The eternal voyager
ATHREYA
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Johan Benthin believed in human integrity; for him being a creative artist was not a profession but a way of life
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ON THE MOVE Johan Benthin: `The different cultural influences have been a constant inspirational source for me'
All through, Johan Benthin led his life as an adventurous voyager. He moved from country to country with incredible energy and the ease of an expert traveller.
"The 1950s, I spent mostly in Scandinavia. In the 60s, I was in Denmark with some extensive stays in Italy and South as well as North America. In the 70s and 80s I had my studio in Germany, and travelled from there to different destinations. In the mid-90s it was southern Spain, and since the late-90s my life has been divided between Europe and South India. The different cultural influences have been a constant inspirational source for me; and accompanying themes have been taken up again and again in my work."
He participated in group shows across the globe and held solo shows in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Holland, India, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and USA.
He was a member of several professional art-related bodies in France, Germany and Denmark. His pedagogical activities were as exciting and ferried him to different European cities, earning him a large circle of students.
In India, he was a guest faculty at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, Bangalore, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur and Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore.
Born into a bourgeois family in Copenhagen, Denmark with an open mind for the arts - his grandfather was a painter, as was his father - Benthin ventured into the creative field without a formal education in the fine arts.
He left home when he was still in his teens to live on his own, and even served a four-year apprenticeship as a timber-merchant!
"My artistic skills were developed simultaneously in an auto-didactic or self-taught manner," he would reminisce. "But there were other educational factors of importance. In the mid-1950s when I was 20 years old, I followed the happenings in the international art scene. The post-war attitude was truly international and dedicated to free and speedy development, as a natural reaction to the limitations of a war-scourged Europe... with groups, societies, and movements being formed all over; developing one another's ideas or reacting against them...The individual artist could benefit greatly from this development; I took advantage of the opening borders, and visited some of the great post-WW II exhibits in the northern parts of Europe."
Masterly craftsmanship
Absorbing different trends and experiencing life's variegated designs without a complaint, Benthin matured into a passionate artist. His works realised the joys and anxieties of life through abstraction. In an insightful commentary, Jürgen Gabel explains how Benthin's works revealed his masterly technique and craftsmanship in painting methods, and an unmatched skill in picture composition.
"His pictures are non-figurative and abstract, yet they always emerge from an experience of nature, from a landscape or perhaps just from the structure of a stone," wrote Gabel. "His way of painting reflects a many-layered approach to narration - a depth beyond the surface of the picture... For Benthin art is beyond indifference, not so far removed from Zen Buddhism; it approaches the viewer gently and softly appealing to his/her innermost spheres. His paintings are passages of his own personal spiritual education."
Benthin did not believe in pursuing art as a mechanical occupation. "To be a creative artist is not so much a profession as a way of life," he believed.
"My thoughts do not erupt out of me, they develop gradually and continually during my life. Therefore, today's shrill, electronic path is not the one I care to tread. I feel happier with the old traditional methods of communication ...and see myself as part of a spiritual tradition... Some may look upon this attitude as outdated; but I think when it comes to the moral aspects of life, there is neither a modern nor an ancient; just the ageless human integrity."
After staying in Bangalore for about five years, Benthin and his wife, Sigrid, moved to Mysore in 2004 and directed their energies towards a dream project for art and artists. They envisioned Pegasus Art Centre to trigger a range of art activities including residencies, camps and exchange programmes between local artists and their counterparts from the Western world. Surrounded by lush farmlands, tall trees and green vegetation, and equipped with a functional studio, a couple of artist cottages and garden sit-outs, the Centre had just got off a few months ago, when tragedy struck unannounced.
Passionate to the last
Benthin remained a passionate and prolific artist till the very last days of his life; he painted his final work at Pegasus before moving to the hospital, where it was detected that one of his legs carried a 7-kilo malignant tumour. The end was swift; when he breathed his last on September 14, 2006, he was 70.
Today, his mortal remains lie buried in eternal stillness amidst the gently swaying foliage of his beloved art centre. Many of his paintings and collages adorn the walls of the adjoining studio - silently reminding the visitor of the dashing Dane for whom India had been a very special home.
Artists and art connoisseurs desirous of viewing Benthin's works may contact Sigrid, who is fully committed to realising her husband's dream. Pegasus is located at Ilwal on the outskirts of Mysore. Phone: (+91-821) 240 4549, mobile: 94 484 63 645 or 94 484 68 645. email: studio@jhbenthin.com
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