These tints, landscapes, faces and motifs are all too familiar; we grew up seeing them on calendars, periodicals and advertisements. Now, save for the occasional resurrection that cashes in on their ‘retro’ value, commercial art is inching towards obscurity. At Ashvita’s quaint gallery space, a narrative is being created on how commercial art, which dominated many a home over the past hundred years, saw a movement in Madras, parallel to the rest of India.<SU> The exhibit is titled The Popular Picture: One Hundred Years of Commercial Art from Madras.
Look around and you find, for instance, a calendar that dates back to 1966: A scene that depicts the Hindu god Shiva surrounded by pious devotees is juxtaposed by columns of dates and a masthead that reads Murali Traders. A 1970 poster carries perhaps the most widely-shared and replicated painting of another Hindu god, Balamurugan, that reads With best compliments from: Sri Mangalambiga Stores — Dealers in stainless steel and general merchants.
These widely-circulated works of art are most often not attributed, yet are vital to the visual language of the country. “This show exists because we wanted to ask people questions like: ‘What is fine art? Who classifies it as fine art? Why does Hussain get a museum exhibition and not say, Konderaju and Aykan,’” says Ashvin E Rajagopalan, curator of the display. Most of these artworks were discarded. “They became objects of no value because they were free. Today we are able to give them a context.”
