In honor of Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, Olivier Barot’s documentary, Sri Aurobindo & The Earth’s Future was premiered. The film is available for streaming and was screened in different venues in Auroville. This beautifully researched project traces the life of Sri Aurobindo from his early days, to his synthesis of his yoga and revolutionary work, and his arrival in Pondicherry.
To enhance the photographs used in the narration, Olivier wanted to find someone to create an artistic representation of Sri Aurobindo. Auroville youth India Letizia, a gifted student who had taken up painting, was able to bring her artistic sensibility to the project. The watercolors bring a vibrancy and a sense personal connection to the images of Sri Aurobindo.
Here are Olivier’s words about India and her work:
India, who did the water color paintings, is just 19 and is living here, in Auroville, with her Italian parents, brothers and sisters.It is Emmanuele (the cartoonist) who introduced her to me when I was looking for someone to do the illustrations.She had just completed her studies at Last School and was passionate about painting.
To work with her was a real pleasure and I was particularly pleased to see how talented and flexible she was. From the beginning I wanted to have some impressionistic feeling for the paintings while keeping a clear resemblance with Sri Aurobindo and that’s how I thought watercolors would work well.I also wanted to have a kind of sepia/lavis toning to be in harmony with the old photos of the 19 century.
I think India succeeded beautifully especially because she wasn’t familiar at all with watercolors when we met. She was into oil painting then and watercolor is a very different technique but she could make rapid progress and finally do what was needed.She would like now to study in a good art school in Europe or America and I really hope she will make it.
