The Dumbara valley is one of the most picturesque places in Sri Lanka. Here in the village of Deegala, was born on April 24, 1930, a child, destined in later life to become a great artist. It was his mother's birthplace as well and he was given the name Sarathchandra Madduma Bandara Wickramasinghe Mudiyanselage Kirinde.
According to Kirinde himself, his name actually should have been Kirinde Mudiyanselage Wickramasinghe Madduma Bandara Sarathchandra. He was one of six brothers and a sister. His father's village was Kirinda, near Gampola. His lineage can be traced back to the early period of the kingdom of Gampola in the 14th century.
Kirinda, was then a quiet, pristine village of craggy hills and verdant grasslands, eternally kissed by the cool mountain air. The impact that the natural beauty of this village had on the receptive mind of the young lad soon found expression in sketches etched with charcoal on the whitewashed walls of the house where he lived with his parents.
His primary education commenced at St. Scholastica's Convent, Kandy, and then in 1939 when he was nine, he was enrolled at Trinity College, a Christian school where the English teachers had difficulty in pronouncing his name and called him Stanley, for ease of pronunciation. However, the name stuck and he has been called Stanley Kirinde ever since.
Rev. Frazer who came as principal of Trinity College in 1920 was a great lover of Kandyan architecture and commissioned the new chapel at Trinity College to be designed and built in Kandyan architectural style. The renowned artist David Paynter (1900-1975) who was both a past pupil as well as a former art teacher there, was commissioned to execute the frescoes in the chapel including the great altarpiece of the "Crucifixion" (1932) (335x640cm). The first panel he completed there was entitled "Are ye able..? " (1926) (305x457 cm).
Paynter's rendering of the human figure and fauna and flora in these frescoes, carried the stamp of Sri Lankan life, and were executed in his own inimitable style. His great frescoes in Trinity College Chapel captured the imagination of young Kirinde and the indelible impression they made enabled him in later life to perfect his own individual style, influenced by them. He was also privileged in later years (1993) to restore these old murals which had deteriorated as well as other two panels is executed by Paynter in later years depicting 'The Good Samaritan' (1958) and 'The washing of the disciples' feet' (1928).
In 1992 Stanley also painted two Biblical paintings 'Mary of the Magnificat' and 'Saint John the beloved disciple' oil on canvas for the Christian Workers Fellowship Centre in Badulla. In these Mary is depicted as a typical village woman dressed in a red 'osariya' in Kandyan style and St. John like a Buddhist monk in yellow robes complete with a begging bowl, thus even excelling Paynter.
The pleasant and artistically conducive atmosphere that prevailed at Trinity College was a fertile field to his artistic imagination. His art teacher there was Mr. Hardy, who to his eternal credit, immediately recognized the talent latent in young Stanley and gave him freedom to draw whatever he liked, while the teacher doled out topics to the other students to draw. Although he had to give up art as a subject in the 7th grade, he never gave up painting on his own. Kirinde invariably won the prize for art at every prize giving, and it was his steadfast conviction that it was at Trinity College that his mind fully awakened to the world of art.
In the University Entrance Class in 1948 his classmates included two Lakshmans, Lakshman Jayakody who later became Minister of Cultural Affairs and Lakshman Kadirgamar who became Minister of External Affairs. They suggested to Stanley that it would be a fine opportunity to organize an art exhibition with 'world history' as a theme, on the occasion of the annual prize giving, so that it could be seen by all the parents. Stanley collected pictures of world leaders, enlarged them to a large size, and held this exhibition on the college premises. A European lady who attended was so taken up by Stanley's pictures that she eloquently talked about him to a prominent physician in Kandy Dr. Wickremasinghe. The outcome of it was that Dr. Wickramasinghe commissioned Stanley to do a portrait of his wife, and gave him an advance cheque for Rs. 200, a princely sum at that time to buy paint and canvas.
The artist George Keyt, who was by then internationally known, was a good friend of Dr. Wickramasinghe and upon seeing the portrait expressed a keen desire to meet the talented young artist. Stanley went to see Keyt at a private nursing home in Kandy where Keyt was convalescing. Keyt told him that the portrait was very much in the Indian tradition and encouraged the young and budding artist to continue his painting. This encounter with Keyt, and Keyt's appreciation of his work was a catalystic event in the life of the artist. Although he admired Keyt's work and influenced by him, Kirinde did not follow his style.
His winning of the first prize for a head study in oils at the 51st annual exhibition of the Ceylon Society of Arts in the same year and a commended citation for a still life further encouraged him.
Stanley Kirinde passed out from the University in 1954, with an honours degree in history, his pet subject, served for two years as a history teacher at Darmapala Vidyalaya in Pannipitiya before joining the civil service in 1956 and working as a land officer in the Polonnaruwa and Badulla Districts. In 1969 Stanley returned to academic life by becoming the Assistant Registrar at the University of Peradeniya from which he had graduated. In 1971 he was appointed as Deputy Director of Establishment in the Ministry of Public Administration and as Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Defence in 1974. He was promoted to the post of Additional Secretary there in 1982 and appointed Secretary to the Ministry of Trade and Shipping in 1989. He retired in in 1990, bidding adieu to 37 years of administrative service. Although working as a civil servant through out his adult life, it was his desire to do creative work whenever he was able. He has thus bequeathed to the world a large body of creative work.
Stanley Kirinde laid great store on on naturalism. He insisted that humanism should be manifest in any work of art, and that it is through realism that humanism can be emphasized. He also believed that art should communicate and be intelligible to people and not elitists. Therefore, he disliked modern art and said that his work was influenced more by Indian and Italian Renaissance paintings. According to Kirinde the Renaissance paintings are intellectual, emotional, creative, beautiful and complete by themselves and permeated with a sense of intense discipline which he claimed were qualities that any artist should possess.
He utilized various mediums for his work, among them oils, water colour, pastels, conte-paris and mosaic. His creative language is transparent, colour warm, and line strong in expression. His work abounds with line drawings. A few line drawings executed at the sudden death of his younger brother are strongly expressive. His illustrations adorn several publications including the 'Navamaga' series of books for school children published by H.D.Sugathapala.
A study of his work brings to mind several works close to his own spirit, among which are landscapes, which illustrate his love of nature. A fine example of it is a series of paintings, which he did in the 1990s in the Sigiriya area. The subject matter of his paintings depicted village life as he himself was basically a villager and moved with villagers even during his tenure as a civil servant visiting remote villages in the course of his work. This is borne out in his oil paintings, 'Workers and Machines' (1958) 'The petitioner' (1964) 'A people's meeting' (1970), 'Working Peoples' Solidarity -Sharing' (1970), 'Bus travellers' (1992), 'Market place' (1996) and 'The sweep seller' (2001).
His first exhibition was held in 1958. In 1970 Stanley was given the task of doing a portrait of Sir Nicholas Attygalle, then Vice Chancellor (1955-1966) of the University of Peradeniya which today hangs in the Senate Boardroom and in 1996, of former Librarian, Ian Goonetileke which hangs in the library. In the same year he was commissioned by the Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka to do a portrait of Ananda Coomaraswamy for the Boston Museum. Stanley was also among the five artists whose work was selected for a travelling exhibition of the Smithsonian Institution in 1979.
In 2000 Stanley was commissioned to do a portrait of the President of India, Shri K. R. Narayan by the High Commissioner of India at that time. He has also painted several episodes from Sri Lankan history as well. The large mosaic of the 'Uva Rebellion' (10x10ft) in the officers mess of the Army Training Academy in Diyatalawa and the oil painting (136x273cm) of the 'Battle of Danture' in the Army Officers Training Centre at Batalanda are considered great creations. Stanley Kirinde's paintings adorn the walls of the Presidential Houses in Colombo and Kandy, Ministry of External Affairs, the Army Academy and the National Film Corporation as well as various other public and private sector institutions. His latest major creation was that of the 'First Miracle of Christ' (2008) on the walls of the Lady Chapel in the Anglican Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour at Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo.
Stanley Kirinde married Padma Iranganie Ratwatte of Kalawewa Walauwa, in the Anuradhapura District in 1959 and became the father of two sons, Ravinatha and Kumara. In his last years even at the ripe old age of 79, Stanley enjoyed an active life at Diyawanna Gardens in Battaramulla, where he continued to engage in his creative work.
Although he was earlier honoured as a 'Deshabandu' by the State for his creativity in the field of art, Stanley Kirinde has still to be accorded the recognition due to him as an illustrious son of the soil. In the meantime we have to bear the irreparable loss of a good friend and lovable personality whose memory we can always cherish.
(The writer is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Visual Arts, the University of the Visual and Performing Arts)
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