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Cholamandal Artists’ Village in Adyar,
Chennai – “Indian in spirit and worldwide contemporary”
– has carved itself a permanent place on the art map of the
world.
The rays of the morning
sun beam across the green woodlands to a reddish mud avenue with tall
palm trees on either side. The breeze carrying the whisper of
casuarina groves has a salty tang. Everything is still except for an
occasional bird call and the sound of waves breaking on the
not-too-distant sea shore. I am at Cholamandal Artists’
Village, said to be India’s largest self-supporting art colony
and one of the most successful in Asia, located about 9 km from
Adyar, Chennai. I am here at the invitation of S. Nandagopal, a
sculptor of renown, whose creation Tree (which now adorns a
children’s park in Mumbai) made a national record as the largest
stainless steel structure. More recently Memories of a Hero
Stone, another creation of his, hit the headlines as the largest
welded copper and brass sculpture in the country. Nandagopal is the
Secretary of Cholamandal Artists’ Village which is the
brainchild and creation of his father, K.C.S. Paniker. I realize how
fortunate I am to be introduced to Cholamandal by him. As he takes
me round the village I listen enthralled to the story of how his
father’s dream grew to be a concrete reality within a span of
three decades.
K.C.S. Paniker, an
outstanding artist with the natural gift of leadership, was the
second Indian Principal of the Government College of Art &
Crafts, Chennai. He was also a trend-setter who combined creative
zeal with a new and radical concept of art. Unlike many others of
his time, he did not believe that modern art was a gift of the West
and firmly believed that India could and was evolving its own version
of modern art – a belief shared by his students to whom he was a
father figure. He described it as something that was ‘Indian in
spirit and worldwide contemporary’. Many painters and sculptors
joined him in his quest for what amounted to a new version of
contemporary art. New York Times paying a tribute to
Paniker in 1968 stated, “He was using myths, symbols and ancient
script in patterns that sought to recapture the spirit of centuries
ago while retaining a modern approaches.” This is evident in the
work of Cholamandal artists which continue to have a strong regional
flavour.
What inspired him to
think of an independent artists’ village, I ask Nandagopal and
why the name ‘Cholamandal’? he smiles as he continues with
the story. “Some of father’s serious students continued to
work in the rooms and corridors of the state Lalit Kala Akademi
building nearby after their regular classes. They were worried about
how they should keep up with their work once their college days ended
and they were forced to eke out a livelihood to support themselves
and their families. Would it mean the end of their artistic dreams?
That is when the idea of a self-supporting art colony came to father.
He realized that they could not possibly exist on fine art alone.
The obvious solution was to turn to creative handicrafts for which
there was already a market and devote a few hours each day making
them. This would bring about an independent means of supporting
themselves. They could carry on with their art, painting or
sculpture the rest of the time. As for ‘Cholamadal’, the
name means the land of the Cholas, a famous Tamil dynasty. They were
great patrons of art.”
Paniker organized an
exhibition of batiks – a form of art highly popular even
then – done by the staff and students of his college. It was a
total sellout and helped raise Rs. 10,000 – not a small amount
in those days. In the February of 1963, 40 artists formed a society
and registered it as Artists Handicrafts Association. Paniker’s
dream was to give the artists an independent and self reliant
existence, working in the relaxed atmosphere of their own homes. He
bought 10 acres of land in the outskirts of the city. The place was
an uninhabited stretch of sand with casuarina trees growing wild with
just a small, sleepy fishing village nearby. Not only was it far
from the madding crowd, away from the heat and dust of the city, but
being near the East Coast Highway, it was perpetually full of
tourists on their way to Mahabalipuram. It was an ideal locale from
the commercial point of view as well. And there was the sea nearby,
beach with silken sands, the shady casuarina groves, the song of
birds and the constant reverberation of breakers in the background.
What could be more artistic and idyllic?
Paniker divided the land
into plots and offered these for sale to artists who bought them
according to their needs and means. On 13th April 1966,
the transaction was complete and the first group of seven artists
moved in next month. Among the early settlers were K.R.Harie,
R.B.Bhaskaran, K.M. Adimoolam, S. Kanniappam, Sampath Kumar, Jaipal
Paniker, A.C. Mammen, V. Viswanathan and others. Paniker himself
joined then two years later after his retirement from the College of
Arts.
But was settling down in
the poetic wilderness an easy task? “By no means!”
Asserts Nandagopal, “It was pretty tough putting up the huts.
The artists had to traverse a distance of six miles or more to buy
vegetables and provisions. There were no proper roads between the
main East Coast Road and our village except for a rough cow track.
The went shopping once a week and lived on dry grains that wouldn’t
spoil. It meant walking the distance when there were no buses or
hitching a ride onto passing lorries! It was particularly tough
during the rains as the cyclones sometimes blew away our houses and
work into the sea putting everything back to square one!” He
bursts out laughing as he remembers the time though he was very young
then.
Cholamandal Artist’
Village is now a charming cluster of artists’ studios, a
permanent gallery of paintings, graphics, drawings and sculptures, a
workshop for batik and metal work, guest houses, the office of
the Artists Handicrafts Association and the houses of the artists who
live there. There is a striking sculpture park and an open air
theatre where performances take place, a guest house donated by the
West German government and two studios donated by the TCI groups,
available on rent to artists, art students, art historians and lovers
of art. Twenty-one of the original 40 artists continue to live and
work here. Tey do not accept new members but there are always half a
dozen younger artists working or studying here. A percentage of the
artists’s earnings makes up a fund which helps pay their joint
expenses. Though most of the artists continue to produce batik even
now they are able to live comfortably from their paintings and
sculpture. Their work is widely recognized as some of the best art
produced in post-war India. The artists have regular exhibitions
across the country and abroad.
As we stop for a coffee
break at the canteen-shed with a thatched roof my eyes wander across
to the sculpture park which offers a wonderful collection. What is
most striking is the way they blend with the landscape. Nandagopal
tells me about the sculptors who made them. They are all celebrities
– Paul Beckmann from Netherlands, Paul Schneider from Germany,
Thomas Link from Germany, Hiroshi Mikami from Japan, Reijo from
Yugoslavia, Ajit Chakrabarty from Calcutta, Sarbari Roy Chouldhury
from Santiniketan, Nagji Patel from Baroda, P.V. Janakiram from
Chennai, Rajasekharan Nair from Cholamandal, C. Dakshinamurti from
Chennai, S. Kanniappan from Chennai and Venkatachelapathy from
Bangalore among others.
Even more striking is
Cholamandal’s sunken open-air theatre, which was made from a
dried-up pond around which a tablet stage was built. About 350
spectactors can sit around the stage to watch performances. Artistes
who have performed here include musicians like Dr. M.
Balmuralikrishna, M.D. Ramanathan, N. Ramani ; dancers such as
Alarmel Valli, Chitra Visweswaran, Leela Samson and V.P. Dhananjayan.
Theatre people include Badal Sircar and Koothu-P-Pattari. Maurice
Bezzart of the Belgian National Theatre and two of his colleagues
presented a ballet based on the Siva-Parvati theme where 60 local
artistes also took part.
Cholamandal has been the
venue of a number of major artists’s camps. The first workshop
was held here in 1988 with seven participants – a Dutch, A
Yugoslav, a German and four Indians. The second followed in 1989
with one German, one Austrian and three Indians. The third in 1990
had two Japanese and one Indian artist. One of the recent ones was
the workshop dedicated to the Golden Jubilee of Indian Independence
held in 1998. Distinguished visitors from abroad who have spent time
at Cholamandal include Sir Anthony Caro, Chester Bowles, Queen Mother
Juliana of the Netherlands, Princess Wisdon Ali of Jordan, the
Spanish Queen Sophia and her sister Princess Irene, Andrez
Wawrzynisk, Jeannie Auboyer, Simone and Andre Bonjaiboult and many
others. Cholamandal has indeed become the artists’s Utopia,
making a vision come alive.
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