Jyoti Bhatt-An educator, innovator and an inspiration : Sunil Darji

By Kalavritt - August 17, 2020

The Vadodara based Jyoti Bhatt a veteran Printmaker, painter and a photographer who is a versatile artist, a mentor – educator have taught in the Vadodara’s famous Art School, known as the Faculty of Fine Arts for more than three decades. A number of students, artists and professionals have benefitted to acquire the thorough guidance and knowledge in the field of painting, printmaking, drawing, design and photography. He is known to be one of the pioneers in the field of printmaking of the country and gave a direction to the field to grow further and has influenced and inspired a numerous art pupils, artists and art lovers among the country. Recently during the year 2019 the government of India has conferred the 4th highest civilian award “Padmsree” on him.

A Face, mixed Intaglio print -1968

During my admission in the painting department in the year 1988, as being a student I come across him as by the memorable demonstrations during the class, explanation on the fundamental theories of art or the Saturday sketching, and during my masters studies in the printmaking department. Jyoti Bhatt sir has often guided me to find the hidden knowledge of the art of printmaking or to understand things in deeper meaning in its real life whether technically or fundamentally.

Jyoti Bhatt was born in Bhavnagar of Gujarat state in 1934. His love for drawing during his childhood fascinated him to draw birds’ images as its varied forms and species. During the age of adolescence Jyoti Bhatt has developed a habit of reading the ‘Kumar’ monthly published by Kalaguru Ravishankar Raval, which has been the driving force to develop his interest in creation of art.

In 1950 he was among the first batch student from The M. S. University’s Fine Arts Faculty to study under the great artist’s teachers as Professor N. S. Bendre, Professor Shankho Choudhary, and Professor K.G. Subramanian. During the study in The M. S. University an artist, art critic and Guajarati poet shree Gulam Mohammed sheikh was one of the colleagues during 1955 to 1961, through him he gets to publish his illustrations, cover pages in the literary publications published by Gulam Sheikh’s literary friends.

During 1961-62 Jyoti Bhatt received a scholarship to continue his studies at the Academia Di Belle Arti, Naples, Italy under Italian Government Scholarship and later on during 1964-66 he Learnt Printmaking at Pratt Institute and Pratt Graphic Art Center, New York under Fulbright & John D Rockfeller II Grants specializing in Graphics. There he was exposed to experiment in diverse materials as well as in more of a diverse language other than what he used to practice earlier, also meeting the new abstract language which he tried and took on as his own expressions in terms of his visual observations, and through the understanding he acquired, he started experimenting. Though the early works of Jyoti Bhatt have adopted a cubist approach and then after in addition of popular imagery, which took him finally to construct a unique style inspired by traditional folk art and designs. He has worked in array of mediums as Poster colour, water colour and oil paintings. But his love towards printmaking that has attracted him and made him more attentive to express through various printmaking mediums. I have witnessed to see his earliest of some of these works in the Mumbai’s DAG Modern gallery the show titled “Group 1890, India’s Indigenous Modernism” recently in the month of January 2017.

His experimentations on varied materials based on a raw surface such as the walls, crusty land and ruptured land sites affected by the war are the prime source for him to create on the canvas and metal plates to further take prints from it. Some such successful paintings and prints are the product on canvas, board, ply board or etching plate, he also used indigenous materials to create the textures like sand, rubber, jute, linoleum etc. which many a times left over with a kind of relief quality in collaboration along with oil colors and the surfaces which we can see from his Pratt institute period experimental works, where he was constantly in contact with the artists and methodologists like Antoni Tapies and Alberto Burri’s abstract art language. Such experimental works are Like ‘Dark landscape’, ‘untitled’, or ‘Ruins of Landscape-Forgotten place’ of this period.

During Fulbright fellowship at New York trained him in the various methods of printmaking, where he tried to create the textural surface on to the plate using deep etched lines, open bite areas, or many a times embossing on a copper plate as in ‘Shimmering Landscape’ (1964), ‘Remains of the lost fort’(1964) where one can see his love to use color in an intaglio print using varied rubber rollers charged with the printing inks. “Glimmering Horizon-New York” of 1964 another a mixed intaglio print is an image separating with a patch of bright lineage, also created using the deep textural surface in an abstract language.

His experiments continued along with playing on “positive and negative “spaces, dense patterns and movement of shapes and forms. What was perhaps crucial then for him was navigating the vibrant city and geometries and spaces of the subway during his stay in New York.

During the late sixties, Jyoti Bhatt began documentation of traditional Indian craft and design, using camera, soon it become one of his passions. For him photography is an art form, by which one can capture images, the moments and the essence of the thought in a picture by clicking a button of the camera. These direct and simply composed photographs of him soon started getting acclaim; also he received a numerous national and international awards for his photographs.

The rooted culture of the Saurashtra heritage tradition has always reflected in Jyotibhai’s art, whether we come across his prints, paintings or photography as a documentation or as a creative expression, and that has lead him to cross the border to the tradition of Indian culture of the varied states of the country, as to preserve and to showcase as a part of his reflections in the creative artistic expressions.

He joined the artistic initiatives; ‘Group 1890’, as one of the founder member. He realized that folk art has many strands which strengthen one another. "Each work of art provides an opportunity of creativity, and refines human sensibilities and responses. Living within a creative network, an individual artist attains a special stature and refinement. The disappearance of the network, with the breakdown of traditional cultures, is bound to cause cultural impoverishment," he says.

Whether you see an art work an intaglio print of him or a serigraph print, the needle etch the line or dots or the lines and design created with the stenciling squeezed through the screen creates an array of effects which creates the illusion of the woven textile of the Saurashtra or the traditional craft and tribal artifact by an artisan, the feel of those cross stitch embroidery, the Rangoli motifs along with the calligraphic text or the direct quotes from the local vernacular idiom sometimes he uses as an artistic elements, which are a kind of his rich visual and artistic motif bank, that reflects and time by time it gets enriched in term of new motif or element of visual vocabulary added to it. This kind of peculiar exploration of vernacular art language never ever reflected in the Indian art so extensively before.

The challenge of using the motifs and Images in the artistic encounter like ‘Chandamama’, ‘Surajbapa’, ‘Parrot’, ’Peacock’, ‘Nag Devta’, ‘Khodiar Mata’, ‘Sathiya’, ‘Dog’, an ‘Arrow’, local playing games like Chausar , or the people of Saurashtra, and Kutchh like Rabaries, Bharwad and the woman with the earthen pots on the head, the bunny houses of the Kutchh region of Gujarat decorated with the mirror along with the mud on the walls, or whatever comes in to his visual lingual motif bank, he has adopted all and made use of it with an aesthetic sense as an ornamentation to make his own language of art.

For him how you interpret an art work is an interesting task, one can have their own reading from the image to image. In his “The Fly” is a free image using two women figures in central part of the composition, which is broken with a blue fly in the extreme center. The figures are depicted with ornamentation on their bodies wandering on one side as waiting for someone; the upper part has three legs suggesting to fly as wings and, so a lag in below part of the composition overlapping the oval shape. The composition itself reminds us to the form of a ‘Mandala’ diagrams. Here the whole structure speaks of as an airplane and partly as a fly in form.

Popular imageries come on and off in these compositions, which is another arena of Jyotibhai’s compositions as it comes from his surroundings, registered from the Jain and Indian mythology, Mandalas, and news papers, hoardings, cinema pictures and invitation cards of marriages, a leaf like heart as a symbol of love, or erotic imagery from the light porn films and so on are the registered resources achieved in his mind, which are often used to suit the situation and the composition.

Another an integral part of his composition is the words, as that fills the gaps between the visuals. Most works are having words, lines from a bhajan or numericles in response to the stories and situations which converse, and create suitable meanings. As in one of his earliest paintings done at the age of 12 depicts a harijan man on the road, entitled “chheta r’ejo”. The story being that while passing on a street , harijan’s were required to say loudly “chheta r’ejo Mai Baap” to warn the upper caste people of their presence so as to prevent ‘pollution’ by physical contact or even with their shadow on the ground.

Text and words such as ‘DOG’, ‘GOD’, ‘SATI’, ‘SITA’, ‘Light the flame Bright the fire, Red is the colour of Fire’, ‘Fly’ these words and sentences and many more fraises and words from the local language of Gujarati like ‘Chandra’, ‘Surya’, ‘Bhale Padharya’, and ‘Hu’ as himself the ‘I’, sometime the popular Guajarati proverbs are the all used as to add meanings along with the images which are sometimes taken from the popular culture of the society and the traditional culture of states of country which gives the regional cultural references to collaborate the Indian mythology, sometime the traditional forms from the folklore and tribal art forms, which are some way punch and leave remark to the onlooker and also give an understanding of the deeper philosophy of life, that shows his concern to reinterpret and to bring the heritage of folk and tribal art form in to the mainstream contemporary art and re-document the folk and tribal arts.

Looking at Jyoti Bhatt’s artistic expressions we find that the elements or the rich sources in his art works emerge from his sketch books and diaries which has been maintained by him since quite a long period, these diaries are the actual resources for him, whereby he depicts all his observations, writes, comments on different subjects and draw the basic ideas as come to his mind, in a way it helps him not to forget the instant ideas or thoughts he absorbs, and later he begins with the exploration of new forms of art in his studio where he analyze, experiment, extend and explore the thought or idea accordingly, using an appropriate medium and materials. The narrative ‘Self’ leaves remarks with interpretative signs and symbols, along with decorative figuration. The work of him sounds in terms of socio-political and cultural reality.

In 1964-66 he started depicting the ‘Self’ as in the form of a face, during his study in the USA, and produced artworks like ‘Self Portrait in new York’ (1964), and ’Man under the sky’ (1965). Where the human face is symbolic imaginative ‘self’ in the quest of individualistic reference to present the society and its extended approach towards his own cultural representation. The iconic self symbol became his prime element in these works, where he expresses the humanity that portrays his hidden messages in terms of the social values and the human condition in different situation. It is noticed that the various images, some time text and textures are been juxtaposed along with the face, images like peacock are often visualized in such prints, or sometimes the repetition of the same image can be seen using each in opposite direction, which creates diverse significant language to communicate with the audience by their own interpretation. Elements such as an ‘arrow’ suggesting a direction or ‘religious gods’ or the symbols of Indian ‘deities’ which also shows much of the Indian-ness, the culture we grown and to brought up from within which is reflected in these prints and images. The use of photographic images also been integrated along with many serigraphic images.

The self is also masked with various forms such as the parrot, a dog, an arrow or a pundit. These elements have their own significance as particular symbols as ‘parrot’ signifies erotic love or some time love and human sexuality explored along with emblematic figuration. The erotic representation of humans can be seen in the works as of ‘Purush-Prakruti’, the power of creation appears in copulating figures, snakes, the fish and scorpion or the spread out legs of a woman. Various philosophical references can be traced as from the Hindu mythology or Tantric elements where the human existence and evolution of mankind forcefully link to the static principles of ‘Shiva-Shakti’. Jyoti Bhatt has covered a wide range of his concerns towards the life in his works such as human desire; self-importance, fear, pain, fantasy, life and death in varied ways in his works.

Jyoti Bhatt was involved in documentative photography of the folk and living traditions of India until 1995, along with these documentations he continued to work in various printmaking mediums. Then after he started exploring the aesthetics of digital printmaking. The possibilities of technology used to produce multiple copies for the public, much like traditional printmaking, where he started utilizing the sensibilities of the computers along with the hand of assistance.

Since last one decade Jyoti Bhatt is creating works in various mediums, as presently it has slow down due to his ill eyes, though he take use of computer and an assistance to make use of his ideas and to pursue an art work using his wide resource of visual and textual collection from the sketch book, diaries or frequent thoughts on the paper or on canvas. So I can say the tools are now changed for him instead, as needed, and computer tools are operated not as to be slave of the machine but by taking advantage keeping the originality of thoughts and ideas. Also the diary or the sketch book is the one in which he always depicts the base of a thought or an idea, a reference from the sources whether scribbles, cut out of newspaper, or a magazine in different shapes, or any relevant source which could be fitted appropriately, he could convert in to an art piece as on a plate or canvas or paper through the use of Computer.

For him "The photo-documentation work is equally creative. Also, my work has brought into spotlight those many tribal artists who were underprivileged of any recognition or reward”, he states.

He tends to interpret things in different ways, in different meanings, in reference or in situation, which one could read in terms of one’s own understanding. If we see on a technical point of view Jyoti bhai is versatile among the Indian printmakers as to see his experiments done in the printmaking medium, as he make use of the image in various ways, by using the old images in the new print work, cutting the plates and by arranging it and create meanings out of it or repeating an image in terms of making meaningful in various situations by adding own interpretation. His early etched plates are having unique characteristics, they are most meticulously carved surfaces using line and aquatint and more of using textures. The compact imageries have interconnections which speak of his interest in the expressive manner which have an embellishment and attract the viewer to go in to the image and have dialogue with it.

Since 1969, Jyoti Bhatt maintained diaries where he put together his thoughts, ideas, observations, bibliographical references, and sketches. Many of his diaries include notes based on his travels to various locations for documenting the Living Traditions of India. These diaries offer an interesting inner view into the way Jyoti Bhatt come across the encounters over several decades, he has depicted many interesting things actually it’s a prestigious treasure that one can see his daily reading of newspaper habit, which is reflected in it with his remarks, his thoughts and the personal dialogue in relation to the social, political and cultural conversation. This diary speaks of the living thoughts and interpretations by him on varied subjects.

Jyoti Bhatt’s diaries are very important to understand the devotion for his artistic career as that is the source for today’s onlooker, or the time as it shows, the curiosity about him to visit various interior places, meeting with people, observing and understanding their culture ,traditions, festive moments, the zest for knowing and exploring the cultural boundaries, one could understand how it could have managed by him, each small details are depicted in this diary pages since 1969, which has been continued until now, it is really a treasure for today and times to come, one can see through the past culture of rich heritage of India and its people. Interesting information regarding the people living in various states, its villages, tribes and their day today life have been described in it.

Focus of the local deities, temples, gods, the local Melas (fairs) falls on specific days of specific festive seasons, which are very important in today’s time that one can understand how things have been changed, the shifting of this traditions and the influence of the new urban trends have affected to these lives.

In various of his diaries reflect his visits of Kawant, Chhota Udaipur or Panvad, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, Alirajpur and numerous places among the country which is really amazing that to travel these inferior places, roaming throughout in the nature, exploring the way of living of these people, their food, their instruments, and costumes all are depicted habitually in Guajarati and English language.

In a diary of his visits from 1975 to 1985 to Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Panchmahals, the observations are mentioned, where depiction regarding the Rajasthan - the Mandana - and the paintings on the floors, walls, houses, verandahs, the kitchen-fire places or places nearby the tree trunks for seating were decorated with mixture of mud and cow dung and then painted with white and Indian red (geru) colours are used by the local people.

The diaries are also have information of linguistic examples, their changes, meanings, differences due to its geographic atmosphere, i/e quote on the book of Dr. Jyotindra Jain “painted myths of creation”, or Bhadli sentences by the tribes of Gujarat from Saurashtra, this sentences are depicting the local culture inculcating the life, nature, local gods and sometime futuristic assumptions, and folk songs etc.

He has depicted also on Katchh of Gujarat state, known for its rich culture, tradition, the life, art and crafts of the people their habitats - bunny (place to stay) etc. in these diaries. Places like Bharuch, Dediyapada ,Vansada of Gujarat, states like Madhyapradesh, Odisha, Bengal, Uttranchal, and Uttarpradesh and south India and its villages, and where ever he found the source of hidden cultural fragrance he reached and studied, researched and documented through his creativity, and photographically.

The creative inner self of Jyoti Bhai at the age of 86, still has that immense, inherent zest to pursue, and capture the moments adding appropriate meanings with creative urge, which inspires, influences to his numerous friends, art lovers and art practitioners, around the world