| Ray as Book Jacket Designer |
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| An abridged version of Pather Panchali |
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Ray fundamentally transformed all notions of designing books in India.
Entirely discarding the clean formality of the British style of jacket design, he was the first Indian artist to have introduced to the book-jackets a style of brushing which was entirely Indian. And it was the easy flow of his brushes – sometimes pointed and sometimes broad – that was the hallmark of his jacket designs in the early phase of his career as an artist.
One of the ideal examples of this genre of brushing can be seen on the jacket of an abridged edition of ‘Pather Panchali' ( Song of the Little Road ), designed in 1945. |
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| Ray, the artist |
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See the supple curves of the meandering path printed in clean yellow on the spread out jacket of the book. This curve is one of the seals of Ray's singular contribution to the entire history of printing in India. Though much more Indian elements are there to discover. Let's observe the jacket.
The title of the book drawn in bold white letters and broken in three tiers, for example, reminds us of the white decorations drawn by fingers on the earthen floor during festivals – both in north as well as in south India.
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Ma Sarada,
the Ultimate Woman |
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More than one points-of-view are used on the jacket design. While touring western India in 1941, Ray saw in Ajanta-cave paintings, the miraculous artistic effects created by using multiple point-of-views in one composition. Ray consciously applied the ‘Ajanta'-principle in this particular jacket. (1) The snaky road as well as the entire village is seen from the sky. That's why we can see the thatched roof of the hut in the left corner of the composition. (2) Yet the brother and sister ( Apu and Durga ) walking on the road are seen from an average human height. That's why we can't see the crowns of their heads. (3) The point-of-view chosen for the trees with semi-circular canopies is even more surprising. Trees are drawn from a low angle!
Ray, then merely 24 years' old, juxtaposed these three diverse points-of-view so discreetly peeling all the trappings of being an academic -- few can actually observe the technique. Therefore what causes the wonder in the composition has always been nearly kept a secret. This has still remained, for 60 long years, a classic and celebrated jacket design. |
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Double spread jacket of The Thumby
( Buro Aanglaa ) |
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Young Satyajit Ray learnt painting and graphic art only for two years and five months in Tagore's University situated in Bengal at an isolated place called Santiniketan, literally meaning the ‘Abode of peace'. Two of his art-teachers, Bose and Mukherjee, were nimble-fingered in their amazing exploit of brush. Ray was evidently inspired by their dexterous brushing. He loved and learnt the value of using brush strokes possessing various thicknesses in one composition. The jacket of ‘The Song of the Little Road' is a crop of that love. ( Here, when still a fresh art-student of first year, Ray designed his first jacket for ‘Pagla Daashu' [ Daashu, the crazy ], a series of school stories written by Sukumar Ray, his father. It was a revival of a literary classic of Bengal.) |
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| Returning to his widowed and lonesome mother after the Japanese bombing on north Calcutta in 1942, Ray became closely associated with ‘Signet Press', then a new publisher, from its very inception in September, 1943. Dilip Kumar Gupta, known popularly only by the initials – D. K., was the proprietor of the company. He was something of a ‘predictor'! D.K. intuitively realized Ray's potency as a designer. Thus, Ray started designing book-jackets frequently. In a couple of years, Ray became an icon in India in the field of designing books. D.K.'s ‘prophecy' came true. |
Let's come back to jacket designs. Let's see the jacket on which the painting of a woman sitting on the floor is printed. She was, and still is, worshipped as a saint by many, mainly Bengalis. Her name was Sarada Devi. ( The title of the book is ‘Ma Sarada, the Ultimate Woman'.)
Here you see the same kind of wavy movements of brushes – sometimes thick and sometimes pointed. The thick curvy mass of solid black represents the cascade of long hair, while red wavy lines stand for the broad border of the white Sari.
What is the most remarkable in the design is the wavy thin contour coming down from her veil to the elbow. It's like a meandering line of a river seen by a bird flying close to the clouds. This winding line is a quintessential Ray brushing – prompt yet pliable – speedy yet sure.
As a young jacket designer, Ray gradually became interested in using geometrical forms for some books. The jacket of ‘The Thmby' ( ‘Buro Aanglaa' ) , for instance, is a formal combination of big triangles and spring-like spirals. The spirals are white which makes them more dramatic. |
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Indrani
( The name of a young a women ) |
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| I've given your name E-flat |
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Spirals printed on solid black are also used on the jacket of the novel ‘Indrani' ( a young woman's name ). The composition is made amazing by making the sizes of various spirals dissimilar. The reader also feels that it will not be easy for the young woman to come out from the intricate spirals created around her personal life.
Ray discovered a completely different style of jacket designing for the books of poetry by his contemporary poets – the post - Tagore generation. For them Ray's designs were philosophically deep yet casual in approach. The formal strength of the jacket of ‘Thumby' is unimaginable for the book of modern poems by Bishnu Dey : ‘I've given your name E-flat' . Even the lettering of the title is casually done. The reader can feel that the poets of the new generation ( i.e. mid 20 th century ) trying to shun the outer embellishment, highlighting the internal truth. So it was Ray who gave a new visual expression to modern Bengali poetry. Actually Ray tried to discover a separate styles of designs for each and every poet. |
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Then came the days of making ‘Pather Panchali'. The flow of designing jackets became gradually infrequent.
Ray again practically re-emerged as a regular jacket designer in 1969, when he was busy making his series of urban films – ‘Days and Nights in the Forest', ‘The Adversary' and so on. The film language of these films was much less lyrical than his early films like, say, Apu Trilogy and The Goddess. In harmony with his new film language, Ray's style of brushing also changed on the jackets of the new books. |
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| The jacket of the Emperor's Ring was designed during the making of Days and Nights in The Forest |
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| The Emperor's Ring |
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The new jacket designer born in the heart of Satyajit Ray of the 1970s and the 80s was fundamentally different in style as well as in his treatment of brushing. Ray quite consciously shunned his brushing the lyrical movements like a rivulet of Bengal. His brushing became quite harsh and coarse and full of restless yet energetic straight lines coming downwards.
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The cover of ‘The Emperor's Ring' is an ideal example of this transformation. Look at the numerous straight lines, done with bold brush dipped in thick black, cascading downwards. It's difficult to imagine the winding, lyrical and soft lines on the jackets Ray designed between 1969 and 1990 – mainly for more than fifty books written by him.
Ray was a changed man by then. His didn't feel the necessity of reviving the lyrical flowing lines on the jackets. The winding contours of his brushing had become fairly staccato by then.
Ray's lyrical brush-lines of the 1940s never returned, confirming that since 1970s Ray's world had transformed forever. |
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