Book: RAMANANDA: THE LYRICAL MODERN
Author: Vinayak Pasricha
Published by: Art Frequencies
Price: Rs 5,000
Ramananda Bandyopadhyay works in a register so gentle that it is easy to underestimate its force. RAMANANDA: THE LYRICAL MODERN (Art Frequencies, Rs 5,000) by Vinayak Pasricha aims to correct this. It begins with a larger question about how we look and what we miss, which is apt for a book that concerns itself less with spectacle and more with the steady labour of seeing. Bandopadhyay’s artistic world is built from small gestures: women combing their hair, birds gossiping on the margins, village rituals half-remembered from childhood. The book shines when it lingers on these details. Anecdotes about Santiniketan — Benode Behari summoning him in the rain, Nandalal Bose correcting students’ sketches through tracing paper — anchor the artist within a lineage without trapping him there. But the book is more an archive of Bandopadhyay’s works. The excellent and extensive reproductions of the artist’s works, divided into segments that mirror Bandopadhyay’s evolution as an artist, are what make the tome worth collecting.
