The Maurya empire, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty, was the largest and most powerful political and military empire of ancient India. Krishen Khanna speaks of his love of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and his benign but not uncritical account of humanity, as encountered around 1400. In a similar way, the mural is not exactly contemporary life, but a fusion of the Mauryan past with the present of the 1980s, without any obvious parading of modern achievements such as skyscrapers and traffic jams.
The dome of a leading hotel in New Delhi that houses the mural is really a complex vault arching high over the large space, and is covered with painted scenes at two or three levels. Krishen Khanna painted it in the early 1980s, and accomplished it in four years, the official date given for the completion being 1983. His great cast of humans and other beasts, and his ever- changing stage of buildings, streets, alleys, together with broader glimpses of nature frame scenes or individuals. It is a rich and complex kaleidoscopic encounter.
He has used a range of colours: from browns, muted reds and pinks, yellow and white or near-whites, to an occasional display of dramatic black. The brilliant colours that seem to glow with a life of their own make for continuities, as much as highlighting events or characters. They entertain the eye but also encourage it on its way. Khanna's relaxed art, still fresh and rich in cultural roots, is displayed in the mural. It stands testimony to his artistic intelligence and appetite for creative work.
Norbert Lynton, professor emeritus at the University of Sussex and former director of exhibitions for the Arts Council of Great Britain, has written widely on twentieth-century art. He is the author of The Story of Modern Art, Krishen Khanna: Chola Migrations, co-author of The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists, and contributing author of Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time.
Krishen Khanna has a wide-ranging and consummate body of work accrued to his credit during the last many decades. Created for the huge dome in the lobby of the ITC Maurya Sheraton Hotel in New Delhi, the mural painting in oil, Great Procession, is a larger-than-life representation of our times one that covers various facets of his work from his long career and, indeed, one that demands detailed documentation.
We have gazed at this phenomenal work of art in the hotel lobby many a time, straining our necks to reflect on what can only be called a testimonial to the search for the truth of human existence. When the entirety of the mural hits you, it is awe-inspiring-technical difficulties have been turned into opportunities for innovation; people, animals, trees, the sea and sky, turn into ideas, history, desires-a cast of characters and scenes that convey Krishen's view of life. As Krishen himself says, it "encompasses all"
Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which Krishen is fond of quoting, some of the depictions are serious and others comical, however, all are accurate in describing the traits and peccadilloes of human character. Some of his allusions are quite overt, while others are concealed from the casual observer. There's a gentleman and his obedient dog. Gyaniji (a character that he has often revisited in his paintings) at the dhaba, a pickpocket. Khushwant Singh, Mulk Raj Anand, Krishen himself-as with most of his works, there is an unmistakable strain of humour underlying the mural painting.
Location-specific works of art are dependent upon the whims of planners and developers Reconstructing the mural elsewhere would be a daunting task and it can only be hoped that Krishen Khanna's Great Procession stays where it is, so one can visit this addition to India's glorious tradition of mural painting again and again.
They need seeing, of course: you have to go there, into that hall, quiet at some periods but often busy (the covered atrium of a thriving New Delhi hotel), and just look and look. What some call a dome, but is really a complex vault arching high over this large space, is covered with painted scenes at two or three levels. Khanna painted it in the early 1980s, after some hesitation, and he reckons he accomplished it in four years. He was helped in specific respects by a younger painter, Gursharam Singh, who had found himself at an impasse in his own work; Krishen was helped by his input but I suspect that Gursharam was helped by engaging in an activity other than his own. 1983 is given as the official date of completion. It all looks as though it was done yesterday.
But they also need to be seen in reproductions, framing this and then that scene or group or individual in Krishen's great cast of humans and other beasts, and his ever-changing stage of buildings, whole or glimpsed only in part, interiors and exteriors. streets, alleys, steps, and trees and other plants together with broader glimpses of nature, rocks, sea and mountains under a variable sky. Seeing them live, so to speak, is essential if you want the whole experience, but you will find it difficult to carry any clear memory of the whole cycle away with you: it is all too rich and complex a kaleidoscopic encounter, though you will certainly remember what it felt like. To look more closely and think about what is there your attention needs to be focused, and here the camera is a helpful guide. Perhaps a film, too, one day, with Krishen providing the voice over'?
The vault existed when the commission began to be discussed. Its plan is best described as a rectangle ending in two narrower flat surfaces that look like apses and are linked to the major flat areas by tricky corners. These gave Krishen technical problems which he turned into opportunities. The entire vault is framed by broad timber ribs just a few feet apart, rising up in three stages to meet their opposite numbers from the other side of the rectangle, though thirteen at either end meet in (or radiate from) a central point in the vault to create the apse effect. To support the corners, in the lowest level, there are pairs of shorter ribs that meet and end there: eight short ribs. That makes fifty ribs altogether, in polished brown wood; they threatened to be, and could have been, obstacles to any easy reading of a large mural. Except at the corner, the ribs rise and curve forward in three stages, and the surfaces between them curve forward at each stage. All of these are flat at their bottom edges, but then curve forward quite sharply to the bottom of the surfaces above them.
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