Artists at work

B. N. Goswamy

“The studios of famous artists are fascinating for the double insight they provide us: on the one hand, a view of the creative process; on the other, a view of the creative life. — The New Yorker

Clearly, the subject of artists at work is far too extensive and one can wander about in it for long. But at this moment, I am led into it by two things: the notices I recently came upon of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York: A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio; and a book on painters at work published in Berlin. The New York Show appears to have been truly fascinating, with vintage photographs of how some artists, starting with Man Ray, saw their own studios and those of their peers: bare or cluttered, meditative or raucous, conducive to thought or open like a stage. Of course, well before photography came in, there were artists who painted their own studios, filled only with their own presence or with crowds, brimming with broken statues or skulls and bones placed in neatly arranged boxes. There is that famous painting of Rembrandt standing at a distance from a canvas on an easel and staring at it; and there is, of course, that celebrated painting of his studio by Gustav Courbet — ‘the world comes to be painted at my studio’, he said once — teeming with figures, on the left persons from all levels of society and on the right some of his best friends, with him in the centre working on a landscape and almost leaning against a nude, female model standing next. Statements are being made in these paintings, and one is allowed to peer into the minds of the men who painted these. There is a whole world out there, one can see, and the New York show was aimed at affording the viewer a brief glimpse of it.

On my part, what interests me equally, if not more, are rendering of artists at work by themselves. Not necessarily because from our own land there are remarkably few paintings that show any kind of studios but also because I would like to read in these relatively intimate studies something of the mind, or at least the bent of mind, of the artists. Belonging to the Mughal period some paintings have survived, mostly in the margins of the pages of large manuscripts — like the late Shah Jahan album — which show artists at work: Abu’l Hasan, for instance, or Goverdhan, or Daulat. At the end of some manuscripts, in the form virtually of colophons, we also fortunately get images of artists and calligraphers sharing the same space because they were involved together in the production of that manuscript. But there also have come down occasional portraits of artists all by themselves, working. My great favourite in this category of works is the small, almost negligible, portrait of that great painter from Guler, Nainsukh, which has come down. Almost certainly it is a self-portrait which he must have painted as he came into his own, close to 1730, when he was about 20 years of age. In it, he shows himself holding a small tablet of wood on which is pasted a sheet of paper; the brush is in Nainsukh’s hand, not touching the sheet of paper yet, but poised over it. What is of great interest is the fact that the painter is not even looking at the sheet: he is, in fact, gazing straight ahead of himself as if thinking, concentration writ visibly on the face. One clearly gets the feeling that he is visualising something — more than visualising, ‘envisioning’ perhaps is the right word — that this is a moment when an idea is beginning to form in his head. One also notices that the sheet of paper stuck on the tablet is completely blank: there is not even a trace of a drawing on it. Almost certainly this is deliberate, and one wonders why? Is it because he wants us, you and I, to think along with him and imagine our own version of an image that might appear on the sheet the next moment? Who knows?

  It is just possible that one is over-reading into this little painting, or into works such as this. But the exercise is fascinating. As I said at the beginning, the subject is far too extensive and one can pick examples from everywhere: different cultures, different times. I got very absorbed, for instance, in the book I mentioned above, published for the State Museums of Berlin: for it contained image after image of painters as seen mostly in works of the 16th and 17th centuries — the early modern times, so to speak — from Europe. This was the time when painters — working on their own, not necessarily attached to patrons — would sometimes pack their bags and roam the countryside capturing city views, picturesque landscapes, and the like. There is that wonderful watercolour, for instance, of a view of the old city of Chur in Switzerland captured by Matthaeus Merian of Basel. It is a delicate work, bathed in grey and sepia, high mountains rising in the background, the walled town of Chur in the middle distance, and close to the bottom edge of the work at left, in a little corner, the painter brings himself in, seated on a rock, drawing. In another work, in the same book, one moves indoors and sees a painter, Taddeo Gaddi, gazing at some frescoes on a wall in the Sistine Chapel, and copying these on to a sheet of paper. We do not see the painter’s face, for his back is turned towards us, but the sense of engagement, almost of reverence, is communicated through the painter’s stance, one foot raised and resting on a small step, head taking in the wondrous sight of great works of the past, and the moment of hesitation before trying to make a copy of a design on the wall. One can, if so inclined, move even closer to the painter in another work in this book: the young painter Barent Fabritius, sitting in front of his canvas placed on an easel, and going over whatever he has already brought to life on it. The play of dark and light in the painting is very pronounced, meant almost certainly to parallel the play that goes on in the painter’s mind.

Admittedly, these are little snippets that I am talking about. But for me, they instruct and seduce at the same time, beckoning to explore their world further.