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Lot Essay
In 1960 Ram Kumar visited Benares for the first time and was greatly inspired by the city's fertile yet desolate landscape.
In the landscapes of the 1960's, the city is represented through generic box shaped forms, all wedged together, wrestling for space on the crowded river bank. "Ram Kumar's Benares landscapes lift one out of the toil of the moment into the timeless worlds of formless memories. What he paints now is not what the eye sees in the ancient city, it is rather the response of the soul to the visual impacts. In these canvases he resurrects the images which have distilled into the sub-conscious, acquiring an authenticity and incorruptibility not of immediate experience." (J. Swaminathan as reported in G. Gill (ed.), Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1978, p. 73.)
In the landscapes of the 1960's, the city is represented through generic box shaped forms, all wedged together, wrestling for space on the crowded river bank. "Ram Kumar's Benares landscapes lift one out of the toil of the moment into the timeless worlds of formless memories. What he paints now is not what the eye sees in the ancient city, it is rather the response of the soul to the visual impacts. In these canvases he resurrects the images which have distilled into the sub-conscious, acquiring an authenticity and incorruptibility not of immediate experience." (J. Swaminathan as reported in G. Gill (ed.), Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1978, p. 73.)