The Prodigal Son

Andrew Peter Santhanaraj (1932–2009), who had his schooling at the local Danish Mission before joining the College of Arts and Crafts, Madras, is now held in great esteem as a source of artistic inspiration in India.

In 2006, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, published a book on Santhanaraj with an essay by the art historian, critic, and curator, Ashrafi S. Bhagat. Its pages reproduce 47 works by the artist.

Among them there is just one picture on a Christian theme: Prodigal Son (1962). Yet by this single work, the author has influenced many of his younger colleagues. K.C. Paniker (the founder of the artists’ village in Chennai, Chola Mandal) was very much impressed by it for its quality of line. And the theme itself is appealing to Indian audiences in the cultural context of India. Several Hindu artists followed Santhanaraj’s example and have worked on it in different art media.

Perhaps, in its message, it shares some of the reconciling themes of certain other biblical scenes—the Cross, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, the Last Supper—all of which have been taken up by a variety of Hindu, Muslim, and Parsi artists in India.

The gesture of prostration by the son as portrayed here has a particular cultural significance in India, where high caste people demand this sort of obeisance from the people of the lower strata of the society, a sign of subjugation or slavery.

Yet this is more than subjugation; this is homecoming. In the background of the work, musicians and dancers celebrate the son’s return with zest and energy. And this homecoming can be read as both the biblical son’s and also the artist’s. Ashrafi Bhagat comments that ‘wittily Santhanaraj parodies his own return’ (2006: 30). Long experimentation with Western methods and techniques, and an intense struggle with himself, eventually brought Santhanaraj to a mature style and to a new independence of spirit that was fully his.

In this personal liberation, there can be read something of India’s own journey as a nation. Bhagat observes that this scene seems to convey something of ‘national character and ethos’:

It is this quality of his art that makes his works seminal within the Madras group.… Prodigal Son … enthuses about a return to national identity through the re-inscription and approximation of [both the] vernacular and canonical imagery of art. (Bhagat 2006: 30)

References

Amaladass SJ, Anand and Gudrun Löwner. 2012. Christian Themes in Indian Art (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors)

Bhagat, Ashrafi S. 2006. A.P. Santhanaraj (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi)

Indian–Australian artist Frank Wesley’s (1923–2002) interpretation of the parable of the Prodigal Son is a unique one. The Prodigal Son is portrayed as an Indian from a discriminated-against caste: emaciated, and without shirt. The bare-bodied figure reflects a familiar scene in countless Indian villages. It carries a cultural overtone.

In India only two kinds of people appear bare-bodied: the Brahmins at the temple while offering sacrifice, and those stigmatized as outcaste by elite Indian society. It is rather ironical to compare these two, because the one is bare-bodied for religious reasons (when coming before the deity), while enjoying prestige and often economic status in society. But the outcaste—impoverished, discriminated against, and pushed to the periphery of society—is bare-bodied because he cannot afford to clothe himself better. It is precisely such a one whom the merciful father embraces here: the emaciated and humiliated son of society. Miseria et misericordia: mercy and misery meet.

The bare-bodied image evokes further social significance where (as in some places) the outcaste even today cannot walk with shirt on or with sandals through the streets of high caste people. There was a time when the women of certain communities were not allowed to wear a blouse or cover their bodies above the waist, and were fined if they sought to cover their breasts. Christian missionaries fought against such legislation and brought about some change.

By the image of the father in the parable, I believe that Wesley reminds us of this history, and the need to revisit and remember it.

The father in Wesley’s interpretation of the parable looks like Mahatma Gandhi who also championed the cause of these discriminated people by addressing them as the ‘children of God’ (Hari-jan)—a term Gandhi coined. But a change of name does not automatically change the reality.

This image evokes a great deal to Christians who call Jesus the ‘dalit’ (oppressed one; see Arulraja 1996). Jesus who took sides with the poor and the outcaste becomes a pertinent symbol of liberation of the ‘untouchables’ in Indian society.

Naomi Wray, who wrote the biography of Frank Wesley, sums this work as follows:

This painting is the artist’s masterpiece—the fine translation of the Christian hope into Indian cultural terms, the most sensitive depiction of the relationship between God and his children and the richest artistic expression of divine love. (Wray 1993: 44)

References

Arulraja, M. R. 1996. Jesus The Dalit. Liberation Theology by victims of untouchability, an Indian version of apartheid (Hyderabad: Jeevan Institute of Printing)

Wray, Naomi. 1993. Frank Wesley. Exploring Faith with a Brush (New Zealand: Pace Publishing)

All artists who have treated this episode have their own preferred moment to depict, through which they call the wider story to mind. Some paint the famished son amidst the pigs, some others the moment of return, and others again the celebration that follows. Each of these creative images is a visual commentary on Scripture, opening a field of interpretation rather than defining just one ‘meaning’ for the story, even though it is the same narrative that inspires them all.

The choice of focus—of the moment depicted—also tells something about the background of the artists, not merely the medium used or the polished style of their professional training but also their social status, their involvement with the society in which they live.

The artist Jayaraj S. is based in Chennai, typically working in a combination of pencil and paint. His work focusses on rural sections of Tamil society, and members of fishing communities, and gives voice to their cause through images. He has drawn several paintings on Christian themes, interpreting the gospel narrative in an Indian context. One of them is his interpretation of the Prodigal .

His interpretation of the story centres on how the loving father trains his wayward son by giving him freedom till he repents and returns home.  

In the works of Frank Wesley and Andrew Peter Santhanaraj which are elsewhere in this exhibition, the first moment of the son’s arrival home takes centre stage. This is moving indeed to any onlooker, highlighting as it does the repentant son.

But Jayaraj captures the next moment when the father accepts him without any reservation and honours him by placing him on a pedestal, since his dead son has come home alive. Here the joy of the father gains prominence and his own prodigality is on display. The father–son relationship is cemented.

It may speak especially powerful to a context where life is precarious, and to a community whose cement is found less in material goods than in relationships.