Page 42 - TheArtsTrust Krishen Khanna

works often depict Christ and his apostles not above: Khanna and
as exalted figures but as stoic, earthbound men wife Renu in their
estate in Shimla
wearing handspun tattered clothes, with their opposite: Khanna is
faces marked by weariness and resolve. also an ardent lensman,
and these 1973
Repeated depictions of The Last Supper photographs of crows
by the artist are particularly significant. These display his penchant for
light and shade
are not grand, theatrical reinterpretations; they
are stripped of ornamentation and compressed
into intimate interiors. The apostles, with their heavy limbs and unstitched
clothing, are reminiscent of men Khanna had sketched in the tea stalls and
labouring colonies of New Delhi’s Bhogal. The familiar symbolic structure
remains with Christ at the centre and a sense of impending betrayal in the
air. However, the setting and figures are grounded unmistakably in the reality
of the Indian working class. The blindfolded Christ or the faces of labouring
figures protectively covered against the blinding dust become symbolic of
individuals caught within the depredations of state apparatuses.
In doing so, Khanna universalises the narrative of Christ, presenting him
as someone whose suffering parallels that of the ordinary man. The motif of
Christ’s suffering also extends to the Pietà paintings. Drawing on the classical

40 41