Chitrakar

Benode Behari Mukherjee (1904 to 1980) was among the most influential and respected artists in the history of modern Indian art. Chitrakar collects four broadly autobiographical pieces he wrote after losing his eyesight in the summer of 1957. In his own words, he describes only the part of life he knew well, and he came to writing late after a lifetime of painting. The central subject is his passage from a world of light into one of darkness, an experience he felt was hard to compare with anyone else's. The first piece, 'The Artist', is a selective set of recollections that revives scenes from his childhood, apprenticeship and maturity, up to the time he went blind. 'Master of the Household' is a frank, layered fictionalized account of his struggle to accept his blindness and keep creating. 'The Creator' is a short, simple parable about the vanity of excessive ambition. 'Art Quest' is an informal, conversational piece setting out his views on art, its basic elements, and how they differ in range and reference. The translation is by K. G. Subramanyan, once Mukherjee's student and later a major figure in Indian art himself. It appears in English for the first time.