dharmaandaharma

During the troubled 1970s, Pratuang stood out as the role model for numerous artists. He became the leading exponent of art of dissent and gathered numerous followers. As tension between the authorities and the masses reached a climax, on 13 October 1973, Pratuang began a gigantic 5.7 x 2.3 meter oil on canvas entitled Dharma and Adharma better known as The Days of Disaster.

The work is a political statement on a calamity that occurred during 'the Ten Days' of the October 1973 Revolution when students and civilians clashed with the military and police culminating in an end to one-man authoritarian rule in Thai politics. The painting took one year to complete and must be regarded as one of the most powerful statements in modern Thai art against violence.

To create the work, Pratuang not only drew from his first hand experience of the cataclysmic events of 1973, but also bound inspiration in paintings against war and massacre by modern masters such as the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Alfaro Siqueros whose paintings reflect both the class struggle and the revolutionary unity of workers and peasants.

Moreover, Pratuang believed the Picasso's Guernica which portrayed the massacre of the innocents in a Basque town in April 1937, was analogous to the October 19732 revolution in Bangkok Rather than include Picassoesque snoring bull and wounded horse as symbols of horror and fear, though, he depicted gruesome details, such as tortured forms, severed parts of victims, and bullet wounds. But in turning to face the reality of actual events in Thailand, he had to find his own symbolism to capture the mood of the catastrophe.

By sketching non-stop for two days, Pratuang found a way to express his horror and shock: the iconography of Buddhism. He chose to elaborate on the theme of Buddhist teaching conce4rning dharma (truth, righteousness, justice) and adharma (evil, wrong, injustice, immortality). He said: "I wanted to capture the feeling of confusion, shock, and horror. I used symbols like crying faces and stormy clouds. the face of the Buddha is symbolic of Thai people who have been hurt; his eyes are closed, tears are streaming, bullet holes are shot across his face."

Dharma and Adharma

Oil on Canvas, 200 x 500 cm. Collection of the Artist

Sacrifice (Fasting Buddha), 1976

Oil on Canvas, 137 x 175 cm. Collection of the Artist

Rubbish Car, 1976 Oil on Canvas, 137 x 154 cm. Collection of the Artist

Red Morning-Glory and rotten Gun, 1976
Oil on Canvas, 135 x 165 cm. Collection Singapore Art Museum.

Seni Stone, 1976
Oil on Canvas, 137 x 154 cm. Collection of the Artist.

Grains, Sickle, and a Lump of Clay, 1976
Oil on Canvas, 127 x 140 cm. Collection of the Artist.

The composition of Dharma and Adharma is full of action, richly painted in both somber and rainbow colors. The surrealistic quality of this work can be discussed in terms of spatial arrangements and story telling. There is a dream-like, hallucinatory feeling throughout as faces, weapons, and streams of colors freely float in space. Next to the Buddha, a decapitated head with its forehead punctured by a sharp object, appears to scream. Dharma cakka (the Wheel of Truth) rotates and turns into spikes and muzzles. Truth and justice become evil forces that crush the helpless masses. On the left, the spirits of the students and civilians hover in the sky. Their flag is torn by bullets as they hold up their weapons to defend themselves. There is a macabre feeling through out the work. The viewer is bombarded with the images of mutilated and disembodied limbs as well as twisted, spasmodic figures with rolling eyes. It is a powerful and grisly reminder of the atrocities which occurred in Bangkok.

When the painting was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Bangkok a year after it was completed, the exhibition room was packed with viewers, many of whom sat and cried for hours in front of the painting in remembrance of those fateful days.

Pratuang went on to create a series of works that were powerful social criticisms of exploitation of peasants. Using a combination of realistic and semi-abstract techniques, his pen drawings and canvases refer to images of rural life.

In Grains, Sickle, and a Lump of Clay rays of light dissect the craggy soil while rice grains, a large sickle, and a skeleton in the foreground symbolize the peasant.

Red Morning-Glory and Rotten Gun contrasts soft, twining plants with pungent leaves and powerful firearms. Like Dali, who painted such disturbing images as limp watches in a landscape, Pratuang created an illusion in which time has the ability to make weapons rot and wilt like vegetables. Among these objects are skulls chained to the bayonets of rifles, a flimsy Thai flag, a lacerated bleeding moon, and a crying decapitated head of the Buddha.

Sacrifice (The Fasting Buddha), Pratuang used an image of the suffering Buddha as a symbol to overcome antagonism among his compatriots. the fasting Buddha sits in the posture of meditation. The line which cuts through the middle of his body is the axis of the world and represents the division between the' lefts' and the 'rights'. He is seated on a globe which is full of fear, ugliness, suffering as well as piety and righteousness. The white halo contrasts with the black hollow space in his stomach. Next to the heart of the Buddha, a black circle - a bullet hole - pierces his flesh. The painting is extremely disturbing as the Buddha, who symbolizes good ness and perseverance, is the witness of barbarity and catastrophe.

(Excerpts from Modern Art in Thailand (Oxford University Press, 1992) by Dr. Apinan Poshyananda).