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.
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