Review of Elsbeth
Buschmann work
by Keshav
Malik (Padmashri)
Fellow of Lalit Kala Akademi, Art Critic and Poet
COMMUNING WITH THE SPIRIT
OF FORMS
What is an artist? To whom does he address himself? And what sort of
a speech is to be expected of him? Well, there is all kind of speech
in the case of Elsbeth Buschmann, but one invariably of tenderness
and musical intensity. Indeed the work is suffused with the spirit
of the dance of the human imagination. The artist was surely,
always, a comprehensive soul, who knew the surrounding humanity by
instinct, and cared for it. This, especially when she painted myriad
themes, especially the votive ones, or any others. She never looks
down upon the earth beneath her feet. That is, she does not observe
the world from on high, but is right down on the ground in complete
empathy. This same stance cannot have been pursued in so many of the
works, had not the painter personally lived and breathed gentleness.
It is how come the abstracts: pictures of spiritual joy. By the very
force of the logic of her soul, the artist is innerly benign.
To all appearances she is also rooted in India’s cultural heritage,
and in its lovely liturgies and ceremonials, those ones is which the
higher reaches of the spirit plays so seminal a role. Such
upbringing gives many a nuance to the painter’s new genre. As artist
she closely observes and paints the subtle, if ephemeral, beauty of
the human or natural form, and as such the light of a sacramental
vision is seen steeped even in the abstract work as if in
celebration and praise. Her work is not designed to arouse the
horrors of life but to sense beauty in the human as well as the
divine.
The reflection of beauty, then, would seem to be manifested in the
body of her otherwise varied fresh compositions. Therefore she
invariably tells us something moving of our own true nature. The
artistry is means to an end: to consecrate the warmth of forms; to
plant through visual music the feeling of love amidst a long
suffering world, and in which much of our lives are spent. Such is
the landscape of this artist’s soul. But this does not in the least
imply that Buschmann is sentimental. Oh no, she is cognizant of the
latest new fangled art fashions, but yet to stick within the strait
and narrow of the authentic and uplifting human emotions. The range
of the colours is sober, and they express a chasteness, which only a
few artists achieve. In her works the quality of colour is secure.
The strong strokes of the artist’s brush highlight a good hand. The
work, as an instinctive design, surely invigorates her paintings no
little. They are structured and not a vague colourism.
Formally abstract , these works are yet harmonious arrangements,
which turn back on themselves. This method enables the compositions
to exist unassumingly in their individual grids. At moments the
artist’s personae are no other than states of mind, but at others
they may be emphatic symbols and signs. It may be that the painter
wishes to recreate the aura of the artfully sacral, and so in
veneration. Is this not how we sense the tenor of communion in the
choice of her works?
The temperament of her genre is therefore relaxed and yet intense,
complimentary with the overall aesthetic whose formal qualities are
constantly enriched by the psychological or spiritual elements.
Since both the designing as the emotional elements are well fused in
it, it gains ample meaning. So, in one sense, the painter’s art is
essentially an expression of inner personal faith, strongly tinged
with the higher of the life values. She is not pandering to the
crowd and so come her stylistic hesitancies as betoken good breeding
and much culture, in a cultureless period.
It is to the good that the artist has had the skill and sureness of
what she really liked to paint, indeed, as though she has always had
the tact not to shout out in loud garish colours. The brushwork is
sure but never brash. There are also those qualities, as that of the
purity of the line. She depends keenly on rhythm as apart from
structure. She is a modest by temperament painter, but still we do
know that she invariably paints when the level of her spirit is high
and that she has no awareness that the world is looking over her
shoulder. She paints to please self, as much as to explore the
recesses of her own mind, and in praise of life.
Hailing from Germany the painter touches us finally, with an Indian
sensibility. Thus does her work gain considerably more in an
aesthetic finesse. And this sensibility is clearly also experienced
in her paper on her own creative process.
Here, then, is an artist whose fresh, most achieved work touches us
by its sincerity as well as unpretentiousness.
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About the auther
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keshav_Malik
Keshav Malik is an outstanding Indo- English poet as well as art
critic.
Born in Miani(Pakistan) and graduating from
Srinagar (Kashmir), Malik served as a personal Assistant to prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru between 1947-48. He was the recipient of
Italian and French Government scholarships for art history between
19#-53i and studied in Columbia university, New York from1954-58. He
served as the art and literary editor of Thought weekly from 1960-75
and Honorary Editor/Editor of Sahitya Akademi's bi-monthly journal
Indian Literature from 1972-1984. He was art critic of The Hindustan
Times! New Delhi from 1961-1972 and has been the art critic for The
Times of India, New Delhi ever since 1977. He also edited Art and
poetry, a quarterly, during the seventies and the eighties for seven
years, was the poetry editor for Youth Times during 1973-75 and
Honorary Editor Lalit Kala contemporary for 1984-85. He has
contributed widely to several art and literary journals in India and
other countries .
Malik has lectured on Indian art and poetry in East and west Europe,
Pakistan and South America between 1971-91 on innumerable occasions;
he was commissioner of a major exhibition of contemporary Indian
paintings to five European countries in 1973-74. He has delivered
several prestigious lectures on the Arts & literature which the
Bhadra Singh Memorial Lectures at the Manipur State Kala Akademi,
Imphal & the Tagore Memorial Lectures, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad,
in 1984-85 & 1983 respectively. He was the member of the executive
board of the lalit Kala akademi, New Delhi in 1981-85 & the first
president of the Poetry Society. India in 1984-1987.
He has been a participant in many National & International seminars
on art, culture & literature
