News that special space has been allotted in New Delhi for the display of Amarnath Sehgal’s sculptures and other works…
News that special space has been allotted in New Delhi for the display of Amarnath Sehgal’s sculptures and other works is heartening, indeed. One’s memory is of the days when he often came to see this scribe at Statesman House in the 1990’s, once to present his book Lonesome Journey, a collection of poems. A tall, stately man with an imposing personality, greatly enhanced by his greying temples, one instinctively felt drawn to him. Once he spent a whole afternoon talking about sculptures, painting and poetry.
“The sculptor always reflects the time he lives in. One wouldn’t now make sculptures like those of the medieval masters,” he said, slowly sipping his tea. “Those were the times when artists portrayed not only their own times but also of the Ancients or we wouldn’t have had such masterpieces as those of young David in all his masculine beauty displayed in an Italian setting. That was because of the intense hold of the Renaissance on people’s minds.” Asked about Michael Angelo, he thought for some time and said Angelo had seen the creation of man in his mind’s eye or he wouldn’t have painted Adam. He also visualised the end of the world as evidenced in the Last Judgement. “It seems as though the artist was in a trance, like that of a prophet or soothsayer. The heavens virtually opened for him to see the glory of the Almighty.”
Coming to poetry, Sehgal felt the charm of the pre-Raphaelites overbearing. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister, Christina Georgina, he found irresistible. The former’s The Blessed Damozel, who leaned out from Heaven with three lilies in her hand and seven stars in her hair, made him intoxicated and like Rossetti, he too heard the tears when she wept. That was the kind of man Amarnath Sehgal was. He was born in Cambellpur Attock (now in Pakistan). Sehgal led a full life in his 85 years and it was a pleasure to visit his house in Jangpura Extension. One would like to end this piece with a quotation from one of his poems: “While tears came/ And went their way/ I looked and softly whispered/ Goodbye!”
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