Art and Lust

Book Review

Title: Amrita & Victor

Author: Ashwini Bhatnagar

Publisher: Fingerprint, New Delhi, 2023

Pages: 216

Artists see reality differently. The colours and contours of objects catch their attention first. Most of us who are not so artistic perceive objects conceptually. Non-artists turn images into concepts, in other words. Colours and contours have much to do with emotions and passions. No wonder Irving Stone’s biographical novel on Vincent Van Gogh is titled Lust for Life. Art is a kind of lust, or result of lust.

Amrita & Victor is the biography of a very gifted painter who died at the young age of 28 years, having achieved considerable fame. Her full name was Amrita Dalma Antonia Sher-Gil. Her mother Marie Antoinette was from Hungary and she got the child baptised as a Christian. The father, Umrao Sher-Gil, was a Sikh from India who didn’t care much for religion.

Amrita got professional training in art right from her childhood. Everyone who came into contact with her and had some idea about art and painting realised how talented the child was. Florence and then Paris cultivated the artist in the young girl.

Amrita had very strong personal notions about art and hence she didn’t blindly follow any particular school. She developed her own style which was recognised as great by many artists and art critics. Even Jawaharlal Nehru took note of her and visited her art exhibition. Nehru maintained steady communication with her so much so that her mother thought of arranging her marriage with Nehru. Kamala had died of tuberculosis and Nehru was a charming man with a little daughter to take care of. His acute sense of perception and sharp intellect had drawn Amrita’s attention too. 

Amrita

It is not the age gap of 24 years that prompted Amrita to say an emphatic ‘no’ to her mother’s proposal. Amrita was in love with Victor, her first cousin, who was studying medicine in Hungary. Amrita’s father was worried about a marriage between first cousins. Her mother was concerned about Victor’s intellectual mediocrity and apparent laziness. Amrita was stubborn, however. She had a very domineering personality as most artists seem to have.

It takes many years for Victor and Amrita to unite in marriage. In the meanwhile, both of them have their own affairs. Amrita sleeps with countless men and one woman too. Sex is a way for her to subdue the passions that boil in her veins. Sex is a kind of emotional release, letting out steam. If there is no man available, she will masturbate. One day while she is masturbating, a stranger sees her through the window of her room and asks whether he could join her. Her answer is an immediate and eager ‘yes’.

She speaks openly to Victor about her passionate relationships with men. Victor is able to understand and accept all those eccentricities. Even some eminent personalities like Malcolm Muggeridge were enamoured of her. Muggeridge was working as an assistant editor with The Statesman of Calcutta at that time. His duty was in Simla where he met Amrita. It was a kind of love at first sight. Amrita had this ability to make men turn their faces. The affair didn’t last, however. “The best thing about her is her gaiety and sincerity,” Muggeridge wrote in his diary. “She’s a demon… I love her. This is the truth.” But the demon in Amrita was seldom serious when it came to relationships.

Muggeridge soon saw “something squalid in her” and “a sort of genius that I love.” Soon he realised how “utterly egocentric, coarse, and petulantly spoilt” the young Amrita was.

Amrita’s egotism came from her clear perceptions of reality. Her observations were penetrating. Her remarks about people were caustic because they were too true. She was never ready to tell half-truths for the sake of making reality look pleasant.

Once she ran away from her home in the middle of the night just because her sister made certain (biased) allegations against her. And she climbed up a mountain, walking through the forest in the middle of the night, not caring for the wild animals that roamed there in the woods, to reach the house of a friend ten miles away. When she was questioned what if some criminal had raped her on the way, her answer was: “It would have been an experience!”

Life was a buoyant experience for Amrita. Life was a kind of lust for her. Art and sex, both, played a big role in it. Even her eventual marriage with Victor, against the wishes of her parents, didn’t help her to refine the intensity of her physical lust. That lust led to tragedy. She died at the age of 28. She had already become a celebrated artist in the country and even abroad. She could have achieved a lot more. But being an authentic artist is never easy.

This biography is well-written and keeps us engrossed. I would have certainly loved it all the more had the author taken a little more trouble to analyse the intricacies of the artist’s mind in greater depth.