Category Archives: paintings

January 25, 2021 · 2:11 pm

The 43 Group in Ceylon: Their Story

Rohan de Soysa,  copy of a PowerPoint Presentation made to the National Trust of Sri Lanka on September 29, 2016 by Rohan de Soysa transcribed into text format …. with coloured underlining [as distinct from that in black] being emphasis imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The Origins: The `43 Group was the first modern art movement in Sri Lanka. It arose because a group of artists felt that the art being practiced and taught at the time was too academic and rigid; nor did it attempt to follow new developments in European art since the early 20th Century. They therefore decided to form a group more open to these new developments but with a distinct Ceylonese stamp and flavour.

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January 21, 2021 · 2:42 am

The Sangakkaras Erudite & Charitable: At Home and Abroad

An Accidental Encounter ….  and An Illuminating Outcome

When I was in Sri Lanka at some point in the late 1990s on research work, my cricketing links with such individuals as PI Pieris and Michael Tissera encouraged me to take in some of the international cricket matches taking place in the capital city of Colombo. On one occasion I witnessed a match at the Khettarama Stadium where Sri Lanka A took on a West Indian side. I was in the BCCSL section at midwicket where the spectators were few and quite interspersed. I heard an elderly gentleman behind me explaining some of the finer points of the unfolding match to his wife beside him. At one point I turned round and amiably indicated that he understood the finer points of cricket. It turned out that he was a venerable lawyer from Kandy named Kshemananda Sangakkara. Kshema and Kumari Sangakkara were watching their son Kumar playing for the A team.

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August 25, 2020 · 3:36 am

Interpreting Sigiriya: Confronting Gananath Obeyesekere’s Distortions

Raja De Silva commenting on Gananāth Obēyesēkere: The Buddha in Srī Lankā. Histories and Stories. London: Routledge. 2019 336 pp.

The author [GO], an eminent anthropologist, has rejected the evidence (archaeological and literary)  that I depended on in my interpretation (de Silva, Raja 2002., 155 pp) of the meaning of Sīgiriya and its paintings: that  the site was a monastic complex and the paintings were representations of the goddess Tara.  He has criticized my thesis (1) by resorting to assertions, several untrue and the rest of no merit and (2) by asking rhetorical questions.  He has mentioned without criticism the interpretation of Sīgiriya by Siri Gunasinghe (SG) (2008), his friendly colleague of the Peradeniya University.

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July 20, 2020 · 4:38 pm

Donald Friend assessed by Venerable Bhikkhu Dhammika in 2003

In this era of political correctness and moral extremism exemplified in the Me Too movement, the assault on ‘offensive’ statues of famous men with questionable attributes, etc, etc, let me tweak the nether regions of these evangelical reformists by featuring Donald Friend, an Australian homosexual and paedophile of a brazen disposition, who displayed a wide range of artistic talents and happened to sojourn in Ceylon for quite a while — linking up with the talented and wealthy Bawa brothers (themselves members of the gay middle class community in the island’s tolerant ‘climate’– an environment that also attracted Arthur C. Clarke) …. Michael Roberts

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March 23, 2020 · 7:15 am

Census Categorization and the Bharathas and Colombo Chetties

A Note from Fabian D. K.  Schokman of Moratuwa, 22 March 2020

Dear Michael,  Thank you for this. I believe, as with most of the “lesser minorities,” the Bharatha community did not have its own classification until the 2001 census, when there was a breakthrough mostly on account of the Chetties and their successful fight to be classed as a distinct ethnicity. Throughout census history, one can see the Chetties demanding to be classed as distinct from the Tamils. The term “race” in SL, must always be seen as a synonym for “ethnicity” and not with the same connotation it derives in the West.

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November 19, 2019 · 7:27 am

Vale Rajpal De Silva: Doctor, Historian, Art Collector and A Treasure House for Ceyloniana

Srilal Fernando … in The Ceylankan, November 2019

I write this as a personal appreciation of a dear friend Dr R.K. (Rajpal) de Silva. I shall leave it to others more qualified than me to write about his contribution  to recording the history of paintings in Sri Lanka mainly during the Colonial period.  His life at the Royal College, Colombo and his lifelong association with his schoolmates are aspects that I only know of in passing.  He has written about his life as a medical student and as a doctor which makes interesting reading.

Pix by  Athula Devapriya

When Mano rang to say that Rajpal passed away that day, I was full of grief. I had had a telephone conversation with him a few days before.   Though infirm, he was at that time full of good cheer.  It confirms the adage that “death comes like a thief in the night”.

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Filed under architects & architecture, cultural transmission, education, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, paintings, photography, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes