Black is Beautiful

 
Until the advent of the prism, black was not even considered a colour, in fact, black and white, were seen merely as intervals or pauses between the colour spectrum. However, Russian painter Kasimir Malevich changed this simplistic perception with his painting, Black Square in 1915. This simple act of rendering a black square on a white canvas became the symbol of the Russian avant-grade, and marked the beginning of Suprematism. Malevich arguably became the world’s first Minimalist.
 

Since then many artists across the globe have brought new meaning to the idea of Minimalism, from Nasreen Mohamedi’s sublime and restrained use of black to S H Raza’s intoxicating and all consuming black Bindu series.
 

It is interesting, however, when artists who are primarily known as colourists, turn their attention from their glowing palettes to the monochrome of black and white, and decide to glorify that one colour that is usually eschewed as inauspicious or morbid.
 

For the exhibition Black is Beautiful, over 40 artists have dipped their brush in black and rendered forms in its purest, using a dash of sepia or a hint of blue, but primarily black is their muse.
 

Gurcharan Singh has always been known for his sensuous play with delicate colour to evoke the pleasure palaces of dance bars. Babu Xavier’s vibrant palette challenges set notions of colour schemes. His work is primarily known for his uninhabited use of magentas and blues. Here he has abandoned the use of colour for a delicate rendering of form in black and white contours.  
 

Nayanaa Kanodia’s naïve paintings have always rejoiced in a Rousseau-esque rendering of colour but she too has chosen to render her woman through a Spartan use of black lines accented by soft flesh tones for her protagonist. Nikhileswar Baruah’s watercolours have always been drenched in blue and shades of melancholy but this composition primarily plays with washes of grey evoking that sense of drama through a pure use of form.
 

Laxman Aelay, Mrityunjay Mondal and Ajay De for their mastery over heavily detailed realistic works and they excel in rendering form without colour. While Akbar Padamsee, a deeply formalist colourist who plays off primary, secondary and tertiary colours in his large Metascapes is also known for delineating his prophets and sages with wispy delicate strokes in monochrome.
 

The late Paritosh Sen has always been known for his bright intuitive colours, but his lines in black-and-white are so strong and vivid that they infuse a breathing life force within them. While Laxma Goud teases his lines into a pure minimal expression still armed with the power to evoke the sensuality of the female form.
 

As Friedrich Nietzsche rightly said, “Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naïveté rests all aesthetics; it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add it’s second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.” 

Georgina Maddox, is an art critic and writer for the Indian Express