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Shri Vasudeo Smart: A veteran artist and a great connoisseur of Jain Art
Shri Vasudeo Smart is veteran artist and a great connoisseur of Jain art of Gujarat. Throughout his life he remained a great admirer and promoter of the glorious traditions of Indian art. He studied it with great love and devotion and incorporated its best elements into the very fibre of his characteristic expression and style.
He spent his childhood in the Kayastha street of Gopipura, Surat. Many of the families living in the street were Jains. Many of his school-mates and play-mates came from Jain families. He received his schooling in Shri Nagin Ghela Jain High School. There were many Jain temples and private house-temples in the area at that time. Very often he would go to the temples and apply a tiny yellow sandalwood mark on his forehead in the manner of the Jains. He would enjoy the sweet aroma, the serene calm and the coolness of the inside of the temples and it was here that he was first exposed to the beauty and the magic of the paintings and sculptures of these temples.
Shri Vasudeo Smart then went to Bombay to join Sir J. J. School of Arts where he became a student of Shri Jagannath Ahivasiji who was himself a veteran artist with a great love and admiration for the traditional art of India. It was here that the foundation was laid for his life-long interest in and his devotion to the cause of Indian art and he
began to mature as an artist.
After having finished his studies at the J. J. School, he came back to Suart to get settled in work and in life. He had not forgotten his childhood visits to the Jain temples. He started visiting them again. This time, the wealth of art treasured in the celebrated Chintamani Jain temple of Suart fired his creative imagination. He made extensive copies and tracings of the human figures of the pat at the enterance and on the pillars, and of the animal figures and the floral designs on the beams of the temple. This work left an indeliable impact on the characteristic style of his painting. The rhythm and force of lines is an inalienable charcteristic of Jain paintings. And the same characteristic gives a distinct identity to the work of Shri Vasudeo Smart.
Jain Kashthapat Chitra : 13
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