Tagore’s Chameli

Uma Nair studies deeply the different brush strokes of Chameli Ramachandran, that are both real and transcendental

Nature is her leitmotif. But Chameli Ramachandran couples the wispy wash like effect of Chinese masters in pen and ink and watercolour hues to create works that mirror nature at its ephemeral best.

Christened by Tagore

Christened Chameli by Rabindranath Tagore, her  lineage is a story to behold. Chameli was fifth among the children born to Professor Tan Yun-shan and Tan Chen Nai-wei. Her father, an eminent scholar and a close associate of Rabindranath Tagore, moved to India from China in 1928 to establish the Cheena Bhavan at Santinikaten as a centre for Chinese studies.

My classmate from school, Ranesh Ray in his book, A Confluence of Distilled Essences/The Art of Chameli Ramachandran, writes that Tagore called her Chameli because he felt that the three syllable Cha-me-li had a distinct Chinese flavour and texture of sound. In an interview to me years ago Chameli spoke of how her father loved India and adored Tagore, thus dedicating his life to the idea of the Visva Bharati University.

He gave up his comfortable life in Singapore and even made her mother give up her job as the principal of a school in Malaysia to settle into the simple life of Santiniketan.

Meditative moorings

The flowers, the plants, the trees all have about them a soft as a petal reflection that dwells on meditation and deeper rumination that runs into the spirit of being. Chameli Ramachandran ( wife of the scholar and artist extraordinaire A.Ramachandran ) fuses the lithe brushstrokes of ancient Chinese masters along with an Indianesque vision of flower studies and landscapes. Her observations of nature are translated into quasi-realist renderings that convey a meditative mooring through sensitive and fluid brushwork. These flower studies and the landscapes bear testimony to her singular approach to natural objects and scenes.

Pink carnations, and other unnamed flowers, botanic as well as sublime studies, ensue out of contemplative chapters. Chameli transforms individual flowers into abstract studies even as she represents structural dictates in design and natural formations. Through an incandescent flavour and fervour, she captures the texture and translucence of the petals, as well as the asymmetry of form.

Chinese ink and paper

All these works have been created with Chinese ink on paper, partly because of her lineage and also because it’s an arduous technique that she works to perfect. “Chinese ink doesn’t flow evenly, so it’s difficult to achieve fluid brushstrokes with it, also because it doesn’t allow for revisions — it can’t be rubbed or drawn over. You end up using a lot of paper in your quest for perfection,” she adds.

Trees and wild grasses

It is, however, the monochromatic studies of trees, wild grasses, and ferns, that are the piece de resistance in her monochromatic works. Chameli is every bit a quiet botanist, her observations of her subjects bring on the quaint detailing of each branch, twig, leaf and stem. You can glimpse the nuances of supple movements of her brush amid subtle tonal variations in her use of Chinese ink and watercolours to create a whisper satin smooth wash effect. There is, however, a soft signature of transcendental contemplation. A repository of early Santiniketan days.

“Art is life itself—life that I perceive in the bloom of a particular flower, in the texture and subtle tones of a petal, the magical rippling of leaves by an invisible breeze, and in the cry and swift movement of birds streaking across heavily laden dark monsoon clouds,” she adds.

“I study nature wherever I travel-Kerala or New York or Toronto and I select, what I want to create, depending on the space, the form, and atmosphere.  My search is to convey likeness through unlikeness, as the Ming painter Wang Fu put it. So I am creating the life of the spirit in the rhythm of things when I paint.”

Divine spirit

Nature and art conjoin to form a mystical divine spirit and you sense a Tagorean tribute when you look around these works. On her website she has the words of Tagore as her living mantra. Aakashbhora surjo tara, biswobhara pran, Tahari majhkhane aami paechi mor sthan — ( The sky is full of the sun and the stars, the universe is full of life. Among all these I have found my place.)

In the enchanting journey of foliage and trees and nature’s sights and sounds, this show at Vadehra’s communicates a sense of quiet exultation, an austerity coupled with a gentle melancholia. Amid lucid brushwork and tonal variations that ensue from the use of distinct Chinese pigments, this is a distilling of an essence shaped by a precious and learned Chinese heritage and growing up in Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan. A must for art lovers with tired eyes.

(Vadehra Art Gallery presents Chameli Ramachandran’s Home and Beyond that opened on August 31. Show runs till October 9 at D 40 Defence Colony).