This interculturalism was the real contribution of these artists, and particularly so of Shukla. As you go over his work-from landscapes, to figuratives-you have to imaginatively realise the difficulties under which these are executed. There must have been much disbelief. Yet what he made his fellow artists and the public in the end realise was, that, there are many modes of artistic thought possible to mankind. He brought some fresh thinking to the act of creation. Thought was only in the nature of a tool, and could not usurp the place of personality or intuition, yet it was a must. That many artists since then took the tool for the whole thing, for art, is another matter. But active culture would not have been possible without learning, that, culture is not a fixed and absolute category.

Shukla went boldly into several cultures other than the one into which he was born. In this way he laid the groundwork for the culture of choice in India. Many of India's elder artists wittingly or unwittingly were the carriers of this same message, and we are their debtors. It is only because art works by a dialectical process, of acceptance and rejection, and the richer synthesis, that their art may well seem passe to those who only see it by hindsight.

If, singly, few of Shukla's works stand out definitively, most testify as to the abilities of a forerunner well versed in his craft, and one who cleared the path for the many to follow, so that they be more purely expressive. Yes, what Shukla certainly had was a sure grasp of draughtmanship; there was nothing vague about this. An artist had to go through the mill, and mere colourism would just not do. In the course of time such laboriousness has become suspect, and rightly so. But equally suspect is a vague mysticism. The art that Shukla pursued lacked mysticism, but it was not spurious or gimmicky. We cannot follow him in his methods-we expect much more from the day's artists. But unless our younger artists climb up the rungs which Shukla and those like him mastered, they are unlikely to surpass their forerunners.

- Keshav Malik.