Back to the Home Page of www.ykshuklafoundation.org
Y. K. Shukla Foundation

Y.K. SHUKLA

Thus, art for Shukla means realism, only the acceptance of the evidence of the senses.For this reason we can rarely gather from his work what his inner feelings or opinions were; what the intense partisanships or sympathies, energetic passions and fierce volitions he may well have had all these but they are not reflected in the work. Only artists with a different, a wilder temperament go for these. Shukla was, on the other hand, wanting, as if, only to look steadily and unerringly. In this he was one with the scientific spirit of the day-being greatly receptive, and greatly productive. Evidently he was avid for knowledge.

His apprenticeship, both in the far east as the far west testifying to his labours. Nothing seemed to be foreign to him, that is, no styles. For at least this Indian, then, this was an age of discovery. Art, after all, is generated by spiritual forces; art history, properly understood, being, as Wilhelm Worringer said, "a history of the human psyche and its forms of expression". Artists like Shukla, to go by this insight, were only making fateful readjustments to the world. Clearly there had been a far reaching impact of the outer world on the Indian mind and life for a century and more; and naturally, the artist being no exception, had to reorder his perceptions.

The frame of reference, at least for the urban Indian, was undergoing vast changes; and so, unless art was to remain moribund, the artist had to step outside the inherited tradition, as the ways of experiencing and reacting to the given world. That the results initially were likely to be unconvincing, was inevitable. These were pioneer steps, all said. Both west, as east, would scoff at them. People, do look out for pedigrees! But once a style has settled down for a couple of generations, it becomes part of the scene. So it is, artists like Shukla who brought the newer methods, contents and media from both the occident and the orient to India. They helped enlarge the ambience of art, in terms of greater possibilities and choices.


Previous
Next

A brief biography of Y K Shukla (by Vasudeo Smart)
What is the Y K Shukla Foundation for Art, Culture, and Heritage? (by Kartik Shukla)
Thumbnails of Works of Y K Shukla (currently 34)
Activities of Foundation: Plan for 2001-02
Back to Gateway