“Ranabaiji – Constructionworker in Afternoon Break” – Rasa Masterpiece

1.200,00 

Rasa Masterpiece “Ranabai – Constructionworker in Afternoon Break” by Mumbiram

A Flagship of Rasa Renaissance

  • 80 x 110 cm

Collector’s Item

High Quality Canvas Print

individually signed by Mumbiram

Description

Collector’s Item Canvas Print of Original Masterpiece “Ranabai – Constructionworker in Afternoon Break” by Mumbiram

This hands-on rendering is one of the finest, fastest live portraits ever made. The spontaneity of the artist’s meeting with this swarthy beauty and the extra-ordinary ease that Mumbiram could inspire in people that he chose to depict in his paintings are the secrets of the mysterious charm of this rendering.

80 x 110 cm
High Quality Canvas Print
individually signed by Mumbiram

This is a collector’s item and you will get your Rasa Masterpiece individually signed by Artist Mumbiram.

Rasa Appreciation of original masterpiece “Ranabai – Constructionworker in Afternoon Break” by Mumbiram

 

“Ranabai – Constructionworker in Afternoon Break”

(Gouache watercolours, 1985, Mumbiram)

This hands-on rendering is one of the finest, fastest live portraits ever made. The secret of the mysterious charm of this swarthy beauty is in the spontaneity of her meeting with the artist.
Mumbiram met this construction worker with seductively engaging eyes only once. Where he met her and how he persuaded her to come to his Mandai atelier may always remain a fascinating mystery. That is stuff for romantic movies and books. It was an adventure for both. It was one of the rare moments when the human spirit breaks itself free of all fetters and responds to sublime forces of aesthetic attraction.

All over Pune old historic houses were being torn down to build apartment houses in their place. Gangs of men and women from villages of Andhra and Karnataka were very often camping at construction sites as labourers. Amongst them the gypsy Banjara tribes were the real eye-catchers. Over the years they have shed their jaded heavily ornamented camouflage and taken to various adaptations of the saree. Their earlier appearance made them easy fodder for cameras looking for ´exotic´ India. In truth it was reinforcing their isolation. This Banjara woman has stepped out of the confines of her tribal alienation. She looks all the more fascinating without the traditional trinkets and decorations of her clan.

The red in Ranabai, Mumbiram

Narrow dark deep-set eyes with dark eyelashes, strong flaring nostrils, full petalled 3D lips, high cheek-bones that taper to a strong chin. That is how this unselfconscious working class beauty could be described. She sits face-on looking straight into the eyes of the artist.

Red and green is a classic colour theme. The muse is clad in a parrot-green transparent synthetic saree. That is the artist’s green coat hanging from the bed-poles that Mumbiram often used as an easel. The lady’s madder velvet blouse brings out the different shades of madder of the bindi-spot on her forehead, her sensuous lips and the centre-bead of her barely visible necklace of thin tulasi beads.

Detail of Ranabai's Posture, Mumbiram

She is sitting cross-legged on a brown chequered blanket. In her right wrist there are two plain silver bangles. Around her left wrist she has wrapped a white kerchief. She is sitting in a slightly slouching unaffected posture. Her covered left arm and exposed left foreleg do not hide her strength. Her exposed right arm and her right thigh meet in easy feminine grace.
A bright yellow hair-comb sits on the edge of the blanket. Mumbiram gave it to her but did not want her to use it just then. In Mumbiram’s estimate her tussled hair made her look all the more attractive just as his beloved Krishna himself looked supremely attractive at the end of the day when he came back with the cows from the forest, his face covered with dust and sweat.

The crystal ball in the window, Mumbiram

The blue crystal ball sits on the window-sill as the artist’s signature. It also appears in Gokula’s portrait sitting at nearly the same spot. Mumbiram has chosen opaque earthy gouache colours for this delightfully transparent rendering. There are no redundant details in the arrangement. The brush work is austere, restrained and unaffected. The aggregate is nothing less than exotic. It is a Rasa Masterpiece.

The spontaneity of that meeting and the extra-ordinary ease that Mumbiram could inspire in people that he chose to depict in his paintings are the secrets of the mysterious charm of this beauty.