What happens when Nature takes on grey hues? “A pall of gloom descends, a sign of bad tidings,” says G. Chandrasekaran, a retired art teacher, as he describes a painting on River Noyyal. Mr. Chandrasekaran, with 30 fine arts students, had a decade ago followed the trail of the Noyyal, a 167-km glorious journey from Kooduthurai near Alandurai in Siruvani all the way to the Cauvery near Karur, and made on-the-spot sketches of what they saw.
“The work by one of my students captured the landscape, the tree, and flowers in grey streaks, indicating the disaster waiting to unfold on the environment. Though it was done a decade ago, it holds true even today,” says Mr. Chandrasekaran, who headed the Department of the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. “The objective was to use art as a tool to create social awareness of the importance of conserving natural resources, and water gets the priority,” he says.
