Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
President of Art Collage JANG/J Music/J Art/J Books & Media.
Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
I uploaded my eleventh
music broadcast on “Spoon Radio.”
The theme of this week's broadcast
is the music of "India,"the birthplace of the ancient Indus
Civilizationand a historical trade route, among world music genres.
In this broadcast, I
introduced an overview of India, the characteristics of Hindustani musicand
Carnatic music, along with their representative instruments, and notable
singers from India.
You can listen to my
broadcast from the link below.
This week, the music genre I created with
AI is Indian music in Hindi, featuring the charming sound of the sitar, the
most widely known Indian instrument.
Song title: लालसाकीप्रतिध्वनियाँ (Echoes of Longing)
On every Thursday, I am
introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the
title “Interesting Art Stories”.
The 13th story for this week is
"Three Girls" by an Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil.
“Three
Girls” is a portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil, an Indian artist, who was often
considered to be the Indian ‘Frida Kahlo’.
Born on January 30,
1913 and died on December 5, 1941, Sher-Gil has been called "one of the
greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century" and "a pioneer
in modern Indian art.”
Amrita Sher-Gil
She began getting
formal art education at the age of eight and first gained recognition for her
oil painting titled “Young Girls (1932)” at the age of 19. Sher-Gil, at age
28, died around midnight on December 5, 1941, after being seriously ill and slipping
into a coma just days before the opening of her first major solo exhibition in Lahore.
The cause of her death has not been ascertained, but a failed abortion and
subsequent peritonitis have been suggested as possible cause of death.
Young Girls, Amrita Sher-Gil (1932)
This work, painted
in 1935, depicting three women in colorful clothes, contemplating a destiny
they are unable to change, is the first work painted by Sher-Gil after returning
from Europe to India in 1934. Instead of drawing them sensually, Sher-Gil described
them as characters who are going through great adversity but have the spirit
that can transcend their destiny that cannot be changed.
Their unhappy and
sad face expressions reflect the artist's empathy for their predicament, and it
seems that Sher-Gil never made any attempts to express their background to
highlight themselves. This work is an
emotional story that captures the pathos of Indian women who do not have a say
in their own futures, and their facial expressions, body language and the tones
of colors used represent the melancholy itself.
Road named in Delhi after Amrita Sher-Gil
It turns out that the
models of this famous painting are sisters named as “Beant Kaur”, “Narwair Kaur”
and “Gurbhajan Kaur”, the grand-daughters of “Sunder Singh Majithia”, the
younger brother of Amrita’s father “Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia.” When Sher-Gil visited
her grandparents' home for a holiday, she met the sisters there. She was fascinated
by the innocent charm they exuded and thus decided to paint them.
This work shows her
move from academic and realist style of painting studied in Paris towards a
modern work style where line and color are prominently used. The work also
reflects the influence of the works of French painter Paul Gauguin on her work.
This work won the
Gold Medal at the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society in 1937.
