Midnight at noon

The most fascinating part of Bikash Bhattacharjee’s journey to the light was that he did not rush towards it like a moth, but became the flame instead. In the early sixties, while Abstract Expressionism spread faster than Jackson Pollock’s paint splatters across the world, Calcutta was no island. Added with the dismal condition of art market in Calcutta mostly due to the political unrest, it drove artists to find myriad, haphazard styles of self-expression while painting on both sides of the canvas to make ends meet. But there was one common strain among all the styles. None of them were figurative. Figurative, realistic art was supposed to be completely incapable of expressing the complex angst and strife of the times.

So strong was the gale of this trend, that Bikash also lost his way for a brief while into abstract art. But soon he found out that his path lied in realism. His superlative knowledge of anatomy, his awe-inspiring command over almost all media and a drawing skill beyond adjectives were not to go to waste. Besides, he was far too steeped in the wonders of everyday reality to chase avant-garde. In his own words, “I took leave from the obligation of avant-garde. Whatever else I feel obligated to by my conscience, I follow.” Then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, he preferred to call himself a craftsman, not an artist - a term that is too close to the ivory tower for comfort.

In 1966, his painting of a nude boy standing overwhelmed on a sea of terraces can be considered his first landmark of his identity. Since then, the world all around him in North Calcutta and his undying devotion for the city became the subjects of his paintings,while his obsession for cinema, lent the almost hyperrealist finish, textures, and lighting in his paintings. Italian neo-realist Cinema, a contemporary school of films, had especially influenced the spirit of his paintings - the value of ordinary people, putting emotions ahead of ideas, compassion ahead of judgement and regarding artlessness as the highest form of art.

But art critics had never cared much for artistic integrity and promptly tore him apart after his first couple of shows. According to them, his realistic style was an anachronism and an anomaly caused by the outdated syllabus in art school. Since then he walked his own path and the critics walked theirs till Katie-di’s terminally ill niece brought his old doll to Bikash-da. The eyes of the doll were faded and needed to be re-painted urgently.

It was the early 1970’s and happiness was in short supply around Calcutta. The anti-establishment Naxalite movement was in full swing and it shook the core of what was considered ‘normal’ in the city. The brightest and the most impressionable of the youth were throwing themselves in front of Police Sten guns, while the more practical lot were hiding in manholes,to die another day. Under this mist of blood that enveloped the city, Bikash Bhattacharjee started his Doll series. Hanging from the clothesline, lying face-down in a library, hiding behind a curtain - the doll watched with mute horror what the humans were up to.

While the Doll Series depicted the midnight that descended upon the city, it brought forth the noon of Bikash Bhattacharjee’s career. It was a jaw-dropping commercial success that silenced the art critics once and for all.

Meanwhile, Katie-di had to sell her place and Bikash-da had to move to a studio into the entrails of North Calcutta. This change of scene was reflected on his canvas too and he started his ‘She’ series, which showed the ordinary North Calcutta women in their elements. Women who have been denied a life of possibilities but somehow kept the fire burning inside them. The Goddess Durga came to his canvas time and again, so did the Rickshaw pullers, people without eyes, bloodstained kurtas, chessboard floors, and madmen in swings. And so did the adulation of both the common men and the art connoisseurs, wealth and felicitations - drawn like moths to the flame.

Once upon a time, he had looked at a Hindi film hoarding and wanted his art to be as accessible. He achieved that finally, and he didn’t even have to play by the rules or pander to the formula.

The diffused light of the dusk

The sure sign of a genius is restlessness and Bikash Bhattacharjee was no exception. While he continued to evoke appreciation and provoke controversies with his paintings, he dabbled in sculpture, portraits and most importantly, book illustration. As one of the star members of the Society of Contemporary Artists, the world’s longest surviving and one of the world’s most prolific art groups, he continued to create and break new boundaries.

The distorted beast heads in his sculptures came down to visit his canvases now and then. They were garbed in finery of medieval European royalty for a series of charcoal portraits. While his other portraits were not as dramatic they were just as masterful. The owner of Ananadabazar Patrika Group, the leading media conglomerate at West Bengal, Abhik Sarkar and his wife Rakhi Sarkar had been ardent patrons of his art and this opened many doors to him - magazine covers, portraits, commissions and illustrations. Among all the portraits of famous persons he created for the cover of Desh, West Bengal’s premiere intellectual magazine, the most memorable one was that of Indira Gandhi, painted shortly after her assassination. Deathly pale in color, bathed in ghostly light, she wore a garland of blood-red hibiscus which disintegrates into blood splatters.

The other set of his portraits which made history were of the heroes of the 18th Century Bengal Renaissance. They were inspired by Sunil Gangopadhyay’s epic novel about those times - Shei Shawmoy (Those Days). This homage series was auctioned and funded the renovation of Town Hall, a cultural landmark of Kolkata.

However, his most acclaimed work of art outside a canvas would be the illustrations for Samaresh Basu’s exceptional biography Dekhi Nai Phire (Didn’t Look Back) of the maverick painter and sculptor Ramkinkar Baij. Bikash’s mastery of many media and the propensity to experiment shone through the pages like never before. He deliberately didn’t use oil, his forte. Instead, keeping with Ramkinkar Baij’s journey from a painter to sculptor, his medium and style shifted from ethereal to viscous to compact. From light touches of watercolor, to water-color highlighted with chalk, to thick shades of oil pastel - his illustrations played a fitting duet to the great words of Samaresh Basu. Sadly enough, Samaresh Basu passed away before he could finish the book and Bikash Bhattacharjee moved on to his next masterpiece.

Next: Holding a prism to the twilight sky

Go back to Part 1