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CRANK'S CORNER

        Even if you didn't tell me, I know for a fact that you can't figure out the difference between Fauvisim and Pointillism. They are different schools of painting. But don't worry. Even the artists who are supposed to be proficient in these styles are never aware that they belong there. Only the critics, who naturally feel confused by what they see, think up such names and slot the painters in random order. The artists too finding the appellation suitably glamorous accept it without any protest. This is the whole charm of the art world. Nobody has a clue about anything, yet all concerned can go about with a smug superiority and talk with words that are not featured in household dictionaries. Sometimes usages that no lexicon anywhere has are also dropped. This is what is defined as artistic freedom. This freedom is unique and so liberating and very different from every other freedom that you may enjoy.

        Suppose you see a painting of two rectangles one over the other and you somehow feel it to be nice, then normal freedom lets you say that it is nice. But artistic freedom will make you say 'the objects are broken up, analysed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form — instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, they have been highlighted from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles presenting no coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the ambiguous shallow space'. This is sheer magic. I have been able to fill this column with 65 dense words in place of a single tame term. A few sniff of artistic freedom would be, it seems, is good enough to fill this entire column.

        But don't start thinking artists are just vaulting dreamers, devoid of any practical relevance. Those who know the story of Vincent van Gogh would surely understand how pragmatic he was. This celebrated Dutch painter, being one of the smartest in his time, understood that to be a great artist all one needed was a pair of hands and a set of eyes. (The first to paint, and the second to close when feeling sleepy). So he went ahead and chopped off his own ears as they were not of any real use to him. It was only when the need to wear glasses arose that he felt slightly constricted as driving a nail into the side of the head to let the spectacles hang from it was thought to be impossible (he had misplaced the hammer). But he overcame this ticklish problem by the simple expedient of committing suicide. This ensured that he would ever need to wear glasses.

        If this is the story of van Gogh's innovative approach to life, then the saga of Michelangelo was a triumph of mind over matter. This Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer, painted his famous Last Supper on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel. Now most of you would be wondering why would anyone want to paint, what is supposed to be a masterpiece, on the ceiling when your Pongal whitewash fellow can hardly get his brush across the top. This was Michelangelo's engineering brain came into play. He had smartly worked out that if a huge painting, with a lot of naked people around, is put on the ceiling, no one dare hang a fan from it. So this brainwave straightaway lead to the invention of window AC.

        Contemporary painters are no less inspiring. M F Hussain's life is one dedicated to painting as you would have doubtless noticed by his dedicated growth of a beard, which insiders insist, is what he uses for painting. This school of painting is called pseudorealism. A lot many people are incensed that he has painted goddesses and Bharathamatha in the nude. But this is misplaced anger. For Hussain has a habit of not attiring his subjects. His oeuvre consists of many paintings of horses, none of which, it is pertinent to point out here, have even a stitch on them. By painting things in nude, Hussain liberates your imagination and allows you to wear the subject whatever dress you can think of. But Hussain, as a matter of practical principle, will never paint his family members in the buff. Why this double standard, you may ask. But a painter should not be monotonous, he must vary his ideas and emotions. So when Hussain paints Saraswathi, he will not waste his imagination on thinking up a dress for her. But when painting his mother, he will not bother you to work your imagination thinking of an attire for her. This fine sense of balance, while ensuring variety, also leads to the all important artistic freedom.

        You dare not criticise this artistic freedom. Or else, Hussain will use you as the subject for his next painting. Worse, Michelangelo's ghost may have you for the last supper on the ceiling or van Gogh's spirit may use your ear for a replacement.