Art
AGONY AND ECSTASY OF DEBDAS
Six Seasons 1, oil on canvas, 186x93cm, 1976.
Debdas Chakraborty has been known for his deep commitment not only to his own calling but in spreading his knowledge about art to younger generations. Being a witness to all the great movements in our history his art often reflects the anguish and joy that people of this land have experienced through struggle and strife.
Still Life, oil on canvas, 28x43cm, 1957.
It took a lot of courage for Debdas to leave Calcutta—where he had a job — and cross to the then East Pakistan. He joined hands with Zainul Abedin, Mohammed Kibria and Shafiuddin to teach the younger artists like Rafiqun Nabi and Monirul Islam.
He lost his wife to cancer early in life. He suppressed his pain and loneliness and expressed nature and life, working with flamboyant colours to create both abstract and semi- abstract works.
He brought in boats, birds, clouds, fish, women rain – and the six seasons of Bengal. As a humanist his themes centred on man against nature. He included the elements of love and happiness, society and economic factors around him. For him patriotism and art was one and the same thing.
He was always associated with the Art College of Dhaka (now Institute of Fine Arts, DU) – where he went on with his soul-searching meditation. He investigated the freeness of lines to create new territories. He had left his job then in Chittagong as an art teacher. At age sixty, he felt confident with abstraction. He was in search of depicting man's inner world. When he proceeded to depict a lover's bed, for instance, it had multicolours – and was buoyant with joie de vivre—as are the hearts of lovers who have given themselves to each other in heart, soul and mind. In his well-beloved series 'Time and space', there is no end to time nor space. New colours and forms made new dimension for the artist.
Drawing, pen and ink, 70x45cm, 1977.
He loved russet hues and cobalt blue. He worked for the magazine Samakal, a literary magazine, as he drifted into graphics. He tried to give realism to abstraction. The style and form blended with ease. The result was unusual and eye-catching. Thus both agony and ecstasy of man's life was brought in a smooth, rhythmic manner.
Pathos is brought in too, as one of the vital elements in 'Time and Space'. In this manner he paints the theme of the War of Independence. For him the valiant freedom fighters were like the roots of a banyan tree that sheltered a whole nation, with their own culture and language, food and clothes. The Freedom Fighters were bold and defiant. Meanwhile the blackish red blood of the martyrs was an idée fixed in the mind of the artist. The wounded heart of the rescue seekers, who fled to Calcutta, felt enormously for the sacrificed brethren—who had given their lives to save their land. Debdas always wished to portray the reality of life. The artist was sensitive and eloquent in his creativeness.
In 1975, he went to Poland on a fellowship. His forty odd pieces done during his stay in Poland speak of his prolific nature. His vibrant colours expressed his strong emotions and distraught nature.
Sunday Morning, oil on canvas, 188x84cm, 1977.
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