Frescoes

FRESCOES OF AJANTA RECREATED WITH DIFFERENCE

Rajshekhar Pant

Nainital, June 9. "While recreating the frescoes of Ajanta, my efforts were concentrated in capturing the impression that time, the silently passing procession of centuries has left on the picture gallery illustrating some of the most engrossing episodes from Buddhist cannons in a narrative style," says Dr GC Sharma whose paintings have recently been displayed at the parlour of the prestigious Birla Vidyamandir in Nainital. Known across the Atlantic for his abstract sketches with gel pen on small pieces of paper, "at times smaller than a postcard" Dr Sharma in his mobile exhibition at Durham in North Carolina has been hailed by veteran art critics like Sprag Chasser for the, "cosmic dynamism that characterizes all his creations, much of which is untitled." Talking to the media of his 'untitled Ajanta experience' this associate of Vishnu Shridhar Vakankar of Bhimbetka fame says, "For me reproducing the frescoes from the caves of Ajanta is not creation. More important is the wide range of stimuli, the image 'which being an individual experience is sans all dimensions and therefore free from the confinement of titles." Looking at the full size reproduction of Avalokiteshvara of Cave I and the Dying Princess of Cave XVI he adds, "you just don't have only an unstinted praise for the precision and force that each line had there. It wafts you back to over a thousand years; compels you to think of the devotion of the artist who had painted the dung plastered walls of Ajanta Caves holding in his hand some primitive source of light ages back .My creation has some worth if it succeeds in triggering the same mood in you here, miles away from the caves of Ajanta."