Modernist Rm. Palaniappan’s retrospective in Chennai explores the science behind movement

Explore the artistic journey of Rm. Palaniappan, a leading Modernist in Indian art, through his retrospective exhibition

Ramanathan (Rm.) Palaniappan was all of 13 years when he first watched the 1950 film on the Second World War, TheFall of Berlin. He recalls not knowing who was fighting with whom and why. What he knew was that the film ended with the fall of a building — which he would later realise is the Reichstag, being continuously shot at for two nights in a row. 

“What really fascinated me was the motion of the aircraft within the confined cinematic space. I was so interested in the drama behind the movement of the aircraft. I reacted deeply to the science behind the flight,” says Palaniappan, one of the leading Modernists in Indian art today. An obsession with war films was what followed until the artist hailing from Devakottai started college in Chennai.

As a child, big questions about the cosmos plagued his young mind; piquing his curiosity of the world and its many incomprehensible realities. “I thought I wanted to be a scientist,” the artist recalls, surrounded by over 130 sets of artworks spanning almost half a century, that make up his retrospective today at DakshinaChitra Museum’s Kadambari and Varija galleries. “There was always some kind of questioning — how machines work, how things move, and even some deliberations on culture. I used to discuss this a lot with my grandfather. The cosmic presence is not just outside, it is within ourselves as well.”  

While science, astronomy and mathematics occupied most of his mind as a boy, architecture soon joined this list. He moved to Chennai to specialise in Architecture but he ended up enrolling in the Government College of Arts, Chennai. “I tried to learn a lot of things by myself and I was inspired by the masters.” But Realism reigned in his mind. Outdoor sketching, and capturing structural realities became his favourite pastime: Mamallapuram and its architecture dominated his initial practice, figments of which are part of the retrospective spread across two galleries.

“I started understanding the concept of positive and negative space in college. Structural solidarity and understanding the distance and shapes within the space was interesting. Even if it’s only a small part of our study, over the years, it became a focal point of my practice,” he adds. It does manifest heavily in his signature line sketches that explore the metaphysical. Geometry and direction is at the core of these canvases that abound with coordinates of direction or geographical markers.

For the uninitiated, like this writer, some works, especially the ones decoding the science behind flight can very well be confused with a technical drawing of the machine. A close look reveals rubber stamps, seals and textured material on some of his earlier work. His Flying Man series (1982) captures his myriad obsessions within a single frame. 

A suspended staircase, in intriguing shades of midnight, is a standout canvas at Kadambari gallery. Palaniappan fondly recalls its origin story. “One day [from college], we headed to a restaurant inside the Picnic Hotel (which was demolished later) that had a very elegant staircase. When I saw a lot of people running up the stairs, in my imagination, the staircase started floating. This was the first time I could imagine something to this detail. I was so happy that day! I named the work, Dancing Steps on My Birthday.” But for Palaniappan, the cup is never half full. He cannot help but wonder what happens when the cup is half empty. And thus Black Steps to Hell came to be, a darker manifestation of the previous mystical work. Palaniappan’s philosophy operates in this dichotomy which is why most of his abstracts are rendered in pairs and series.