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| D. C. Joglekar |
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Old master Dattatraya Chintaman joglekar (1896 - 1952) the range of paintings has a starŽtling polarity of vision despite the overlapping time frame of productivity of the artists. Joglekar, who worked largely in Mumbai, while traveling all over India, was a water colourist whose compositions included panoramic landscapes and architectural facets and views of urban and rural situations.
Joglekar was the recipients of several important awards, medals and prizes including those of the Bombay Art Society, Mysore Dassera Art and IndusŽtrial Exhibition as well as such shows in other meŽtropolises. He achieved a fine skill in handling the mediums of their choice and was well known in their time.
Translucent, light filled aquarelle landscapes distin-. guish Dattatraya Chintaman joglekar's work. Several of his water colours carry a spatial openness and a peculiar lightness in rendering structural quotients including rocky grounds and architectural elements that allow his compositions to carry a breath of prana, the inner life force. His genre includes classical academism that is assimilated into naturalistic realŽism. His work carries the imprint of an ingrained empathy for and symbiosis with the indigenous enŽvironment that strongly reflects his intuitive underŽstanding of classical Indian aesthetics. The elemenŽtal presence that permeates the monuments and arŽchitectural elements that dominate his landscapes is achieved by layering colour washes with great skill and sensitivity. With this technique joglekar records the vitality that underlies the most everyday situaŽtions and places. His aesthetic eye reflects the poŽetic vision of a moment, captures its emotive resoŽnance, rasabhava that quietly enters the observer's consciousness. The stillness and expansive nature of his washes evoke a peculiar symbiosis of feeling and aesthetic pleasure that permit rasanubhava, the experiencing of flavor or rasa that is the essence of classical Indian aesthetics.
Very often joglekar chooses to view akasha, the spaŽtial void, through perspectives from within towns and old vadas with their quaint balconies that are susŽpended over the street. The observer shares the artist's view seemingly standing alongside him.
It is interesting to note the gradual sophistication that Joglekar achieved in the colour wash technique. This stylistic progression is best exemplified in two sets of aquarelles - one pair of the Balapur Dargah and the other of the Shiva Rameshwar Mandir in Wai, Satara Jilla. In the smaller work of the Wai temple the presence of cattle and carts in the foreground mainŽtains a balance with this temple so that it becomes a component of the imagery. However, the larger aquarelle affords the Shiva Rameshwar temple spire a magical presence as it ascends into the expansive sky, the surrounding wall of the temple precinct and the fortress-like structure within it anchor its upward movement. In this work the Shiva Rameshwar Mandir of Wai radiates a quiet meditative presence, resonant with a mystical apartness that the artist inŽvests it with. This peculiar rich, stillness is the hallŽmark of Joglekar's finer works.
Another important facet of the artist's colour wash application is evident in his remarkable treatment of rock, stone and masonry brilliantly executed in the aquarelle, Balapur Dargah. The light drenched monuŽment seems to float on a dynamic rockscape, which is alive with the kinetic energy of light that permeŽates the dense foreground investing it with rhythm and volume. In this work Joglekar achieves the soŽphistication of energizing still objects to move within themselves. The artist's manipulation of light within the colour washes and his creation of contrasts that modulate the translucence of solid grounds with dazzling light drenched elements in his compositions afford an ascetic starkness to his realism.
Joglekar was rooted in the indigenous environment; his aesthetic vision was awash with its pulse and rhythm. Perhaps his work as a field and laboratory artist and photographer in the Royal Institute of SciŽence alongside his evolution as artist, gave him an unusual insight into the topography and panorama of the great Indian hinterland. His formal training in art provided the matrix from which he grew to disŽtinguish himself as a remarkably gifted water colourist, who was able to bring in the emotive esŽsence of Indian aesthetics into his painterly vocabuŽlary investing his best aquarelles with a meditative poetic vision.
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