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Monday, February 6, 2012

Review of 'Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century'

Senake Bandaranayake and Albert Dharmasiri, Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century. National Trust Sri Lanka, Colombo, 2009,  pp. 208, ISBN 978-955-0093-02-1. Price not mentioned (originally published in the South Asia Journal for Culture, Vol. 3, 2009. Curtsey of the Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture).

The context and approach

This expensively produced volume on the 20th century history of Sri Lankan art immediately assumes significance for a number of crucial reasons. For one thing, as the book’s front dust cover flap announces quite prominently, it is written by two of Sri Lanka’s best known senior academics, one from visual arts and the other from archeology, and one has to naturally assume that the book is a significant contribution to knowledge. At the same time, it is published by the National Trust Sri Lanka which shares many of the pre-conditions of  the state's own understanding of 'heritage.' This also leads to the assumption that what is presented is not only the National Trust’s but also the state’s understanding of 20th century painting. Interestingly, the president of the National Trust notes in the ‘Forward’ to the book that the mandate to publish ten volumes covering the complex subject areas consisting of animals, birds, dancers, heritage buildings, instrumentalists, painters, photographers, plants, sculptors and singers falls under the Trust’s duties (2009: No pagination). This classification system of heritage validity, though decidedly peculiar from the perspectives of the 21st century, nevertheless rests very comfortably within the overall logic of familiar colonial systems of cultural classification. On the other hand, it also indicates the National Trust’s rather interesting understanding of heritage. In any event, in the above context, we can assume that the present volume indicates the recognition it wishes to give painters of the 20th century. As far as painters go, we can also assume that what is presented in the book reflects the nature of 20th century art as it is understood by the National Trust, the state as well as the two authors.

I propose to review this book in relation to the following aspects: first, what new knowledge does it add to the existing knowledge of 20th century Sri Lankan art history? In doing so, I will pay particular attention to late 20th century art as the period remains relatively undocumented except in selected subaltern sources, despite both the significant role it has played in local and regional aesthetic politics and as a repository of recent social and political history. Second, I would like to explore the kind of politics imbued in the pictorial narrative of the book by examining its silences as well as its voices. Third, I would attempt to understand whether the images and the description in the book as an art historical narrative provides the reader with a contextualization of paintings that goes beyond the mere chronology of formalist art history and reveals the socio-political dynamics that compelled artists to undertake such works, with the resultant significance within contemporary cultural politics.

Nature of new knowledge

Given the vast undertaking at hand – the documentation of Sri Lankan painting in the 20th century – the written text of the book is quite slim, consisting of merely 91 pages inclusive of acknowledgements and bibliography, while there are 116 pages of color reproductions containing many familiar images of 20th century paintings. In general, even though art history as a formal discipline is yet to take root in Sri Lanka, one could say that certain aspects of the evolution of Sri Lankan painting as a process and Sri Lankan painting of the 20th century are reasonably well documented as part of the existing knowledge. For instance, Bandranayake’s own masterly text, Rock and Temple Paintings of Sri Lanka (1986), gives an exhaustive history of the painting traditions of Sri Lanka from prehistoric times right up to the mid 20th century with a focus on Buddhist mural paintings. Similarly, the work and influence of Sri Lanka’s first modernist Group, the ‘43 Group and some of its individual members are also well documented in a number of well received books such as Manel Fonseka’s and Senake Bandaranayake’s Ivan Peiris: Paintings, 1938-88 (1996), Neville Weeraratne’s ’43 Group: A Chronicle of the Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka (1993) and Sunil Goonasekera’s Georege Keyt Interpretations (1991). Compared to this, late 20th century art is not well documented in the mainstream art historical discourse though numerous discussions on the art of this period are available in a number of subaltern sources mostly written in Sinhala. I will focus on this aspect later in this review. The point I want to make is quite simply this: it is this reasonably well documented history of the early and mid 20th century painting that is concisely recaptured in the present book while its focus on late 20th century art is marginal at best. In fact, the book’s main contribution is not in providing an exhaustive history of painting in 20th century Sri Lanka but in bringing together this history so far located in different texts and places (such as the ones noted above) via five brief chapters. In essence, reading through these chapters, one gets a brief, smooth and linear narrative of Sri Lanka’s recent history of painting exclusively seen from a formalistic perspective of art history, devoid of any historical ruptures in the form of cultural and political contradictions or cleavages. This particular narrative style is the result of opting not to engage with the history that is being documented. For instance, the ‘Introduction’ contains a section titled ‘Asia and Europe: Tradition and Modernization’ (2009: 12-14) which initiates an important discussion on the varied external sources that have influenced Sri Lankan art, even though it does not attempt with any degree of seriousness to explain why some changes were accepted locally while others were not, and the manner in which local innovations came about the way they did.

On the other hand, the book devotes significant space to a discussion of the ‘modern’ period and the advent of modernism into Sri Lankan art with a focus on the work of the ’43 Group (2009: 41-76). The authors suggest that the work of the 43 Group was “by far the most significant development in Sri Lankan painting in the 20th century” (2009: 41). Clearly, the 43’ Group reinvented the directions that Sri Lankan art would take from that point onward. This was achieved not simply by falling into the model of modernism already invented and used in Europe and North America but also by reinventing modernism in the social, cultural and political contexts that prevailed locally at the time. While the authors present to us the history of the modern period and the work of the ‘43 Group in considerable detail through the work of preexisting histories, they fail to engage with this information critically in order to establish if modernism in Sri Lanka was the same as what was seen and experienced in Europe. Geetha Kapur has consistently argued, particularly in her essays, ‘Dismantled Norms: Apropose other Avant-gardes’ (2005) and ‘When was Modernism in Indian/Third World Art?’ (1993), that in the Indian context, Indian modernism was not a mere replication of European modernism but an active local reinvention and reinterpretation. In other words, the Euro-American zone lost its hold, hegemony and insistent claims over ‘modernism’ when what it represented underwent a process of reinvention in Asia and the rest of the world, responding to local socio-cultural and political anxieties, and taking root in these regions in very different ways.

Bandaranayke and Dharmasiri have not been able to direct their text toward addressing such issues in a rigorous and sophisticated manner even though some of the hegemonic characteristics and exclusions typified in the writings of Kapur prevail in the present text also. As Weerasinghe points out, for Kapur, modernism in visual arts in India was re-invented by Delhi/Baroda/Bombay based artists in the context of which artists operating in other parts of India have become literally invisible (Weerasinghe 2007). Similarly, for Bandaranayake and Dharmasiri, not only modernism but everything else that came since that time is dominated by the ‘43 Group going by the over-emphasis given to their work in the book. Seen in this sense, the first five chapters of the book can be summarized as a brief narrative history of 20th century painting in Sri Lanka (particularly of the ‘43 Group) reproduced from the preexisting formal canon without any critical engagement.

Coverage of the art of the 1990s

This brings us to the last chapter of the book titled ‘The Painters of the 1990s and the Art Explosion’ which is where the most obvious historiographical lapse of the book becomes very clear in the context of the authors’ attempt to narrate the work that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century and early part of the 21st century, particularly with regard to the work now known as the ‘90s Art. The 1990s saw many artists engaged in a variety of work like in any other era even though the most dominant genre of work at the time was the work of a group of artists who were essentially critiquing the existing aesthetic norms and practices. Weerasinghe identifies two significant and broad thematic preoccupations in the art of the 1990s: 1) Works that investigate the self, and the sense of being of individuals who have been victimized and frustrated as a consequence of organized violence; 2) Works that investigate the allure as well as the frustrations of the city as an artistic expression (Weerasinghe 2004: 15-40). Both these trends are auto/biographical in the sense that the art works subsumed under these themes are visually articulated as narratives of personal experiences and as the experiences of a particular generation. Weerasinghe suggests that the last decade of the 20th century “stands out as a period of extraordinary revitalization of art in Sri Lanka, which paved the way for a diverse and multifaceted practice of visual arts in the country” (2005: 183). One way in which this period can be characterized would be to suggest that it paved the way for the emergence of a “whole new generation of artists equipped with a range of new ideas and concepts of art, themes for artistic investigation and, especially, with an understanding of the idea of the artist as a political individual” (Weerasinghe 2005: 183). This clearly articulated political consciousness is the clearest marker that identifies the artists of this period and of this genre from earlier periods and genres. They also experimented with the available methods and mediums of art-making, and opted often to combine media as they felt such exercises gave them better options for expression.

These are the artists (painters) that the authors focus on in this last chapter within a mere seven and half pages, which surely must be one of the shortest narratives of a complex history to be found in any exercise of historiography. This particular chapter outlines the emergence of the ‘90s Trend but does not engage with or analyze its politics to any serious degree except to make certain highly problematic and generalizing pronouncements. There is a great degree of attention paid to the initial work of Jagath Weerasinghe as one of the most important initiators of the 1990s art, but others centrally associated with this movement are present only through their striking absence and the deafening silence of their voices. Even in the case of Weerasinghe, there is no serious engagement with the complex politics that his art consistently tried to express and negotiate with, which included a head-on confrontation with the politics of violence in Sri Lanka, religion’s role in that violence and the political manipulation of mass media. In a clinical tone, what is noted is merely that Weerasinghe’s work is “contextual,” “socially engaged” and among other things, deals with “contemporary life” (2009: 83). This apolitical reading of Weerasinghe’s work has lead Qadri Ismail to comment that according to the writers “Weerasinghe could have been depicting potholes on our roads” (Ismail 2009: 37). In this highly selective process of rendering recognition, the entire spectrum of feminist artists of the 1990s, crucial anti-war painters such as Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Jaffna artists who were actively engaged in the public domain in the context of continuing war such as T. Shanaathanan and R. Vaidehi as well as other crucial southern painters such as Muhannad Carder, Pala Pothupitiya, Koralegedara Pushpakumara are missing from this state sponsored narrative, while some of them like Pushpakumara and Thenuwara have been given minor recognition in the pictorial narrative, even though the selection also does not embody any discernable logic. One of the major characteristics of the ‘90s Trend is that it encouraged artists to stretch artistic and formalist boundaries to a great extent, and within such freedom painters explored three dimensionality within the practice of painting, while retaining certain crucial aspects such as a demarcation of space within the frame. Many works of Pala Pothupitiya (eg., Hero Series - 2000) have been executed within this genre of painting, which also has a close link to Buddhist temple murals where figures of religious significance jut out from the two dimensional painted murals. This is a particular methodology and aesthetic formalism that became popular within the ‘90s Trend. By not addressing in-depth the significance of the ‘90s Trend and its innovations such as the above, the authors have failed to grasp the changes that the practice of painting has undergone within Sri Lankan art history in the latter part of the 20th century and thereby have failed to recognize the avant-garde nature of an entire generation of contemporary Sri Lankan artists.

However, the authors articulate an excuse for this absence within the chapter itself. Even though the art of the 1990s that the authors think are typified by the work of Weerasinghe and Kingsley Gunatilleke (2009: 77) was well established by the late 1990s and some authoritative writing on it had emerged by 2004, they suggest that this “emergent art” and its “complexities” had not yet evolved adequately “to include it in any significant way within the scope of this review” (2009: 77). In one unconvincing line, the authors have managed to negate the historical significance, existence and the politics of an art movement that is the most influential in terms of its impact both locally and regionally since the ’43 Group. Jagath Weerasinghe’s essay, ‘Contemporary Art in Sri Lanka’ published in 2005 in the influential volume edited by Caroline Turner, Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific is one of the best known articulations of both the history and the politics of 1990s Sri Lankan art. Turner, with an international reputation as an art historian, found it important to include this essay in her book which has now become an authoritative text on the politics of art in Asia. On the other hand, there are numerous subaltern sources such as exhibition catalogs in Sinhala, English and Tamil published extensively by entities such as the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts and the Theertha International Artists Collective, essays published in Sinhala and Tamil in the journal Art Lab (from 2004 onwards) and the highly successful traveling exhibition on 20th century Sri Lankan art organized by Theertha International Artists Collective which travelled to remote parts of the country, attracting over 5000 students in Aludeniya near Kandy and similar numbers in Kalmunai in the Eastern Province. While most publications of this nature are written with informed knowledge and maintains a serious and engaged reading of contemporary art, the travelling exhibition, ‘20th Century Sri Lanka Art’ was compiled through an extensive research agenda.1 In most other parts of the world, such sources would be welcome in the process of art historiography. This does not seem to apply to the two senior authors entrusted with the task of writing about 20th century painting in Sri Lanka. It is a pity that such rich sources of information on the ‘90s Art as well as the visual art history of the 20th century were not accessed in-depth by the authors.

Pictorial politics

The pictorial politics of the book also places in context some areas of concern. In the ‘Preface’ and at other instances the authors note that it is not possible to list everyone who was a painter in the 20th century within an undertaking such as this. No serious reader would also expect such an effort from writers of history; but what would be expected is a reasonable depiction of what has taken place over a period of time when evidence exists, detailing major ruptures, departures from the norm and possible explanations for such departures. At least, this is what is ideally expected from the writing of history. On the other hand, images selected for a book such as this could achieve a number of crucial objectives as long as selection is made on some rational basis: images can indicate the progression of an artists’ work or give an indication of different genres over a period of time, or images can mark the most crucial moments of the painterly process of an individual painter or a movement. However much one tries, it is simply impossible to find the logic of image selection or the placement of images in the context of the discussion presented in this book. Many of the images of 20th century temple murals, the work of early 20th century painters and the ‘43 Group that are included, are representative and quite familiar in the context of existing art history. Even so, the ‘43 Group’s work is needlessly overexposed given the fact that these images are readily available in numerous sources along with descriptive narratives of contributions by individual painters. For instance, there are 10 color reproductions of George Keyt’s work, 8 of Justin Deraniayagala’s and 10 of Ivan Peiris’ excluding black and white images. However, many of these are at least well-known paintings of these artists which in certain ways mark the progression of their individual careers. At the same time, there are four large color reproductions of Albert Dharmasiri’s paintings of no known significance which fall within a single genre. Why they have been included, what their historical significance is, what they narrate about the artist’s career and what impact these paintings have had in the progression of 20th century painting remains unclear. This mysterious selection criteria with regard to Dharmasiri’s paintings is also reflected in the reproduction of many other works. Take for instance, the large one page reproduction of a painting by Chandani Senarath Yapa (2009: 175) who may have produced less than ten paintings in her entire career and another one page reproduction of a work by Prageeth Ratnayake (2009: 208) who is a recent art graduate without an extensive public portfolio. One is left wondering what the art historical significance of these pictorial inclusions might be when juxtaposed with the failure to include any works of artists such as Muhanned Cader whose works have influenced many artists, as well as the absence of a significant pictorial record of many other better known painters who have made a more significant historical contribution. Similarly, Chandragupta Thenuwara is merely represented by two less significant works (in small images) from his extensive portfolio while ignoring his most prolific work on ‘Barrelism’ such as his early paintings on ‘barrelscapes.’ T. Shannaathanan is represented only by one of his early etchings when a much larger and conceptually well developed body of works by him is available and very well known to the art community, not to mention the absence of R. Vaidehi’s work that reflected the female anxieties within the situation of war in the northeast. This rather puzzling list of bizarre selections permeates throughout the book. Image selections throughout the book seem to compromise its ability to present Sri Lankan painting, particularly in the late 20th century, as an evolving body of work that has had its moments of innovation, radicalism and experimentation. By resorting to this strange selective procedure, the authors have grievously denied the space for contemporary Sri Lankan painters to be presented as individuals who are capable of engaging with the contemporary global, regional and local art discourses in painting, both critically and innovatively.

Concluding comments

Let me bring this review to a conclusion at this point by referring to a number of assumptions that the book allows us to formulate. One assumption has to do with how the personal politics of the two authors play out in public through the book which has now entered the public domain. In the ‘Introduction’ to the 1999 collection of essays, Mortality-Immortality: The Legacy of 20th Century Art, Miguel Angel Corzo muses that “if we accept the notion that arts reflect history, then contemporary art is, in some way, a monument to contemporary civilization. It is the cultural heritage of our time…(1999: XV). In the same volume, Roy Perry observes that “if we do not preserve the art of today for tomorrow’s audience, their knowledge and experience of our culture will be, sadly, impoverished” (Perry 1999: 44). It seems to me that Bandaranayake’s and Dharmasiri’s art historical project sponsored by the National Trust Sri Lanka outlined above brings into focus what Angel-Corzo and Perry articulate in another context. Whether we like it or not, whether it suites our individual tastes or not, a variety of artistic genres are likely to emerge and evolve across eras as has been the case in Sri Lanka. This constitutes our collective history and is a monument to our civilization; the corpus of 20th century painting does not only consist of temple murals, the work of the 43 group and other 20th century painters whose work the two authors have summarized and pictorially contextualized, but also the work of many other important painters whose work and place in history the two authors have opted to negate for some reason. As these reasons cannot be based on any serious methodological or scholarly assumptions we are left to assume that their selections must have been intensely personal as no formal historical evaluation supports one to comprehend the logic of inclusions and exclusions. However, such personal criteria are clearly not suitable for a public project overseen by a state agency.

This brings us to a second assumption that the book allows us to make. This has to do with the fact that the book was sponsored by a state agency which necessarily cannot be independent of the thinking of the state. As pointed out by Webb, the attention any national government would pay to art “is predicated on the fact that what is turned into art signifies what is perceived as worthy of attention” (Webb 2005: 3). In many countries where such things as national art collections have been institutionalized, the emphasis has been to select and preserve art that perceivably indicates a sense of national cultural identity; a sense of authenticity. This is because in such national contexts, art is seen as ‘vehicles of social meaning’ in the sense articulated by Cesar Grana (quoted in Webb 2005), which “both represent and realize ‘the world’; and as a corollary can confirm (or deny) the stories of nationhood” (Webb 2005: 30). Webb further notes, “not just any art could become metonymic of nation, of course. The art selected to inscribe national identity, tended to be works that relied on orthodox images” (Webb 2005: 30). It is precisely to do this that the Department and Ministry of Culture of the Sri Lankan government and their auxiliary agencies function with their very limited and often parochial definitions of art and culture. Perhaps the two authors became prisoners of this system of political meaning through their close association with the National Trust and became subservient to the state’s limited understanding of art, and in this case particularly the painting of the 20th century. There is of course another possibility as articulated by the National Trust itself in the ‘Forward’ to the book: “a serious obligation on the part of the National Trust would be to avoid handling any item of tangible or intangible heritage that is already under the jurisdiction of an existing state institution” (Silva 2009: No pagination). One can assume that the serious absences in the book, most manifestly indicated by the relative inattention given to the art of the 1990s is due to the fact that this aspect of contemporary art, in the wisdom of the National Trust, is handled by some other unnamed agency of the state.

These assumptions also nudge us in the direction of a specific observation: what are the criteria by which these two irreconcilable authors were coupled by the National Trust to deliver such an important product as the history of 20th century Sri Lankan art? Bandaranayake for instance has an established track record of writing in archeology, some of which are seminal texts such as The Rock and Wall Paintings of Sri Lanka (1986). Dharmasiri on the other hand does not have such a track record as indicated by his somewhat linear and descriptive texts such as Modern Art in Sri Lanka: The Anton Wickramasinghe Collection (1988) and Bellanwila Murals (2002). In better intellectual climes, one could have hoped that what Bandaranayake missed as an archeologist, Dharmasiri would have picked up as a senior art teacher with a career exceeding three decades. However, as the book exemplifies, this was not to be.

Finally, where does all this take us and what does the book actually present to us? In the context of the potential personal politics and the mysterious workings of the state outlined above what we have is an intellectual exercise that has opted not to record important aspects and personalities of our recent history of painting. Quite simply, this book offers little that is new. It is essentially a synthesis of existent knowledge from obvious, familiar and dominant sources, and therefore a recycling of a conventional, conservative and formalistic Sri Lankan art historical narrative that predictably privileges Buddhist mural paintings and the work of the 43 Group. As a result, the book fails to achieve the enormous potential that is invariably linked to such a historical undertaking and has become an ‘opportunity lost.’ In this context what is presented to future generations is at best a partial understanding of the present and the recent past. When that future finally arrives and the past is assessed, future generations’ knowledge of our culture and the art of the 20th century would indeed be rather impoverished.

Endnote

1. Interestingly, the present book refers to the Sinhala language catalog of this exhibition in its bibliography though authors do not seem to have grasped much of the work or the influence of the art of the 1990s narrated in it.

Bibliography

Bandaranayake, Senake. 1986 (2007). The Rock and Wall Paintings of Sri Lanka. Colombo: Lake House.

Bandaranayake, Senake and Manel Fonseka. 1996. Ivan Peries: Paintings 1938-88. Colombo: Tamarind.

Corzo, Miguel Angel.1999. ‘Introduction.’ In, Miguel Angel Corzo ed., Mortality-Immortality: The Legacy of 20th Century Art. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute.

Dharmasiri, Albert. 1988. Modern Art in Sri Lanka: The Anton Wickramasinghe Collection. Colombo: Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Dharmasiri, Albert. 2002 Bellanwila Murals. Dehiwala: Bellanwila Rajamaha Viharaya.

Goonasekera, Sunil. 1991. George Keyt Interpretations. Kandy: Institute of Fundamental Studies.

Ismail, Qadri. 2009. ‘Redaing the Art of Jagath Weerasinghe.’ In, Art of Jagath Weerasinghe: Celestial Fervor. Pitakotte: Theertha Red Dot Gallery and Theertha International Artists Collective.

Kapur, Geetha.1993. ‘When was Modernism in Indian/Third World Art?’ In, South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 3, Summer 1993.

Kapur, Geetha. 2005. ‘Dismantled Norms: Apropose other Avant-gardes.’ In, Caroline Turner, ed., Art and Social Change. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Perry, Roy A. 1999. ‘Present and Future: Caring for Contemporary Art at the Tate Gallery.’ In, Miguel Angel Corzo ed., Mortality-Immortality: The Legacy of 20th Century Art. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute.

Turner, Caroline. 2005. ‘Art and Social Change’. In, Caroline Turner ed., Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Webb, Jen. 2005. ‘Art in a Globalized State’. In, Caroline Turner ed., Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Weeraratne, Neville. 1993. ’43 Group: A Chronicle of Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka. Melbourne: Lantana.

Weerasinghe, Jagath. 2004. ‘90 Pravanathawa saha Samakaleena Drushya Kala Bhavithaya.’ In, ArtLab, Volume 1 (2004), 5-43.

Weerasinghe, Jagath. 2005. ‘Contemporary Art in Sri Lanka’. In, Caroline Turner ed., Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Weerasinghe, Jagath. 2007. ‘Asian Art Today: Exploding the Code – A Critique from the Margins’. In, South Asia Journal for Culture, Vol.1, 2007, pp. 83-89.