Untitled

This work from 1957 belongs to Ram Kumar's early figurative phase. Painted the year after Sad Town, the works resemble each other closely both in terms of structure and palette as well as sociological concerns. Upon his return to India in the 1950's, Ram Kumar was witness to strong feelings of disillusionment and alienation in those around him. The figures in his works from this period reflect these concerns, that stemmed largely from the trials of urban living in a "city environment circumscribed by the constrictions of urban society and motivated by conflicts which ensue from dense population, unemployment, artificial relationships." (Richard Bartholomew, 'Attitudes to the Social Condition: Notes on Ram Kumar', Lalit Kala Contemporary 24-25, New Delhi, 1981, p. 31.)

Although the little man in the work appears forlorn and isolated, he is linked to the cityscape around him through a consistently somber palette. The unnatural posture of his body is echoed in the angular, warped and jagged shapes of the background that communicate a sense of despair and hopelessness. The little man that appears in Ram Kumar's paintings is "desolate and hollow within, despite all his manifest pretensions to identify himself with the petit bourgeoisie. The towering monstrous townscape only intensifies his wretchedness." (S.A. Krishnan, 'Editorial', Lalit Kala Contemporary 24-25, New Delhi, 1978, p. 4.)

The figure is not a specific individual; rather, he symbolizes the state of the human condition, "eloquent of a total aggregate oppressive reality of which they were separate and private manifestations." (Richard Bartholomew, 'Attitudes to the Social Condition: Notes on Ram Kumar', Lalit Kala Contemporary 24-25, New Delhi, 1981, p. 32.).