Why KG Subramanyan's art includes China's landscapes and quotidian scenes of life in its small towns

In 1985, KG Subramanyan visited China on an invitation from the China Artists Association. Besides Beijing, he travelled to the Dunhuang caves in the northwestern province of Gansu, then to the neighbouring autonomous region of Xinjiang, and from there, in a big arc, to the province of Shaanxi and all the way down to the southern province of Guangdong. Given the interest in Chinese art that he shared with many Santiniketan artists, including his mentors Nandalal Bose and Benodebehari Mukherjee, he took it as a welcome opportunity to know the diversity of culture, people and landscape of China firsthand and…