The Organic Painter

Eighty-year-old Mashe,who has many national and international exhibitions to his credit,was the first artist to bring Warli paintings into a secular domain,away from tribal ceremonies and rituals. “My father was the first to draw Warli paintings as pure art and just not for rituals,” says his son. Sadashiv believes his father would never have become famous,if not for Bhaskar Kulkarni,a maverick artist from Mumbai,who took Mashe to Delhi in 1973 for an exhibition of his handicrafts at Pragati Maidan. Before that,and even sometime after his first exhibition,Mashe worked as a labourer at a farm in a nearby village.

Mashe’s first solo exhibition was held at Gallery Chemould in Mumbai in 1975. Mashe’s first international exhibition was in France in 1976,which was followed by another major one in 1989. In 2003,he had a joint exhibition with Richard Long,a British artist in Germany,and in 2004 at Milan,Italy. These were followed by exhibitions in the US in 2006.

Collector and art critic from Paris,Hervé Perdriolle,who annually organises the exhibition Autres Maîtres de l’Inde (The Other Masters of India) in France,and has invited Mashe since 1996,says,“I meet him every year in Ganjad,with always the same pleasure. His style has changed with time. At the beginning,like we can see in Pupul Jayakar’s book (The Earthern Drum),he was very raw. During the Nineties,his style became more sensitive with many vibrant details. Recently,because he is old and has sight problems,his style has returned to its rawness. Warli art is defined by its constant praise,admiration and portrayal of movement.”

A painting on the wall in the Mashe household depicts a wedding. Men and women are busy with the preparations,some men are hunting and people are dancing in groups. The painting also includes a bus,a car and an aeroplane in motion. “After his visits to various cities in India and abroad,these things began appearing in my father’s painting,” says Sadashiv.

Mashe’s mother passed away when he was eight years old. “My father used to talk very little after his mother passed away. He would be silent for days. When women of the village drew during rituals or ceremonies,my father would silently stare at the drawings. After a while,they started asking him to assist them and not just look. That is how it started,” Sadashiv says.

Kulkarni had come to Ganjad to study Warli life and paintings. He invited four women to accompany him to the exhibition. But they were not ready to go with a stranger. “They decided to ask my father,who at the time was the only male Warli artist. Even today,for the rituals or ceremonies,women start the painting by drawing four sacred lines of the dev chauk,by dipping their hands in rice paste. Men draw the remaining figures,” Sadashiv says.

The building blocks of Warli paintings are three shapes: the triangle,the circle and the square. The triangle comes from the mountains and tree-tops,and the circle is inspired by the moon or the sun. “With the triangle we draw men,women,children and animals. Insects,objects,trees and hills also use these basic shapes. There is a rectangle or square too. It is a place for our Goddess Palaghata,” Sadashiv says.

Delhi-based art historian Yashodhara Dalmia,who wrote the book The Painted World of the Warlis (1988),says,“The Warli language does not have a script. So pictures are essentially their way to written expression. This ‘language’ and ‘pictorial script’ is transferred from generation to generation. There is tremendous energy in the movement of these drawings. They have their own character and mystic graphic quality.” Warli art,says Perdriolle,is defined by “its constant praise,admiration and portrayal of motion. As Jivya has explained,life is a movement.

Even today,the paintings made for rituals or festive ceremonies are inked on the inner walls of a hut. The background of earthen-red is made with cowdung,soil and red ochre (called geru locally). Traditionally,the white pigment used for the drawings is a mixture of rice paste and water. Thin bamboo sticks are either sharpened for drawing fine lines,or chewed at one end for coarse lines to create the artist’s brush.

Till now,all our efforts to make Mashe talk to us had yielded no success. But when we asked about the thin white stick he is using to draw the sharp lines,he finally starts talking,“This is a thorn from a palm tree we see around here. You have to choose one very carefully. We also use a bamboo stick. But nowadays,we use artificial colours for both the background on cotton cloth and for the drawings.”

When we ask Mashe to allow us to photograph him against his work,he gets up and stands near a painting,which teems with thousands of ants. He seems to read the question on our faces. “This is a bhon. It is an ant-dwelling. When pralay (catastrophe) arrives,everything will be submerged and all the plants will be washed away. Then we will have to go to the ants as they have stored the seeds of all the plants in their bhon. The ants will help us farm and resume our lives. Our lives cannot be painted without the lives of animals,trees and insects,” he says.

I am carrying a diary with me. I open the last blank page and request Mashe to draw for me. He keeps aside his cup of tea,and starts drawing,looking at the diary and pen with childlike curiosity. His son Balu asks him to finish his tea first,but we doubt if he has heard him. Looking at the horse rider and a woman he drew for me,I ask him,“Aata pudhe kay (Now what?)”. He says,“Mi marestovar chitra kaadhnar (I will keep drawing till I die).”