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| Sunday, 27 April 2003 |
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Keyt Commemorated by Jayanthi Liyanage "There is an end to things which evolve. When the things which need explanation are explained they not only end in themselves but also end our interest in them. In real painting there is no evolution beyond the point which serves as an avenue to a further variation."
This aphorism on art written by George Keyt towards the end of 1946, when he was living in Bombay, made a perfect epigram for the richly sensuous russet and brown facsimile reproduction of his "Friends" (1982), unveiled at the Indian Cultural Centre last week, to commemorate his 102nd Birth Anniversary. The facsimile was unveiled by the local Dance Legends Kalashoori Dr. Chitrasena and Vajira. "Friends" vividly brings to life Benjamin Rowland's description of Keyt's 'woman:' "Woman is treated not as an individual but as a principle. In all her gaiety, her charm, her insouciance, she never loses her dignity and nowhere is she belittled or besmirched. Everywhere in his garden of flowers, we behold the full-blown rose in its pride and perfume; nowhere the trampled lily."
"Aikido" is an old Japanese term denoting love and harmony between two people in the widest sense of friendship, not excluding sexual bonds, writes S.B. Dissanayake in his narrative to this extremely beautiful painting, "Friends". "AI means love, KI means vital spirit, DO means the way or ways," is the spirit of sensitivity which serenely radiates from the two souls the painting depicts in harmony with each other.
Dissanayake says that in the 1980s Keyt painted a whole series of small-scale paintings of women called "Friends" not unlike the Nayikas. "His works of the 1940s were about the instinctual 'woman' who recognizes no other authority than that of her obsessions. This became one of the central ideas of Keyt's 1980s paintings. It is the notion of 'woman' as autonomous, beautiful and driven by passions." This idea, also recurrent in his paintings of early 1930, resurged from decade to decade to the very end of his career, manifesting itself in his Nayikas, Radhas, Girls with Mirrors, Virahinis and Sringaras.
George Keyt, born in Kandy on April 17, 1901, began a highly decorative unorthodox painting career in 1920, but soon abandoned naturalism and developed his own style, in which, imprints of his deep immersion in Buddhism and the Hindu sculpture of medieval India and his personal involvement in the writings and personality of non-conformist Rabindranath Tagore is evident. "I can only say that I have always been impelled to continue in Indian tradition in the idiom of today, irrespective of nationality," Keyt has said. "My work is said to be stamped with individuality, which is perhaps true considering that the nature of my effort places me outside any conformity with groups, and schools." Keyt was also a founder member of the 43 Group which contained Justin Deraniyagala, L.T.P. Manjusri, Ivan Peiris, George Classen and W.J.G. Beling among other artists, joining together to resist academism and Victorian naturalism of art, reflective of the high surge of national feeling in the 1943 era of Ceylon's struggle for independence. "Friends" was the eighth facsimile to be unveiled by the George Keyt Foundation in its aim of releasing exact copies of Keyt's drawings and paintings to the public. I.S. Madanayake photographed the painting and Buvaneka Wijayadasa of Aitken Spence (Printing) Ltd. produced it on facsimile, sponsored by Hans Monhemius, a Dutch art and music connoisseur. Also present on the occasion were Mohan Kumar, Deputy High Commissioner of India; Reggie Candappa, Chairman, Publications Committee of George Keyt Foundation; and Cedric de Silva, Chairman, Board of Trustees. |
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