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The Afterlife of Silence

The Afterlife of Silence

Still Lifes of Jogen Chowdhury

By (author) Anuradha Ghosh

$39.00

  • First-ever comprehensive book on the still lifes of one of India’s leading modern painters
  • Analyzes the development of Chowdhury’s still lifes chronologically and features 95 impactful images of the artist’s work
  • Includes an in-depth interview of the artist that reveals how the painter’s art is permeated by his universe of ideas and ideals
Full Description

The Afterlife of Silence is the first-ever comprehensive book on the still lifes of Jogen Chowdhury, one of India’s leading modern painters. The book takes a close look at the essentials of the European tradition of still life painting and argues that Chowdhury’s works, while sharing certain common concerns of the tradition also differ significantly from it, and are firmly rooted in his indigenous situatedness. It explores how, in his still lifes, unregarded, everyday objects are irradiated with new life and unique relational possibilities. It also examines how his still lifes oscillate between life and death, between stillness and animation, a movement that conceptually underpins the cycle of nature and lived life, and how moments of silence and stillness acquire afterlives -with trails of significations that often go beyond the context of particular artworks.

The book analyzes the development of Chowdhury’s still lifes chronologically; a section deals with the distinctive ways in which his still lifes negotiate with desire – and its obverse, dread – and manage to create autonomous symbolic systems, addressing the nostalgia of inaccessibility. A separate chapter examines how his familiar organic lines, used to define human forms, are used in still life forms as well, and in this context, several of his major works are examined closely.

This book features about 80 impactful images of Chowdhury’s paintings and an in-depth interview with the artist by the author that reveals how the painter’s art is permeated by his universe of ideas and ideals.

About the Author
Anuradha Ghosh is Associate Professor in English at Dinabandhu Andrews College, Kolkata. After graduating from Presidency College, she was a journalist with Business Standard and Ananda Bazar Patrika, before joining her present position in 1996.

Her publications include Kothay Kothay Jai (1993), a co-authored volume of Bangla poems; Bonbungalowr Nijer Jibon (2010), a volume of Bangla poems; Myths, Skyborne (2012), a collection of her English translation of Tariq Sujat’s poetry; and Memory Unfolds (2009), a monograph on the artist Samindranath Majumdar. Her co-authored volume The Great Journey of Shapes: Collages of Nandalal Bose (2015) is the first-ever close analysis of the collages of the celebrated artist. Her latest book was Hemendranath Mazumdar (2016). She has spoken and written extensively on art and aesthetics and cultural studies.

She had served as Convenor of English at The Expert Committee on School Education, West Bengal, and had been instrumental in designing the English syllabus of the government and semi-government schools of the entire state. She can be reached at [email protected].
Specifications
Publisher
Niyogi Books
ISBN
9789389136647
Published
31st Oct 2021
Binding
Hardback
Territory
USA & Canada
Size
8.27 in x 10.47 in
Pages
212 Pages
Illustrations
95 color
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