David Paynter and L.T.P. Manjusri
(Part one of this article appeared in Midweek Review yesterday.)
by Laleen Jayamanne
Eclecticism and Abstraction
It would appear that a book or two might be written about the lesser known history of 20th Century Lankan modern art and visual culture, which seems to be much wider than the art historical accounts of 43 Group Modernism. There must be many others as well. For example, one comes across the name of H.A. Karunaratne as an abstract painter influenced by Euro-American abstraction as having held a solo exhibition in 1956 at the USISC. What response did this exhibition receive in that momentous year of the triumph of Sinhala-Buddhist Nationalist exceptionalism after Sir John Kothalawala’s pro-American government was defeated. Then there is the Ian Goonatilake collection bequeathed to the University of Peradeniya and now languishing in the basement of the library, stored under poor conditions, awaiting a dedicated gallery. While it is well known that his collection consists of a large number of George Keyt drawings because of his wide taste and sympathies his collection might hold potential for considering a somewhat decentred (less linear), art historical narratives of the twentieth century. The blatantly self-interested, thin accounts that pass as recent art history can thereby be displaced by more careful art historical research with rigorous conceptual frameworks. The history of the use of colour in the move from…
