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Arts Moulding meaning
For his current
preoccupation with artistic creativity he has chosen an unyielding
material that is quite challenging and relatively unmalleable-the
unsupple medium of metal. Working in
metal, calls for a total involvement. In painting, an artist, generally,
exerts his imagination and his fingers to aid that peculiar creativity
that has to be transferred to his canvas. But metal as
a medium of creativity is a totally different proposition. To wrest art
and meaning out of the stubborn metal, the artist is compelled to
exert himself physically as well. The bending,
the cutting, the shaping of the metal, are activities that invariably
begin to tell upon a person, especially on artists who have been
pursuing the mild vocation of painting. When he turned to the medium
of metal, H.A. Karunaratne underwent an ordeal in his struggle to
come to terms with his newly selected medium. The shapes
he has been able to extract and coax out of the metal he utilized,
tend to jolt the routine, work-a day sensibilities of the viewer
into an entirely fresh form of perception. This way the
viewers cannot limit their participation in this exhibition of art
and sculpture, merely by "looking"
at the works on display. These shapes, begin to "take on the
guise of meditation objects" (kammaththana). The uniqueness
of these metallic sculptures is such that they are articulate at
a multiplicity of levels. They engage in a potent dialogue with
the viewer. Their impression,
gets deeply embedded in the soul of the viewer. From the fall
of Kandy to a favourite curry A Briton who
visited Kandy before 1815 had described him as living like a "Cingalese
hermit". His earlier association with a woman poet, Gajaman
Nona, in Matara led to some speculation. Wijayananda
Dahanayake: (1902-88) Prime Minister from September 1959 to March
1960. One of the most colourful figures in Sri Lankan politics,
he was a teacher from Galle who entered the national stage as the
representative for the remote seat of Bibile in the pre-independence
State Council in 1944. He went on
to be an MP, representing the electorate of Galle, from 1944 to
1977, with a short break in 1960, and again from 1970. He claimed
to be a voice of the ordinary citizen, and was probably the only
MP to use public transport regularly. Shown the main bedroom at
the official residence on becoming Prime Minister, he called for
it to be partitioned so that he could have a smaller room. He was
an independent by instinct though he joined several parties and
even founded one. dana: Alms-giving.
Offering food, generally the midday meal, to monks is a common act
of Buddhist piety. Alms may be offered to monks in their temple
or a group invited to a meal at a layman's home. Dedigama: Situated
near Kegalle, it was for a brief period the seat of King Parakramabahu
V (1344-59) while his brother, Bhuvanekabahu IV (141-51), ruled
at nearby Gampola. Parakramabahu the Great (1153-86), associated
with the civilsation centring on Polonnaruwa, was born at Dedigama.
In more recent times, Dedigama claimed a place in history books
as the seat of the Senanayakes: D S, Prime Minister 1947-52 and
Dudley, Prime Minister 1952-53, again March-July 1960, and finally
1965-70. dhal: Lentils,
a variety of pulse. Dhal curry is a frequent accompaniment to rice;
and wade, a Tamil savoury snack made with dhal, is widely popular. (Extracted from Encyclopedia of Sri Lanka, published by Sterling Publishers, New Delhi & distributed by Sarasavi Bookshop, Nugegoda. Website: www.srilanka-encyclopedia.com) Young voices
bring to life old favourites The festival
was opened by Mrs. Bridget Halpe who made a warm address to a full
audience. The first school
choir to take the stage was Kandy Girls' High School Senior Choir
with an interesting selection of songs which they sang brightly
and energetically. Peradeniya
Central College Choir followed with some beautiful Sinhala songs
dedicated to their parents. The Dharmaraja College Choir sang a
rousing version of Grandfather's Clock which was preceded by the
more serene Music in the Air. Hillwood College
Choir sang a beautiful African song and followed it up with an arrangement
of the Swing Low Sweet Chariot.The Good Shepherd Convent Choir were
in excellent voice with their arrangements of Love Changes Everything,
Any Dream will do and Mallaika. They rounded
it off by singing a peace song. The CIS Senior
Choir sang The Angel Gabriel, Ave Verum Corpus, followed by the
more boisterous Grandfather's Clock and the Mermaid. The occasion
was great fun and gave the school choirs in Kandy an opportunity
to show the good work that is going on in music departments in their
schools. Kala Korner
by Dee Cee Somabandu is
a name synonymous with the Chitrasena school of dancing. Though
he started off dancing, he soon moved over to design, stage decor
and costumes. That was after he went to Santiniketan in the mid
1940s and studied painting under the veteran master Nandalal Bose.After
his return, he continued his close association with Chitrasena.
His creations for Chitrasena’s ballets were highly appreciated.
Somabandu was never keen on doing temple or other paintings, at
least not until Dr. Bellanwila Wimalaratana Nayaka Thera succeeded
in convincing him to do the murals and gave him a free hand. It
took him three years to complete them. "He told
me it's the first and the last time he would do temple paintings,"
Wimalaratana Nayaka Thera said at the launch. Delivering
the keynote address, Professor Siri Gunasinghe preferred to address
the painter simply as Somabandu or as Bandu ("the way I used
to always call him"). Tracing the
history of temple paintings, he referred to the Vessagiri tradition
and how it came down to the Polonnaruwa and Kandyan eras. There
was a certain pattern followed in all these paintings in presenting
either the Jataka stories or episodes from Buddha's life. A change
was seen in the paintings by M. Sarlis who was influenced by western
styles. "Now we
are exposed to another artist. Somabandu has done the Bellanwila
murals in his own individual style yet wholly maintaining the traditional
religious form,” he said. Landmark
achievement Describing
Somabandu's creations as the latest addition to the continuity of
the tradition of Buddhist painting in Sri Lanka, Dharmasiri calls
them, " the product of a devout Buddhist and a landmark achievement
in terms of pictorial beauty. They reflect a sublime religious ecstasy,"
he says. He adds, "The
interlocking and mutually dependent lines, shapes and colours of
the composition give emphasis and clarity to the painter's expression
of ideas. These are murals that can be looked at with veneration
and remembered with veneration again and again. “And this is precisely a consequence of the simplicity and directness with which the painter's pictorial conceptions are communicated,” Dharmasiri said. |
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