Renowned artist Upendra Maharathi was an exponent of the art of Bengal School and had suffused his master class in the rainbow layers of rich and timeless culture of Indian heritage.
Born in Narendrapur Village in Puri District in 1908 in undivided Bihar and Orissa state, he moved to Patna in 1931 and made this ancient city his home and the theatre of his art.
The portrait of the artist as a young man begins with the ancient land of Kalinga. Upon this fateful ground of Ashoka's Hamartia, so steeped in tradition and culture, the soul of the young artist took shape. From these humble origins, when Maharathi stepped into the hallowed portals of the Government School of art in Calcutta, his artistic sensibilities were forged under the tutelage of such masterful blacksmiths of art as Sir Percy Brown and Mukul Dey. In a period spanning 6 years between 1925- 1931, Maharathi specialized in various western and Indian techniques of art, craft and architecture. He mastered the European style of portrait making, wash, tempera style of painting, etching, lithograph, wood craft, pottery, weaving as well as other mediums. He was greatly inspired by Abanindranath Tagore and other painters of the Bengal School. It is said, Even in the heydays of Bengal School of painting, Maharathi had few equals in achieving a soft but transparent effect in water colour."
He was inspired by Buddha's message of compassion and his two years stay in Japan, where he had gone in 1954 as a UNESCO representative, deepened his sense of meditation and identification with Buddha's way of life.
A true virtuoso, Maharathi's litany of achievements is long and impressive. A most stupendous oeuvre of paintings, around 900 of which is in NGMAs possession; architectural masterpieces such as the iconic Vishwa Shanti Stupa at Rajgir and Nav Nalanda Mahavihar at Nalanda; his trysts with destiny, when he drew up the masterful series called the 'Glories of India' for the Ramgarh Congress of 1940; the symphony in stone depicting the life of Lord Buddha in stone relief, empanelled in Mahabodhi Mahavihara, a World heritage site; his seminal contributions in the field of handicraft, where he single-handedly revived the moribund folk-craft traditions of Bihar, the list goes on and on. The special Independence Day Commemorative volume, "To The Gates of Liberty" of 1947, had the paintings of Maharathi alongside three greats of his times, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose. During Golden Jubilee year of India's independence in the year 1996, his collective works were acquired by National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, New Delhi and a special exhibition was put up.
As you turn over these pages, and read the insightful words of the famous art cognoscenti Prof. Anand Krishna, son of the founder of Kala Bhawan, Sri Rai Krishna Das of Banaras Hindu University, deciphering the masterful works of this polyvalent genius, you gain a window into the soul of the artist. You can see through the eyes of his mind, the splendid grandiloquence of the court of the Samudragupta, the wisdom of the 'Cakravartin', the dismay of Alexander, the devotion of Parvati, the divine grace of Gautama Buddha, the majesty of The ferocious Hanuman and the sacrifice of the Mahatma. His works combine within their fold, a duality of the temporal as well as the spiritual. The bucolic charms of the tribal and village life are depicted and so are the eternal existential wonderings of humanity. The lament of Yashodhra is juxtaposed with the ascetic detachment of Lord Buddha and the worldly splendor of a king's court with the nihilism of Siva's Tandav. This unity of opposites is perhaps the most defining feature of his works, the coup de grace dealt by the strokes of his brush. So wide has been his canvas and so deep his vision, that it wouldn't be an . exaggeration to say that Maharathi is not of an age, but of all times.
(1908-1981 ) Renowned artist Upendra Maharathi 's contribution to Indian art is unrivaled. A stalwart of the Bengal School, Maharathi was in the vanguard of India's cultural renaissance with his exhaustive portrayal of themes from Indian history and mythology. A true legatee of those unknown painters of Ajanta's frescoes and the sculptors of the stone relief of Sanchi and Bharhut, Maharathi was perhaps the last redoubt of a great artistic tradition which stretches back millennia. Born in Orissa in 1908 he spent a lifetime contributing to the creative arena of India. In the long trajectory of art in Orissa, ornamental depiction has a unique place, especially in the depiction of nature. This floridity evokes a sense of unrestrained abundance. Maharathi's paintings have the same spontaneity and unfettered freedom which we find in the Epics of "Geet-Govindarn". Odissior the Chhau dance traditions. In 1925 Maharathi was admitted to the Calcutta School of Art, where the fecund plains of his artistic mind were fertilized by new cannons of aesthetics and expressions, novel techniques along with an urban and so called "refined" vocabulary of art, form, color, sense etc. The fusion of these diverse traditions, leavened by the genius of Maharathi, culminated into a unique artistic idiom expressed over a vast oeuvre of paintings, sketches and designs. In the Calcutta School of art, Maharathi trained under Percy Brown and others. His works in its meticulous attention to detail and in its instinctive lyricism reflected the inspiration of Abanindranath Tagore and of Santiniketan. Even in the heydays of Bengal School of painting, Maharathi had few equals in achieving soft but transparently washed surface in water colour. In most of his earlier paintings on Buddhist and ancient Indian themes, Maharathi demonstrated a rare synthesis of authentic stylization, accurate external details and subtle expression of inner meanings through minute turns of lines and brushwork.
(1908-1981) Renowned artist Upendra Maharathi 's contribution to Indian art is unrivaled. A stalwart of the Bengal School, Maharathi was in the vanguard of India's cultural renaissance with his exhaustive portrayal of themes from Indian history and mythology. A true legatee of those unknown painters of Ajanta's frescoes and the sculptors of the stone relief of Sanchi and Bharhut, Maharathi was perhaps the last redoubt of a great artistic tradition which stretches back millennia. Born in Orissa in 1908 he spent a lifetime contributing to the creative arena of India. In the long trajectory of art in ' Orissa, ornamental depiction has a unique place, especially in the depiction of nature. This floridity evokes a sense of unrestrained abundance. Maharathi's paintings have the same spontaneity and unfettered freedom which we find in the Epics of "Geet-Govindam", Odissi or the Chhau dance traditions. In 1925 Maharathi was admitted to the Calcutta School of Art, where the fecund plains of his artistic mind were fertilized by new cannons of aesthetics and expressions, novel techniques along with an urban and so called "refined" vocabulary of art, form, color, sense etc. The fusion of these diverse traditions, leavened by the genius of Maharathi, culminated into a unique artistic idiom expressed over a vast oeuvre of paintings, sketches and designs. In the Calcutta School of art, Maharathi trained under Percy Brown and others. His works in its meticulous attention to detail and in its instinctive lyricism reflected the inspiration of Abanindranath Tagore and of Santiniketan. Even in the heydays of Bengal School of painting, Maharathi had few equals in achieving soft but transparently washed surface in water colour. In most of his earlier paintings on Buddhist and ancient Indian themes, Maharathi demonstrated a rare synthesis of authentic stylization, accurate external details and subtle expression of inner meanings through minute turns of lines and brushwork. Fine and detailed drawings and painstaking tonal structure of colors do not mean that his paintings are devoid of personal emotion and communicative thought content.
Manya modern critic would be tempted at first sight, to doubt his work as the product of an effete and impersonal age when an artificially stimulated admiration for Ajanta and things ancient were joined to mechanical imitation of the Mughal Kalam. Iconoclasm is the common and fashionable reaction of a generation to the one preceding it. Maharathi is unashamedly (and challengingly) a survivor from that generation. But he has something of the spark of the great pioneers of the early 20th Century. One has to look closely into his canvases in order to identify the little touches (by no means incidental or unconscious but deliberately worked and purposely concealed) that impart individuality and character to his figures. His Buddhas are not mere copies of ancient murals and nor are his female figures uninspired imitations of the lasya beauties from the temple art. Unlike many who were attracted by the lyrical forms of the Buddhist murals, Maharathi was spiritually moved by Buddha's message. He became a Buddhist and occasionally spent months in retreat like a monk. To him the very dust of Bodha Gaya, Rajgriha, Vaishali and other places where Buddha sojourned, are sacred, not as to a pious pilgrim but as to an inheritor of the spiritual legacy of the Buddha. Two years stay in Japan, deepened his sense of meditation and of identification with the Buddhist way of life. When, therefore, he was painting scenes from Buddhist legends, he was not following an artistic vogue. Had that been so, he would have turned to other more recent fashions as so many have done. These themes and their mystic manifestations are to him an experience to which he is urged by a strong and genuine sense of identification.
Likewise, his outlook had been so deeply colored by Gandhi’s personality as to make of him a Gandhian by faith and not through a process of reasoning. Maharathi had been a consistent believer in the Gandhian Path. The Gandhian path was to him a discovery of the way of the Buddha. That is why in some of his paintings of Gandhi, and in designing certain Gandhian motifs Maharathi did not hesitate to adopt traditional forms and colors. If Gandhi’s face appears suffused with a divine glow in his pictures, it is not an act of idolatry, but a continuity of faith in the perennial values expressed in the messages of Buddha and Gandhi. In the words of Kamladevi Chattopadhyay: "Gandhiji to Maharathi, was the Buddha image in flesh and blood, to whom he was inevitably attracted. He has drawn him in many ways and moods. The ultimate of all his love, regard, and devotion for this living Buddha is laid bare in the 'Bloody Sunset'. It is symbolic yet real. There is both rage and grief in this tragic end; the sun which glowed for a while and lit Upendra Maharathi's world, spreading light and glory, inspiration and hope had set in a spurt of blood, leaving torrents of disorder and destruction. It is a magnificent, grand canvas which unfolds complete scends of disaster, leaving an unspecified, shattering void. The body frame below is but a show in this devastation" .
The cultural renaissance of India's glorious antiquity had been an essential aspect of India's freedom movement. Maharathi, along with the other stalwarts of the Bengal School, was at the vanguard of this revival. In this context, Maharathi's involvement in the historic Ramgarh Congress of 1940 (Where the Congress Party passed a resolution extending support to the British in World War 2), deserves a special mention. In this seminal event, at the behest of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, India's first president, a pictorial book was published, containing illustrations that gave a sublime glimpse of the glorious past of India. The illustrations included exquisite works by Maharathi on Buddha, Aryabhatta, "The Royal Court of Samudragupta" and many others. Perhaps, never again has the cultural essence of a society, period and place been captured so truthfully, originally and artistically. Maharathi's cultural nationalism was not just limited to merely depicting India's glorious antiquity. He was a champion of folk art as well. He was not only aware of the characteristics of folk art, but was also aware of the fact that the best amongst folk artists and craftsmen were proud of something else. They expected to be admired not as impersonal medium of a spontaneous and unsophisticated artistic spirit, but as individual creators of beauteous forms. They too have the urge for perfectionism. In particular, craftsmen such as the potter, the metal worker, the basket maker take pains and lavish loving care over intricate patterns seeking to achieve harmony and balance. They are not all mechanically repeating themselves. The better amongst them express their individuality by Introducing geater refinement, greater delicacy, more intricate curves and turns within the framework of the traditional forms. Maharathi learnt the craft and became fellow-worker of craftsmen, to understand their unique ways and at the same time lead them on to greater sophistication, attention to detail and better harmony consistent with their genius. In other words he treated crafts as a serious kind of fine arts. In his endeavor to promote folk art, he set up ‘Upendra Maharathi Institute of Industrial Designs’. He was conferred with “Padmashree” in 1969, Twelve years before his demise in 1981.
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