Dwarkapuri

Gaganendranath Tagore’s Dwarkapuri is an interesting painting where a familiar mythological city becomes almost dreamlike. Gaganendranath does not present Dwarka as a recognisable ancient city, but builds it from angular forms, overlapping structures, sharp lines and shifting planes. The buildings seem to rise one behind the other but the space is not easy to read. Elsewhere the forms seem to be moving toward us, and sometimes it seems like we are seeing the city from above. This imparts a feeling of perpetual motion to the painting, but there is nothing moving in it. The lighter areas of colour contrast with the darker geometric shapes, giving the architecture a sense of depth without making it look completely solid. There is a certain quietness about the scene too. No crowds, no dramatic events going on. It's the city itself that's the focus. The story behind Dwarka, the legendary city of Krishna, which is believed to be submerged under the sea traditionally, is even more interesting. Gaganendranath seems to catch something of that idea of a city that is both memory and imagination. His Cubist approach fractures the architecture as if we are attempting to reconstruct a place which no longer exists in any normal, physical sense. But the painting doesn’t seem entirely alien. The shapes of temples, walls, towers and buildings are still associated with an Indian architectural imagination, although they have been simplified and re-arranged. Gaganendranath's interest in Cubism enabled him to depart from direct representation and to investigate how a place could be remembered rather than seen. This is particularly effective in Dwarkapuri because the subject is a legendary place, not just any city. The painting thus seems to be caught between the real and the imaginary. It is clearly a city, but one that appears to be perpetually vanishing and reappearing before our eyes. The broken forms, unusual perspective and muted colours give the work a slightly mysterious quality, but the subject keeps it grounded in Indian mythology. What I like best is the way Gaganendranath takes something very familiar and makes us see it in a different light. Rather than recounting the story of Dwarka, he evokes the feeling of trying to recall a place that has long vanished.