Two of Ganesh Haloi?s paintings in gouache displayed at Akar Prakar gallery

Some artists present life in all its infinite, lush, maddening yet fascinating variety. There is another class of practitioner who can extract its essence, discarding all the superfluities. To achieve this, one needs concentration of such a high degree that the artist has to be in a state akin to meditation.

Scanning the paintings of Ganesh Haloi, on view at Akar Prakar gallery, one marvels at the geometrical precision with which the artist evokes the ghats of Varanasi that have fascinated many a painter, cinematographer and photographer down the ages.

If this creates the impression that these are cut-and-dried paintings, that is not so. But the artist does exercise tremendous restraint while depicting the endless flights of steps rising from the Ganga in this holy city.

As in his landscapes, we see the bare essentials. In Haloi?s works, Varanasi is quite unlike Ramkumar?s famous evocation of the city with bold, broad strokes. In Haloi, the succession of steps is either horizontal or are in an inclined plane, creating spatial contrasts. Soft and subtle shades in light and deep shades are chosen to create further variations. Haloi uses browns, greys, indigo, Indian red, ochre and moss green to create areas of darkness and shadow, often with a hint of light glinting on the steps.

From afar, a painting could look like a pile carpet in rich, warm tones. From close quarters, the subtle gradations of shades become apparent.

When the sunlight is blinding, the steps turn a stark white, demarcated with lines of brown. The monotony of straight lines is broken by the soaring shikhara of a temple, the circle of an umbrella, an architectural embellishment like a frieze, the ancient city?s famous bodybuilders and the langurs.

Viewers may be reminded of the cubist experiments in black and white of Gaganendranath Tagore, but Haloi?s paintings lack that rigidity. They look as cool and comforting as a those clay pitchers or matkas which chill water. These steps elevate painting to a higher plane of meditative calm, all passions spent.