Painter dazzled by spiritual beauty

By Tissa HEWAVITARANE

Painters differ widely in the degree of their versatility. They differ, too, in the variety of their development. There exists artists of different kinds who are not versatile and whose work changes very little. Among the painters who are the subjects of these changes are those who are versatile and modest.

David Paynter showed qualities that posterity may consider attributes of genius. He left for England to study art. He had no formal art lessons but entered the Royal Academy by winning a five-year scholarship in the open competition with students. Who had received formal instructions in European art Schools.

He won the Royal Academy Gold Medal at the end of the fourth year along with the Edward Stott Travelling Scholarship which gave him two years in Italy. IN 1925 he returned to Sri Lanka and started work on the Trinity College chapel murals. In 1936 he visited London for the third time which was a very productive and rewarding period in his art career. His one man exhibition at the Wretheim Galleria in London brought him much recognition from art critics and journals in Europe. By invitation he participated in four international exhibitions in the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburg in Rome, in New Delhi and at the World Fair held in New York. From 1923 to 1940 his paintings were exhibited every year at the Royal Academy in London. The themes of most of his early works are religious. In 1923 two of his best pictures 'The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem' and the 'Entombment' were considered powerful and dramatic statements of deeply-felt religious experiences. David Paynter conceived of Christ and the biblical incidents in terms of his own country and its people. The murals he painted in the chapel of Trinity College with Sri Lankan models and the setting of the composition is drawn from his immediate surroundings in nature from rocks, trees etc....

Having proved his mastery and his ability to arouse the enthusiasm of his public with his religious pictures, David Paynter now turned, his hand to another branch of art - portrature. Here he was very successful indeed. Nearly all the celebrated personages of the period submitted at one time or another, to have their likeness perpetuated by this relentless realist of the brush. To be painted by Paynter became the fashion indeed, the passion - of the day. From morning till night his studio was besieged by wealthy women of Colombo 7. The sitter were proud of their portraits. For they saw in it what they wanted to see the human figure depicted in colossal proportions upon a canvas of enormous size. His clients ranged from British Governors to the Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka. On invitation in 1954 he painted the official portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru Prime Minister of India. Another aspect of Paynter's art was his presentation of male beauty in his male nudes and semi-nudes.

His eyes were dazzled by the spiritual beauty and symbolise harmony between man and God, based on the Christian belief, the God created man. One idea frequently expressed was the concentration on drawing the human figure that still provides a challenge and indeed a super test for the draughtsman. The reason for this he would explain was that the practice of any he would explain was that the practice of any form of art requires the powers of organisation and coordination. The drawing of the human figure with its problems of construction, articulation and movement provides invaluable exercises on the development of this power. It was David's honesty and humility as well as his learning that influenced generation of students - while his unfailing courtesy won him their affection and respect.

As a portrait painter he gave magnificent expression to the qualities that characterised his sitters.

In 1962 he hung his pallette and brushes and became a farmer in Kumburumpiddi 15 miles north of Tincomalee. In 1968 he took time off from the Trinco farm and painted his great masterpiece. 'The Transfiguration' mural at St. Thomas' College Chapel, Mt. Lavinia. David Paynter, the son of a missionary parents, was born in Alrrora, North India. His father was an Englishman and his mother a Sinhalese, of a Southern Sri Lankan family. His mother came from an old family of Christians who lived and flourished on rubber, coconut and citronella in an around Hikaduwa, Dodanduwa and Baddegama.

David Paynter was still at work when death came to snatch the still glowing brush from his hand. He died of a heart attack on June 7, 1975.