"The Red Youth" : A Modern Painting in Sri Lanka

The 1950s was a period that marked significant changes that happened on both the super and infrastructures of Sri Lanka. Such changes were reflected in cultural lives and their productions made within that context. In particular, from a political, social, and cultural point of view, the year 1956 was significantly traced as a period that the mainstream ideological belief of the country was turned into another direction (maybe with a belief of a positive future). At that time the state of the country thought that the roots of Sri Lankan energetic forces had been hidden, therefore, such forces should be re-generated.  It formed a new political movement with empowering native five great forces.  In this text, I am not going to discuss such issues and areas, obviously, it is another research. The reason that I slightly mentioned such historical background is because the subject of this text; "the Red Youth" (pic: 1) was painted in the year 1956.

In 2018 (I cannot remember the exact date) and on 05th  June 2019, I visited the artist who painted this fabulous painting and his studio. On my first visit in 2018, I could not see the original work of the Red Youth, but a  reproduction of the painting published in a newspaper in 1956 was shown to me by the Artist. The major reason for visiting his studio in 2018 was to discuss with the artist a documentary film of the artist and his works that I was going to make with several of my friends. I  had a very intimate discussion with the artist of his works, his journey in the field of art, and his contemporaries of his early period. During the discussion, I was able to visualize the major frames of the documentary of this artist. The script I wrote about the documentary was titled "The Red Youth". Unfortunately, it did not come to reality for many reasons. However, on my second visit, I was lucky enough to see the original painting in his son's collection. The painter who painted the Red Youth is W.A. Ariyasena. The painting was first exhibited at the National Art Gallery Colombo, and also awarded the Governor's Prize. The ego of Ariyasena is still energetic as the title of the painting given by him in the year 1956. He is still producing paintings at his studio. His studio practice as an artist cannot be discussed without his relationship to his teaching role. He had played a key role in teaching art at the Government College of Fine Arts (GCFA) that had spanned for nearly half a century at the same institute. He represents the historical memories of the Institution from its very early period into the current state as the Faculty of Visual Arts.  He is carrying untold stories of such history and their ancestors who were influential figures for his own art practice and art education as well. 

The practice of art, particularly the language of painting in whatever the context it was created or produced, is relevant to the present context of art making practice. So, there is nothing to be irrelevant or rejected. And nothing is over, it is part of the human psyche and history. What could be certain is differences and repetitions of representations and presentations of human experience that could be formed in different materials and mediums. So, this painting is still relevant to the present context of art-making in many ways. It could be an important piece of art; a theme, content, technical narrative, or a visual image within the so-called image-saturated world. Being in a conversation with Ariyasena is always inspiring. It becomes another way of looking at things. His desire as an artist reflects in his connection to both the western notion of art-making (Modernism) and Sri Lankan traditional painting and sculpture. For example, he always talks about the beauty of representations of the body (whether it is spiritual or secular context,) in western art, for example, Modigliani's painting, and the statue of the Goddess Tara which is at the British Museum's Collection in London, and Kandian Period temple painting as well. He sees similarities and significance in things. Yet The Red Youth reflects different sensibility on the idea of beauty. His interest in traditional (Sri Lankan) -western hybrid form can profoundly be seen in his later period of the work. I will discuss this idea in my next piece of writing on A Modern Painting in Sri Lanka. However, there is an early sign of his fascination with the sense of traditional simplicity of form. The wooden head (pic: 2) he created in the early period of his career is visual evidence of this which shows an interconnection to the Brancusian sense of form.

Returning to my major point, the Red Youth, when I saw the picture, I just said to myself this must be displayed in a National Collection of the country.  The painting is simple in terms of composition and its subject matter. It is just about a man playing the mandolin. As I often say, the significance of art-making is not to think about what to paint or make, but how to paint or how to make. Further, the practice of the visual arts is not necessary to be chaotic or political. In this sense, Sri Lankan Art practice has been narrowed to certain areas and genres of art. But, this image produces political implications in a poetic way. The title given by the artist to the painting has different connotations which could be discussed based on different theoretical grounds. Yet, how artists could respond consciously or unconsciously to different situations is something very interesting. When I asked him how did you give the title of this painting. He replied...

"It was in 1956, when I was a teacher at the School of Drawing and Painting (currently the Department of Painting in the Faculty of Visual Arts)  attached to the Government College of Fine Arts (GCFA), on the Heywood Building, I was painting this image from life in a small studio located near to the master studio of J.D.A. Perera on the first floor. The model of this painting was one of my friends name Bothota who was good at playing musical instruments. I asked him to play the mandolin that he had, while he was sitting for this painting. He produced a beautiful piece of music through the Mandolin. It was gone around, suddenly, I was called by J.D.A Perera for his studio, at that time he was the principal of the GCFA. He asked me "Ariyasena, who is playing that music...? Then I replied, sir, it is Bothota who is posing for my painting with playing the mandolin...Then he was so happy and told me to keep working on the painting...The title was given to the painting because he (his friend Bothota) was wearing a red shirt"  (My conversation with the Artist: on 05 June 2019 at his studio)

That is how he has thought about the title of the painting and recalled the memories behind it. He is not interpreting the title as a political statement.  The painting has become a prompt reaction to a situation that the artist was inspired (this could happen as both state of shock or pleasure)Yet, it goes beyond that simplicity of the theme. However, in terms of the language of painting, this is one of the best examples of Modern Painting in Sri Lanka. This painting should be taken into a discussion of the modern context of Sri Lankan painting which has been predominated by the works of the 43 Group. The technical narrative (my emphasis) of the works of the '43 Group was obviously  Eurocentric (Senake Bandaranayake, Albert Dharmasiri 2009, p42). When I looked at the Red Youth, it reminds me Cezannian language of painting (Pic:3) that reflects through the structure of the painting, the pose, subject matter (which is always secondary matter in modernist painting: as modernist critic Clement Greenburg claimed it.) and the technical narrative blended with the idea of composition. Juxtaposing short brush works, leaving ground color or drawing of the painting as finishing the level, using the line in a way of constructing broken edges of forms that gives a sense of motion into the form, and relatively flatten space, and material presence of the paint in work that rejects the classical notion of imitation or illusion are the signs of the modern aesthetic of painting as it was theorized in western philosophy of painting by Greenberg. He emphasized it as "materialistic optimism"(Greenberg 1965, p7). Ariyansena's painting is a clear statement of the modern language of painting that we could see after the' 43 Group in Sri Lanka.  It features the visual language of the western modernist painting that emphasized dismantle coherent perspectival space (Elkins 2005. 62). 

Directness to the subject and abstract approaches of the artist to the painting are clearly defined in this work. In the meantime, the intensity of the deep color palette (dark flesh) gives a rhetoric mood to the painting that localizes the European pinkish-pale flesh tones that appeared in Cezanne's work. In this painting, the localization is present in the way how the artist changed the palette based on the materiality that existed in front of him.  And, in my opinion (as a painter as well)  it is a conscious adaptation of the modern European language of painting into the local environment or personal experience.  What I emphasize here is the closeness of the painting language of the Red Youth to the Cenanian Language.  A significant difference marked by Ariyasena's painting from Cezannian language is that the way he develops the sense of tonalities of the earthy palette. In contrast, Cezanne always keeps complementary keys next to each other. In Ariyasena's work, capturing the pose and act of the musician is represented in a sophisticated way.   The conceptual aspect of this painting is that it emphasizes two acts of art-making happening in the same situation: the mandolin player is generating musical tones which are reflected through the tonal construction and echoing of mark-making in the act of painting. Another point is that the painter is making marks on the space while observing and listening to the act of making musical tones. The whole process is performative in which the subject-object relationship is blurred. I am obsessed with the connections between these two acts. That goes beyond the level of active-passive relationship between artist and model. However, looking carefully at his works, there is visual evidence of moving further of his style from his deep interest in European modern painting such as post-impressionists and cubists works into the direction of expressionism. This idea is asserted by the work displayed at the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery Colombo, titled Who are we? (pic:4) which makes an autobiographical statement of the artist. The painting at the National Art Gallery evokes a sense of destructiveness of the space which is absent in the Red Youth. The destructiveness of the pictorial space pushes the limit of the meaning of the painting far beyond the change of visual language that could be connected into the socio-personal history of the artist (and also could be the country in such context).

Thus, in developing such a language in painting, the artist has been inspired by his contemporaries. In addition to the 43 group, the artists and art educators of that period had been a huge shadow on him. This took Ariyasena towards the European painting tradition. For example, J.D.A. Perera and David Paynter had shown the connections of their works to the European modernism of painting. The portrait of Seetha de Seram (Pic:5.) by J.D.A. Perera (at the collection of National Art Gallery Colombo) and Napalian Girls (Pic: 6.) by David Paynter (Private Collection in Sri Lanka) are examples of that. It is evident that Ariyasena had direct connections with these extraordinary painters who developed a very sophisticated language of painting in the context of Sri Lankan Art. The technical difference between the work of Paynter - as the example shown here and the Red Youth is marked by the overall painting techniques deployed by Paynter which revealed the highest opacity of paint application. In contrast, Ariyasena's techniques reveal translucent layers of paint (oil) application, which may have supported him to direct the painting process and finish the painting within a certain period of time. This way of the technical narrative is evident in J.D.A. Perera's work as well, although the work by Perera is more representative than Ariyasena's painting of the Red Youth.

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In my conversation with this veteran artist and teacher Ariyasena, he always admires them and their contribution is given to the professional art education and the art field in the country. In addition, the trips Ariyasena made to London and Europe (especially Italy) had been great a great inspiration for his style of painting,  although his position as a painter has been moving in between the sense of European and Traditional forms (Sri Lankan). However, the eyes that he trained still look at the things abstractly and spatially (see pic: 8) rather than in a stylistic representative way. Throughout his journey as a painter, Ariyasena has been creating a language of painting that is connected with two different philosophies of art.  His obsession with sensuous figuration of the traditional language of painting and sculpture in Sri Lanka, particularly to Buddhist mural paintings and western- modern cubist language and drawing-based traditional figuration. The major body of work that he has produced after this period makes implications of his journey on searching a language of art that is rooted into Sri Lankan historical contexts that may also show inspiration came from Hindu mythological themes. This idea is present more on the subjects that he selects after the Red Youth. What this proves is that he has been highly attached to exploring the idea of "the Body" throughout his journey on his research on visual language. The recent work (Pic: 7.) that I have seen in my two visits to the artist and his studio would defense my argument on this. In my sense, the painting the Red Youth signifies the steadiness of his language as a modern painter in Sri Lanka. And I would say that it is the key work of the artist from which point he could move into different directions of his visual language. The Red Youth is a piece of art and a unique example of Modern Painting in Sri Lanka.

Reference

Senakae Bandaranayake, Albert Dharmasiri . 2009. Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century.Colombo 7: The National Trust Sri Lanka.

Greenberg, Clement. 1965. Art and Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Elkins, James. 2005. Master Narrative and Their Discontents (Theories of Modernism and Postmodernism in Visual Arts) Volume 1. Oxon: Routledge.

Dumith Kulasekara

01 July 2020. Colombo