New Delhi, Oct 20 (IANS): In the early 1980s, it was with the "Man Series" that Rameshwar Broota received much adulation for the solitary monochromatic naked male figure representing a "universal man" who has been suffering since ages and became corrupt in the process. The vulnerabilities and insecurities of men were exposed through his works.

A retrospective in the capital chronicles the artist's five decade journey during which the Delhi-based artist touched upon the themes of poverty, corruption, vulnerability of human beings, existence and confrontation of man with construction.

A woman's body and expressions have found countless admirers among artist's, M.F.Hussain being one of them. But exploring a male's mind and struggles has largely
been represented by mythical and heroic figures.

A visit to the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art where Broota's "Visions of Inferiority: Interrogating the Male Body" is on display till Dec 30, introduces visitors to large
canvases that highlight the veins and ribs of a naked man's body depicting an athlete, a labourer or common man.

"I understand a man better than a woman. It was never a deliberate attempt to paint men, but when I drew lines on my canvas, they took the shape of a man," Broota told IANS in an interview.

“But I chose not to make them wear any clothes because that would have made them represent certain ethnicity. I wanted them to have universal appeal and that would
have come only when they were naked," he added.

The calm and composed 73-year-old has been the head of the art department of Triveni Kala Sangam since 1967, and his initial days of struggle and what he saw during that time have manifested into social satires.

"I painted what is saw was happening in the world around me. I saw corrupt officers and they were always men. I saw poverty, so labourers became the subject of my painting," he added.

If "Man Series" got him many admirers and buyers, it was the "Apes" – projecting corrupt officers as "apes" who looked cruel, insensitive and manipulative that made him popular. These social satire paintings were colourful, but offered a grim portray of bureaucracy.

One of the most striking aspect of Broota's oeuvre, something he too discovered during this retrospection, was that he had a different phase after every decade. If apes inundated his prolific career for a decade, he shifted gears to paint naked men with a self-discovered different technique, and so on.

According to the artist, this natural progression had a lot to do with "the imagination reaching its limit and having exhausted everything he had to say."

"I never painted for others. I always did it for myself and what I wanted to say. When I stopped painting the successful 'Man series' by buyers told me that I was
committing a mistake. But I didn't want to be stagnant, I wanted to explore," he said.