Men in Fields
| Support Type: | Silk |
| Paint Type: | Watercolor |
| Current Location: | Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru |
Men in Fields, Benode Behari Mukherjee, circa 1956. A quiet scene of rural life, with two men, amongst trees, grasses and birds. The painting is more about the relationship of people to the natural world than it is about any particular event. A man is shown sitting on the ground and another man stands nearby holding a long staff. The scene is as if an ordinary moment in the life of the village, with simple postures. Mukherjee uses loose brushstrokes in earthy tones of brown, yellow and green to give the landscape a natural look. The trees and vegetation are rendered with simplified forms and the birds scattered across the sky give movement to the composition. The figures do not have detailed facial expressions and the environment becomes just as important. There is a certain peacefulness to the men and the landscape co-existing. Mukherjee does not try to make rural life sound grand or dramatic. He finds meaning, instead, in its everyday simplicity. Here is reflected this interest in ordinary people and their surroundings, in the way that a familiar scene can be made significant by close observation and a knowledge of nature and human life.