Match List I with List II

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A-IV, B-III, C-I, D-II

The correct answer is Option 1: A-IV, B-III, C-I, D-II

Explanation:

Vanshri: This artwork was created by Mrinalini Mukherjee in 1994. She uses an unusual material (Discarded material) to make this sculpture. She uses hemp-fibre, a medium that she experimented with from the early 1970s. Going by the intricate way, she has knotted together and woven a complex shape out of jute fibre. It seems to be the result of years of handling the new material. For many years, her works of this kind were dismissed as craft. Only recently her fibre works have attracted a lot of attention for originality and boldness of imagination. In this work, entitled Vanshri or ‘Goddess of the Woods’, she turns this ordinary material into a monumental form. If you carefully look at the figure’s body, you can notice that it has a face with an inward expression and protruding lips, and above all, a powerful presence of natural divinity.

Ganesha: This is a sculpture in oxidised copper made by P. V. Janakiram in 1970, and is in the collection of NGMA, Delhi. He has used sheets of copper to create pictorial sculpture as free-standing forms, and ornamented their surface with linear elements. Metal sheets are beaten into concave planes on which are welded linear details. These linear elements work as facial features and decorative motifs to suggest religious icons, inviting intimate contemplation. Janakiram is influenced by the ancient temple sculpture of South India. The image of Ganesha, crafted frontally, lends an important indigenous character of cave and temple sculpture. In this sculpture, Ganesha is palying vina, a musical instrument. Details on the sculpture and technical blending of material, nevertheless, reveal his meticulous craftsmanship. He also experimented with the ‘openendedness’ quality of indigenous workmanship. Ganesha reveals his understanding of traditional imagery. He has elaborated linear details into overall form. The sculpture is conceived in terms of linear silhouettes instead of emphasis on three-dimensionality, despite its volume. Rhythm and growth are incorporated through lyrical stylisation. It is also an amalgamation of folk and traditional craftsmanship.

Cries Un-heard: This is a sculpture in bronze made by Amarnath Sahgal in 1958. Although the artist only uses abstraction, in which three figures are stick-like and shown in flat rhythmical planes, yet it is easy to understand them as a family—husband, wife and child. They are shown flinging their arms above and crying out for help in vain. Through the medium of sculpture, their helplessness expressed by the hand gesture is turned into a permanent shape. It is possible for us to read this work as socialist, whereby, the artist pays homage to millions of destitute families in need of help, whose cries fall on deaf ears. None other than socialist poet, Mulk Raj Anand, wrote movingly about this work, which now is in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Santhal Family: This is an open air large-scale sculpture created by Ramkinker Baij in 1937. It is made out of metal armature and cement mixed with pebbles, and placed in the compound of Kala Bhavana, Shantiniketan, India’s first national art school. It shows a scene of a Santhal man, carrying his children in a double basket joined by a pole, and his wife and dog walking alongside. Perhaps, it speaks of the family migrating from one region to another, carrying all their frugal possessions. This must be an everyday scene for the artist living amidst the rural landscape. However, he gives it a monumental status. The sculpture is made in the round, which means that we can see it from all sides. It is placed on a low pedestal, making us feel as if we are part of the same space. The significance of this work is that it is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India. We do not need to go to a museum to see it as it is placed outside Kala Bhavana. The material of which it is made of is important. The artist has avoided traditional medium like marble, wood or stone, and has preferred cement, the symbol of modernisation.