[Reader-list] Sultan, Sotheby's, Ganja, Primordial Man, Bengal

[Aman Sethi]

Dear Naeem,

Thank you for posting this - was a great read.  I write this post
having never seen any of Sultan (or Gauguin's) work.  Instead i would
like to write about what i think their work would be like based on the
pictures in my head - painted not by the painter - but by the writer
describing the painting.

Scanning through your post i found myself thinking of The Moon and
Sixpence - a short novel by somerset maugham based on the life of the
french painter Gauguin.  While the i read the book many years ago,
your post reminded of a bit where Maugham conveys an the idea of the
immensity of scale - of trying to capture something that can't even be
thought through.

It also reminded of a short piece by polish journalist ryzcard
kapucinsky where he talks of the experience of stepping to africa for
the first time.  Kapucinsky is a controversial figure in africa - as
many feel (perhaps rightly) that he has contributed to the exoticising
of Africa ; but in one of his writings he talks about the immensity of
the landscape - of an almost stifling fertility or fecundity of the
landscape where things even seem to be growing in the air.

SPOILER WARNING: For those who plan on reading The Moon and Sixpence

In the final section of the moon and six pence, Maugham's fictional
painter goes off to work in Tahiti - where he sketches these massive
canvases teeming with an almost surreal energy, and eventually dies
(of leprosy i think)  And Maugham talks about how these are the
character's best works; at which point the painter's companion says
that these were painting in the his final hours - soon after he went
blind!

best
a.

On 10/22/07, Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Last week was 13th anniversay of the death of S M Sultan. Sultan's
> paintings may be sold at Sotheby's in London today but for the people
> of rural Norail, the guru entered folk legend more than half a century
> ago. They tell us that animals were drawn to him, that he could
> converse with them, that hundreds of his works are scattered all over
> the world in all manner of places, given away as gifts, that he cared
> not for fame or material wealth, choosing to travel from village to
> village, country to country, returning at last to his source.
>
> Read full text here:
> http://golmal.pickledpolitics.com/2007/10/09/sultan/
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