“He realizes that the world of beauty depends on colour, which in turn depends on light, is finally lost to him. To him the playful rippling of light and shadow is a lost thing. All attempts to regain it had been vain. What he gets now are reverberations of the forms of darkness. Not beautiful, maybe, but as real to him as the pulsations of his heart. Within this new quickening the darkness in front of him becomes effulgent. He has forgotten his past losses to a large extent. He discovers in this solid darkness a true manifestation of depth.” – Benodebehari Mukherjee, ‘Kattamashai’

A figure modeled in clay by Benodebehari Mukherjee.

Benodebehari, the person and the artist. “... he willfully kept away from the limelight – not out of a sense of modesty but out of a kind of conviction that this would distract him and be too much of a burden. If he had only put himself out even a little he could have had all the limelight he wanted; he had all the necessary prerequisites – a handsome personality, a scintillating mind, a remarkable precision and liveliness of speech, a great sense of humour and whimsy that both his specialist and non-specialist friends found irresistible, and an almost inexhaustible fund of information and anecdote. But, of his own choice, he preferred to sit back and work in meditative seclusion.” – K G Subramanyan

Satyajit Ray shooting Binodebehari’s mural of the life on campus at Cheena Bhavan in Shantiniketan.

In conversation with Satyajit Ray. “He is by far the finest living Indian painter, apart from being a wonderful man and a great intellect. But he has neither been popular, nor ever been really understood. His total lack of flamboyance may have had something to do with it.” – Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray gazes absorbed at the ceramic tile mural during the process of its construction on the north exterior wall of the studio in Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan.

The khoyai landscape. The vast khoyai, a peculiar landscape formed out of the eroded red earth of Birbhum, is typical of the region. It stretches from horizon to horizon and the overhead sun at noon sets the scene ablaze.

Benodebehari feeling the model paper cutout of ‘Teen Buri’ before the construction of the mural on the north exterior wall of Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan.

Benodebehari at his desk sketching. When he had his power of sight, the visual world around him was of paramount importance to Benodebehari Mukherjee. The look of a tree, the turn of a leaf, the delicate architecture of a flower, the speaking gestures of animate and inanimate objects, the varying densities of space, all these were enough to keep him engrossed; he found all the drama he needed in their midst. Nandalal Bose, his guru, had planted in him the seeds of this empathetic response to things around. According to him, the nature we see as inanimate is really very animate, and one gets somewhere as an artist only when one notices this.

Bebodebehari working on the paper cutouts before the construction of the actual ceramic tile mural in Kala Bhavana. Bithi stands by and watches while Ray takes a photograph.

“... Benodebehari was the image of a withdrawn Taoist monk, seeing speechless rapport with its inner rhythm.” – K G Subramanyan

Born as he was with weak eyesight, Benodebehari underwent an eye surgery in 1956. The operation was successful but he completely lost his eyesight due to an accident during the period of recovery. Nothing could have been more tragic for an artist at the height of his powers, but he stood up to it with characteristic stoicism. He did not resign himself to inactivity but diverted his creativity in other directions. He made paper collages, modelled sculptures with clay or wax, built forms with folded paper and made sketches with black felt pens on paper.

“Blindness is a new feeling, a new experience, a new state of being.” – Benodebehari Mukherjee.