RAM KUMAR (B. 1924)

PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW DELHI

By the culminating end of the 1970s Ram Kumar’s compositions moved towards a further complex and matured level of organisational quality. Memories of Varanasi had receded giving precedence to the childhood memories of the mountainscapes of his birth place, Simla. The artist’s repeated journeys to the mountains made him more akin to nature. His attempt was to create a more spiritualised effect with a sense of colour and forms in his canvases.

In this painting titled ‘Landscape’ the emphasis is more on the pictorial element of the composition. As is his temperament, Ram Kumar strives to explore newer angles of arrangement in this composition. Here too he arrives himself with a fresh perspective of nature where horizons merge in a frenzied riot of form, textures and colour. Notably one sights the fresh brilliance of his colour that has grown lighter and jewel-like in luminosity with age. The genius in him succeeds in arresting the natural radiance of mountainscapes and placid lakes in fresh sweeps of muted brushstrokes. The result is a magical juxtaposition of reflected and inverted planes that create a deliberate ambiguity in discerning forms and instead transforms the viewer to a mysterious space of quietude.