From Inner Eye to After Sight: Benode Behari Mukherjee in London

Abstract

Tracing the journey of artistic engagements with the Indian Modernist artist Benode Behari Mukherjee’s works, starting from Satyajit Ray’s 1982 documentary ‘Inner Eye’ to a 2020 exhibition ‘After Sight’ in London, this article reassesses scholarly and artistic encounters with Benode Behari’s artistic consciousness in the light of international Modernist art movements and the artist’s lifelong search for an ideal form. The role of nature in the development of his artistic uniqueness and ingenuity is discussed; as Benode Behari has often been erroneously imagined as a metropolis-centric Modernist artist, thereby also bringing to focus the broad subject of the significance of nature and the pastoral idyll in the development of Bengali Modernism and modern South Asian artistic consciousness. In this piece, a trajectory of the reception of his works is also drawn.