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Journalism of Courage
CHANDIGARH, Nov 25: For me the concept of Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ is Sundaram, Shivam, Satyam’ (beauty, goodness, truth) in that order,” Sobha Singh used to say.
But the exhibition that just took off in memory of the great artist, who reflected upon beauty and goodness of life, is far removed from his concept.All we get is a gallery full of immature and crude canvases, barring a very few that stand up to the sanctity of the occasion.
The exhibition, organised by the Sobha Singh Memorial Art Society in Andretta, and the North Zone Cultural Centre, was inaugurated by Surjit Singh Barnala, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, at Punjab Kala Bhawan, this morning. We are ushered into the hall by Sobha Singh’s four paintings which speak of his philosophy of life in clear terms. The portrait of Guru Nanak is so life-like that the compassion in his eyes goes deep into the viewer’s soul.
But move ahead, and we have the portraits of Gurus which not only lack in life but are poor imitations of those with which we grew up seeing. We get glimpses of Sobha Singh’s three Ss’ in very few canvases, like in Bheem Malhotra’s “Valley of Flowers”, Sukh Das’s “Sunlit Mountains” and Gurpreet Dang’s “Dilruba Player” wherein one derives the kind of satisfaction that is the by-product of the three Ss’.
There are a few interesting portraits indeed, and yes, quite life-like, as in Navdeep Singh’s Nargis, Sukhpal’s Mahatma Gandhi and Gurpreet Singh’s Anupam Kher. Unfortunately, a major chunk of this exhibition fails to elicit any kind of vibration within the viewer.
Sobha Singh used to comment, “I only want to paint beauty and goodness in life, which are getting rarer day by day.” How true in art too! But in the case of the present display, “beauty and goodness” seem to be rare in the selection procedure for there is no dearth of artists of calibre, who can produce wonders, either in the City or in the region.
