Ganesh Paine is regarded by many as R.K.Narayan of Bengal, in his own way. Narayan, the prolific writer, was capable of presenting his stories with vivid imagery and minute details. His language was lucid and pictorial. Today, Narayan and Malgudi have become synonymous. The latter was an exquisite world inhabited by sentient and volatile people and was created from the writer’s figment of rich imagination. Similarly, Ganesh Paine, the quintessential painter, is endowed with rich and fertile imagination, wonderful aesthetic sense and a gifted hand at painting. He has a world of his own. His paintings have always revealed the grand artist’s intense feelings like frustration, sorrows, doubts, aspirations, joys, dreams and ecstasies. The multitudinous hues of the artist’s kaleidoscopic mind have been best revealed in ‘tempera’ (a method of painting using emulsion e.g. of pigment with egg).
Ganesh Paine was born in 1937. He lost his father in his childhood. He and his siblings were brought up with loads of care and affection by his four uncles. The filial love which they showered on Ganesh and his siblings never let them feel the absence of their father. Though his mother was a martinet, Ganesh was always pampered by his grandma and the four uncles. So were the others. His grandpa was a sensitive man who had a keen aesthetic sense. He was a connoisseur of art. In 1946, Ganesh Paine and his family had to abandon their old house due to unfavourable circumstances. That was the abrupt end of his colourful and dreamy childhood and henceforth started his struggle for existence. He had to lead a nomadic life for sometime looking for a place to stay.
Ganesh Paine passed the Intermediate Examination from City College. Then he thought to take up a job for sustaining himself. Although acute poverty had almost crippled the family, Ganesh’s caring uncles did not give their contest to this decision. On the contrary, they always inspired him to pursue his career as a painter. In 1955, Ganesh Paine got admitted in the ‘Government College of Art & Craft’ in Calcutta. He was directly admitted as a 2nd year candidate in the college. At long last, he stepped into his world of dreams, his aspirations rose high and he had the firm conviction that he would make a suigeneris artist one day.
While reminiscing about his formative days as an artist, Ganesh Paine once remarked that in his tender days, he was fascinated by a printed image of an exquisite painting by Abanindranath. Since these formative days, he was tremendously inspired by the paintings of Gaganendranath, Nandalal and legendary artists of their ilk. At that inchoate stage of his life, Ganesh Paine learnt the fundamentals of painting under Maniklal Bandopaddhaya. He was influenced by Rembrandt when he was a third year student at the Art College. At this stage, he made a few paintings which were distinctly by Abanindranath’s style and the dreamy grace of the light and shado technique of Rembrandt. He tried to make a unique fusion of the two great schools of art. Henceforth, he was inspired, motivated and guided by some teachers who had realized the hidden talent in Ganesh and wanted this immense prodigy to reach sky - kissing heights. Notable among them were Gopal Ghosh, Rathindra Maitra, Anil Bhattacharya, Satyen Ghosal, Kishori Ray etc.
After coming out of the Art College, Ganesh Paine had to face a precarious situation and acute financial stringency. At this crucial juncture, he tried to earn his livelihood by drawing illustrations for Bengali books. He even earned money by drawing posters and banners for the local ‘Yatra’ units. One fine morning, he met Mandar Mullick, the ace cartoon - filmmaker. He was in need of an animator. He appointed Ganesh Paine in the ‘Mandar Studio’ at a nominal salary. But the artist was on the role from then onwards. He learnt the subtle art of animation from Mandav Mullick. The blood - stained days of intense struggle for existence, the professional hazards and uncertainties were gradually sinking into oblivion. Ganesh Paine had stepped into his land of fantasy and colourful dreams. Simultaneously, he carried on experimenting with different mediums, styles and techniques of painting.
Finally, in 1968, Ganesh Paine came to realize that the tempera method of painting would be his cup of tea, through which he could best give vent to his pent up feelings, emotions and dreams. One evening, in a seminar in 1960s, Paritosh Sen came to the ‘Academy of Fine Arts’ to deliver his valuable discourses on the art of painting. He explained with illustrations on blackboard and by showing some exquisite specimens of paintings how to make best use of the voids in a painting. Ganesh Paine reaped the benefit from this seminar and his knowledge was enriched.
In another place, the great artiste once reminisced that his artistic virtues are indebted to his grandmother who was a gifted story - letter and told him innumerable stories which made his imagination fertile and honed his creativity. He used to visualize the stories (most of them were fairy tales) and tried to draw them on state board with chalk. That was literally the beginning of a saga in the history of painting. Ganesh Paine had witnessed death umpteen times from a very close proximity. His affectionate uncles and elder brother died in front of his eyes. All these blows and the hardships of life chastened him as a person and enriched his views as an artist. He is a burning example of the fact that a genius is infinitely painstaking.
From 1952 to 2001, Ganesh Paine has had a long and illustrious career. All these years, he has always tried to explore and experiment with different modes and patterns of painting and tried to find out which one suits his mood and style the best. He wanted to evolutes a new language in painting which would be essentially his trademark. His greatest achievement was probably in making his paintings the ideal medium to project his emotions, sentiments and subtle feelings which cannot be expressed otherwise. His skill and effort have made his paintings distinctly animated. From the early 50s, Ganesh Paine started his brilliant career with water colour. Gingerly, he shifts his focus to tempera as he realized that it suited his style and mood the best. It took him another ten years to find out his kind of tempera which would be exclusively his ‘gharana.’ He managed to find out this exclusively tempera by blending the European technique and style with Indian miniature art. He has always been extremely fond of the ‘earth colour’ in his paintings as it expresses his supple romanticism the best. At times, the unique artist has made some splendid paintings with mere ink, water and oil paint. Ganesh Paine has also shown his prowess as a painter in the ‘conte’ form of art. Conte is a type of colour and is exclusively a product of France. It is found in red and black. No other colour is found in conte. However, nothing could satisfy the artist more than tempera which almost seemed to have been made for him.
One strong reason behind this, may be the resemblance of tempera with the human psyche. Just like the latter, tempera manifests it in several colourful shades and layers. Ganesh Paine is simply fond of the deluge of colours in tempera and the way one colour is effaced by splashing another colour over it. The rich array of colours has nicely expressed the intensity of the artist’s pathos. The convolution of pathos arise not only from the pangs of unsurfeited love but also from the deaths of the near and dear ones who meant a lot in Ganesh Paine’s life. He has aged gracefully and matured as an artist. His moods and expressions have also undergone a sea change. The paintings made in the initial stages of Ganesh’s career, were rich in contour and expressed his emotions, sentiments and a restless spirit quite forcefully. Gradually, he has mellowed down and his later paintings have revealed a strange serenity an indifferent spirit and solace of mind.
The humble artist once told that he cannot comprehend the vastness of infinite life with all its diversities and splendour and represent them in his paintings because the latter has its limitations. But he admits that he was endowed with a rare gift of aesthetic sense an urge, which has always egged him on for newer and finer creations. Like Jebanananda Das who is regarded as the most contemplative and screne poet in Bengali Literature, Ganesh Paine is also regarded as the most serene artist and a thinking soul. He is averse to all propaganda and publicity for commercial purposes. He has an intrepid spirit and never succumbs to pressure. He does not believe in compromising for narrow commercial gains. However, his paintings have always stood out as exquisite specimens of art and have done remarkable business. Even those paintings which he throws away or dumps as defective or flawed, find willing customers and sell at reasonably good prices. Even the primary sketches of his paintings sell like hot cakes.
Such is the greatness of this quintessential artist, that he feels rather sad at the tremendous commercialization of art as is evident from the rush selling of his paintings. The pensive artist has been heard to exclaim ruefully to his kith and kin that in the yester years he had lot more freedom and contentment when his art would simply follow his wish and will. He could then fritter away the wasted paintings for their foibles. But today, even art has been commercialized and paintings are rather commodities displayed for sale. He gives vent to those dissatisfactions and grievances through his paintings which turn lively and sentient by the magic touch of the maestro. However, the artist is optimistic that the penumbra cost over the world of art and culture will disappear soon and paintings will no longer be viewed as commercial objects. They will be enjoyed for their own sake. A good painting is indeed a thing of beauty and joy for ever. This is best manifested in the paintings of Ganesh Paine.