CLAYTON,E. (2017), Painting India, Italy, Lump Humphries

The book ‘Painting India’ consists a catalogue of Howard Hodgkin’s paintings, interviews, reminiscences and essays written by Eleanor Clayton and Shanay Jhaveri.  Hodgkin’s main source of inspiration is India ever since he visited it in 1964, he has a longstanding engagement with the country. He visited it for over 50 years travelling continuously making lifelong annual trips and produced more one hundred paintings.

Clayton discusses about how the ‘Somewhere else’ is India for Hodgkin. On how he felt highly productive in the environment. He believes that everyone has a somewhere else. I truly believe in that too, being in environment you feel comfortable in helps your think clearly and India was Hodgkin’s. She explains how Hodgkin grew passion and interest for India. How he falls for the usual clichés of India. I feel there is more than vivid colours about India such as the society, traditional values, religions and more. Hodgkin quotes “Many aspects of the subjects which I paint pictures about would lose their meaning if they were too specifically presented, and that’s why I’m forced into metaphor ….a metaphor for emotion”(2017,p.15). I can understand on what he is trying to communicate, his paintings are abstract landscapes with gestural brush strokes. The layers within them evoke atmospheric conditions.

Jhaveri’s essay is on Hodgkin’s Indian Exchanges, meeting various Indian artists called Anish Kapoor, Dhruva Mistry, Mrinalini Mukherjee and much more. It also mentions about his and Khakhar’s friendship. It discovers why Hodgkin wanted more knowledge from Indian artists and explores on curating for the Six Indian Painters, hosted by the Tate Gallery, where he selected the artists along with Kapur.