoly, Percy Brown, E B Havell and others, the most important thing that we can learn from G Venkatachalam is to develop a great love and passion for Indian Art, as something which is intimately connected with our hearts and souls. While the other great Art Critics gave us an intellectual appreciation of Indian Art, Venkatachalam gave us an emotional understanding of it ? often giving us that fullness of life that comes from fitting artistic ideals into action. He brought Indian Art nearer our bosoms. He brought it from the Gallery where it was reverently hung by the heavy critics into the drawing room where we viewed it with a good deal of friendly pleasure and also some amount of ecstasy. |
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Venkatachalam spurns the aloofness, the coldness, the impersonal pomposity associated with the more celebrated art critics at the risk of not being taken seriously. He makes art interesting by giving it a personality that glows and really steals a march over the other critics whom we may consider as very important but extremely dull.
For instance, while writing on the dance of Balasaraswathi in the late 1930s soon after watching her scintillating performance, Venkatachalam wrote: 'Dancing can on rare occasions rise to a still higher level than the perfect line, plus perfect musical phrasing, plus the interpretation of a character and the conveying of an atmosphere. It can rise to such heights that one is compelled to use the language of mysticism, for nothing in the theatre vocabulary will describe what has taken place. Balasaraswathi as a dancer expresses a universal truth, watching her is an experience of which we are conscious but that we cannot put into words'. Venkatachalam was the first music critic to locate and identify the genius of M S Subbalakshmi in 1929 at Bangalore. M S Subbalakshmi was then known as 'M S Subbalakshmi of Madura'. She had gone to Bangalore to cut her first 78RPM Gramophone Record. She was then 13. The producers of the record had invited Venkatachalam as a music critic to watch and hear her performance. Recalling that great event, Venkatachalam wrote the following arresting lines in 1935, which will ring across centuries:
'MS had a vivid personality even at that age. There was something more than the budding of a beautiful girlhood; there was a subtle fragrance of a flowering genius. Her face revealed her soul. Her dark dreamy eyes, the eyes that the Indian Masters loved to portray in their writings and sculptures, revealed not a fragile child but a strong silent girl. Her bright vivacious face was wreathed in smiles, sad and confiding. For a girl of 13, she had the will of a woman of forty and for a gay and light-hearted child of song, she was a bit self-willed and stubborn. And a girl of that nature was certainly not going to have an easy time of life, and was bound to head for troubles and tribulations ?and she did. '
'Though willful, she was not wayward. She was by nature simple, unassuming and affectionate. Generous to a fault, she hates to be bothered by the wants of tomorrow. Like Balasaraswathi, she is a born fatalist. Both of them, though conscious of their genius, are yet indifferent about their future'.
Venkatachalam was also a great cultural ambassador carrying the message of Indian Art outside India to several countries. Like Dr Radhakrishnan in the field of philosophy, he popularised Indian Art and Indian Music in several parts of Asia. He visited Java in 1930 on a lecturing tour, at the invitation of the Dutch Arts Society. In 1935 he toured in Japan, China and Korea as a visiting Professor from India.
He was elected a Member of the Nippon Bunka Renmei for cultural work done in Nippon (Japan). Venkatachalam learnt to understand art not from books and illustrations, but direct ? from artists, musicians and dancers themselves, from the original works of art and monuments in India, China, Java, Japan and Sri Lanka, from learned critics like Ananda Coomaraswamy and Stella Kramrisch, from enthusiasts like James Cousins. Their warm enthusiasm he imbibed as a writer, lecturer and connoisseur. At the feet of Mrs. Annie Besant, he learnt the art of impersonal service to the nation. From J Krishnamurthy he learnt the cult of happiness as life's mission and also of being aesthetic in person; and from J Krishnamurthy's intuitive experiences his criticisms of art and life.
To conclude in the beautiful words of Venkatachalam: 'Art is not religion, but it is one of the God's most wonderful gifts to man and it can most certainly be a help to all of us on the way to Him if rightly used'.
source:newstodaynet.com
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