The Landscapes of Gopal Ghose.

Gopal Ghose’s paintings are characterized by calligraphic lines, working with water colour, tempera, mixed and pastel mediums his preference was for a sensibility that traversed from figuration to abstraction. As a result, Ghose was one of the front runners of the modern art movement in India. However, he never followed the Western Academic style. Instead, his inspiration could perhaps be traced to classical Chinese ( in the rendering of his inks and brushwork) and Western Impressionism in the application of colour.

A landscape painting executed in watercolour by Ghose.

Ghose’s ability to blend Western techniques with the understanding of light and shade, the maneuvering of his fingers and pastels and the application of perspective are apparent with his works whilst his sensibilities remain distinctly rooted in the understanding of the Indian rural scene. His art was rooted in the direct observation of the world around him, which he transformed to express his personal inner vision. His commitment to painting daily scenes of Indian village life was a life-long passion; depicting in his perception, the best and most beautiful aspects of his homeland. To capture the essence of each situation or place or mood in time, he developed and continually replayed a group of subjects, such as the fields and the rural people to unlock the dynamic energy of the village idyllic. Each study was born out of a localized inspiration and the result was a painting which was charged with a dynamic energy and a distinct rhythm full of emotional intensity-a perfect recording of the social emotions of the period in tune with the painter’s own feelings and sentiments. Within that matrix, we see a highly sensitive artist, one who felt deeply for the rural folk who were the unsung heroes of his tapestry of vision.

Ghose's figurative works were charged with swift brushwork and a unique handling of pigments.

Ghose’s thirst for nature reflects an ageless Thoreau like quest for a universalistic rhythm of life with a quietude and wisdom to take life for what it gives us. The genre of landscape painting in the hands of Gopal Ghose is endowed with rich anatomical implications. Its artistic form, cultural analogies, coloristic charisma, animated ambience and philosophy are a thorough showcase of the deep-rooted Indian thesis on the relationship between aesthetics and man’s role as an observer of nature’s melody. This is why, Gopal Ghose’s insignia is one of rustic resonance: one that gives us silent ripples of a deep reverence for his native land.

Ghose employed the use of watercolour to express tender and fleeting moments found in nature.

It is for this accomplishment that Gopal Ghose stands by himself for his own signature of artistic achievement. His works echo an artistic insight; they become the paragon of Indian modern art. For someone who rebelled and wanted to find his own way, his own lingua franca-the rebellion was a way of reinventing the Indian idiom through landscapes of deeper instincts and roots that rest in infinity.

- Vinayak Pasricha.