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Lot Essay
While themes of the river and the journey recur in Pyne’s work, The Fisherman stands out as a masterpiece.
- Geeti Sen, 1999
The Fisherman was painted in 1979, when Ganesh Pyne had mastered the unique medium of tempera on canvas, and the subject embodies the artist’s most iconic and compelling themes. It is no surprise that Geeti Sen, in her monograph on Pyne, describes the present canvas as standing out as a masterpiece within his oeuvre. This painting depicts a gaunt fisherman aboard his wooden boat, sailing across a body of water rendered in deep, contrasting blues against a dark twilight sky, illuminated only by the light of a pale golden moon. The fisherman is shown casting his net over an enormous fish and is, both literally and metaphorically, the apex of Pyne’s artistic meditations on water.
Here, narrative recedes in importance and it is the figure itself – monumental, suspended in time and inward looking – that dominates the composition. This figure, instantly recognisable as a Bengali fisherman, is portrayed bare-chested in a loosely wrapped lungi, adorned simply with a stylised, pointed cap. Sen describes him writing, “Astride the boat now is a fisherman casting out a fine net into the sea. A tall gaunt figure, he seems almost crucified with his arms akimbo, enmeshed within the fine net swirling around him. Each fragment is worked with meticulous detail, the delicate lines criss-crossing like the warp and weft of a fabric floating across the wide expanse of the sky. A golden moon is suspended against the gloom of the night sky” (G. Sen, Ganesh Pyne, Revelations, Calcutta, 1999, p. 73).
The image of the fisherman in Bengal is both ubiquitous and transcendent, as “Fishermen form part of the repertoire of almost all artists from Bengal. In this painting of great finesse the fisherman rises above his daily chores to assume a supernatural status” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 73). The figure of the fisherman has long occupied a place within global visual cultures and art histories as both labourer and symbol, from the solitary figures of Winslow Homer to the atmospheric and sublime images of Joseph Mallord William Turner, to biblical imagery of the Old Masters, where the act of fishing carries both material and symbolic weight.
Water, and more specifically the river, fascinated Pyne and is as much a protagonist in this painting as the fisherman. As Sen observes, “Ganesh Pyne embarks upon a voyage of discovery, through uncharted seas” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 12). Rendered in exquisite blues, the river in Pyne’s work is not merely a setting but a space of passage, charged with psychological and symbolic meaning. It represents a crossing point, a bridge between life and death, between one side and the other. Pyne often depicted or alluded to the river bank, a symbol of a journey completed. In the present painting there is no river bank, no end of the journey in sight. The river is all-encompassing and engulfing. “The river offers nourishment; at the same time, it controls the destinies of men and women” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, pp. 69, 72). Pyne’s images of the river often reference the ancient river Styx from Greek mythology and the ferryman, an anti-hero outside of time who transports the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
The fisherman here stands as the ultimate hero, a shepherd, guardian and guide across the water. His net is a technical masterclass by Pyne, rendered with his virtuosic cross-hatching and offering structural anchor and counterpoint to the brilliant river. The wooden struts and ribs of the boat are characteristically skeletal, symbolising death and renewal. Executed in tempera, the surface is built up through fine, translucent layers of pigment, allowing the image to glow from within while retaining an extraordinary precision of line. “The fisherman casting his net into the waters and the boat and the ebb and flow of water are each enmeshed – they glow with an inner radiance that needs no outer source” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 12). The source of the light is not the pallid moon but rather it appears to flow out from the chest of the protagonist, the piercing golden twinkle in his pupils set against black eyes.
Pyne also exhibits his mesmerising command of the supernatural and surreal in this painting. “Everything seems in its place; yet in this painting the artist defies the laws of nature and of gravity. The net skims the surface not of the sea but of the sky, a large blue fish floats in the air rather than on water, the fisherman makes his catch [...] A miracle is happening, quietly, as the world moves on” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 73).
- Geeti Sen, 1999
The Fisherman was painted in 1979, when Ganesh Pyne had mastered the unique medium of tempera on canvas, and the subject embodies the artist’s most iconic and compelling themes. It is no surprise that Geeti Sen, in her monograph on Pyne, describes the present canvas as standing out as a masterpiece within his oeuvre. This painting depicts a gaunt fisherman aboard his wooden boat, sailing across a body of water rendered in deep, contrasting blues against a dark twilight sky, illuminated only by the light of a pale golden moon. The fisherman is shown casting his net over an enormous fish and is, both literally and metaphorically, the apex of Pyne’s artistic meditations on water.
Here, narrative recedes in importance and it is the figure itself – monumental, suspended in time and inward looking – that dominates the composition. This figure, instantly recognisable as a Bengali fisherman, is portrayed bare-chested in a loosely wrapped lungi, adorned simply with a stylised, pointed cap. Sen describes him writing, “Astride the boat now is a fisherman casting out a fine net into the sea. A tall gaunt figure, he seems almost crucified with his arms akimbo, enmeshed within the fine net swirling around him. Each fragment is worked with meticulous detail, the delicate lines criss-crossing like the warp and weft of a fabric floating across the wide expanse of the sky. A golden moon is suspended against the gloom of the night sky” (G. Sen, Ganesh Pyne, Revelations, Calcutta, 1999, p. 73).
The image of the fisherman in Bengal is both ubiquitous and transcendent, as “Fishermen form part of the repertoire of almost all artists from Bengal. In this painting of great finesse the fisherman rises above his daily chores to assume a supernatural status” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 73). The figure of the fisherman has long occupied a place within global visual cultures and art histories as both labourer and symbol, from the solitary figures of Winslow Homer to the atmospheric and sublime images of Joseph Mallord William Turner, to biblical imagery of the Old Masters, where the act of fishing carries both material and symbolic weight.
Water, and more specifically the river, fascinated Pyne and is as much a protagonist in this painting as the fisherman. As Sen observes, “Ganesh Pyne embarks upon a voyage of discovery, through uncharted seas” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 12). Rendered in exquisite blues, the river in Pyne’s work is not merely a setting but a space of passage, charged with psychological and symbolic meaning. It represents a crossing point, a bridge between life and death, between one side and the other. Pyne often depicted or alluded to the river bank, a symbol of a journey completed. In the present painting there is no river bank, no end of the journey in sight. The river is all-encompassing and engulfing. “The river offers nourishment; at the same time, it controls the destinies of men and women” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, pp. 69, 72). Pyne’s images of the river often reference the ancient river Styx from Greek mythology and the ferryman, an anti-hero outside of time who transports the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
The fisherman here stands as the ultimate hero, a shepherd, guardian and guide across the water. His net is a technical masterclass by Pyne, rendered with his virtuosic cross-hatching and offering structural anchor and counterpoint to the brilliant river. The wooden struts and ribs of the boat are characteristically skeletal, symbolising death and renewal. Executed in tempera, the surface is built up through fine, translucent layers of pigment, allowing the image to glow from within while retaining an extraordinary precision of line. “The fisherman casting his net into the waters and the boat and the ebb and flow of water are each enmeshed – they glow with an inner radiance that needs no outer source” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 12). The source of the light is not the pallid moon but rather it appears to flow out from the chest of the protagonist, the piercing golden twinkle in his pupils set against black eyes.
Pyne also exhibits his mesmerising command of the supernatural and surreal in this painting. “Everything seems in its place; yet in this painting the artist defies the laws of nature and of gravity. The net skims the surface not of the sea but of the sky, a large blue fish floats in the air rather than on water, the fisherman makes his catch [...] A miracle is happening, quietly, as the world moves on” (G. Sen, Ibid., 1999, p. 73).