Doors of perception

Manish Pushkale on V.S. Gaitondes untitled work from 1981
I first saw this untitled work of V.S.Gaitonde at Bharat Bhavan,Bhopal ,several years back. The place had some of the best works of the 1980s,but I was enraptured by this particular piece. I went back to it again and again,gazed at it in amazement and admiration,viewed it from various angles and immersed myself in it.

This was the painting that gave me the strength to deal with emotions and experiences beyond our retinal realisation. It was completed in 1981. Oil on canvas,156 cmx105 cm,it is a painting with a very subtle colour palette; its ground ranges from ochre to Naples yellow on which we see various shapes in white and sepia. It was illuminating for me to see this painting together with the script-like doodles and drawings of the Pahari Korwa tribal artistsbetter known as the magical scripts by J. Swaminathan. This painting comes across at first glance as six horizontal or three vertical sections of script-like images with shadowy sepia forms hovering around. On closer reflection,it seems like an organised rhythmical pictorial chaos,which mystifies and even delights us. It also comes across as a pictorial letter on an old paper or parchment addressed to unknown races and civilisations. At the bottom of the painting,we see two shapes resembling dunes,evocative of mysterious landscapes losing their details in the noontime. The colours in this painting create a transcendental hallucinatory effect. Gaitonde does not represent anything here; instead he invites the viewer to use his sixth sense and open his own doors of perception.