Features

Transformation, Reinvigoration and Reinvention: The Art and Life of George Keyt (1901 – 1993), Part I

Published

2 years ago

2024/02/11

By Dr. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda

The material for this article has been drawn from the recently published work, George Keyt. The Absence of a Desired Image by SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda (Taprobane Collection, Sri Lanka 2023)

Born a year after the turn of the 20th century, George Keyt was one of the leading figures of European modernism in Asia. Fusing the influences of Modernism and Cubism with his own unique idiom, Keyt became one of the most important Asian artists of his time and the most celebrated Sri Lankan painter of the 20^th century.

George Percival Sproule Keyt was born in 1901. Ceylon was then at the height of its prosperity and was considered one of the jewels in the imperial crown. Riding this wave of affluence was a diverse and cosmopolitan élite. Often described as “Ceylonese,” it was bound together by Western values and a deeply Anglicized lifestyle.

Keyt’s parents were Eurasians, an ethnically diverse community of European and Asian origin which had grown up during three waves of conquest and colonialism by the Portuguese, the Dutch and finally the British. Known as Burghers, during the British era, they became an integral part of the colonial structure. They were employed by the British to staff the government service and people the legal, educational and medical professions.

Ushering in the Buddhist Revival in Ceylon. Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and Madame Helena Pavlov Blavatsky

Their way of life was almost completely Western, English was their mother tongue and Christianity their religion. The Burghers were regarded as the loyal servants of empire and accorded a privileged position amongst the other communities. They prided themselves on their European identity and their service to the British Empire.

This wedding photograph depicts George Keyt at 29, on the day of his marriage with his family and in laws.

Keyt however was born and grew up in Kandy in the central highlands. This was a very different world to the Europeanized atmosphere of Colombo. A natural fortress, surrounded by rugged mountains and impassable tropical jungles, the Kandyan Kingdom had held would be conquerors at bay since the 16th century. Although Kandy finally fell to the English in 1815, it remained deeply grounded in its beliefs and traditions. At it the very heart of this culture was worship of the Buddha.

Keyt was sent to Trinity College, Kandy, one of the island’s leading schools. Founded during the heyday of empire, Trinity College was a public school on British lines. Established in 1872 it sought to provide a Western and Christian education which would mould the young people of the newly conquered Kandyan highlands. From the very outset however, Keyt showed that he had no interest in Western education and no intention of being moulded into anything. Although he read widely and voraciously, Keyt refused to learn or study and left Trinity without passing any exams.

After Trinity, Keyt found himself drawn to the Buddhist temples and monasteries which dominated Kandy. The last bastion of Sinhalese culture, Kandy was heir to a civilization going back thousands of years. This rich, multi-layered inheritance captured Keyt’s imagination and appealed to his mind. This heritage was kept alive by the two great monastic orders, the Malwatte and the Asgiriya, which had for centuries had been repositories of Sinhala lore and learning.

Keyt was fascinated by the rhythms of the temple and the life of the monks, who introduced him to the teachings and the texts of Theravada Buddhism. This opened his eyes to a whole new world of knowledge and a completely different way of life. Keyt began to understand the Sinhala language and study the history, the literature and folklore of the land.

Ploughing (1953). George Keyt. Oil on Board. 92 x 123 cm Taprobane Collection

The Walk in the Rain, George Keyt, Ceylon Observer Annual(1936)

He proved himself an eager and attentive student. Immersing himself in Buddhism and Sinhala culture, he read widely and deeply. Like many “Ceylonese” of his era, Keyt had been completely ignorant of the culture and the heritage of his own country. This was the first real education that he had ever had. It provided him with a structure, giving him a direction and purpose which he had been lacking.

Buddhist Monks (1932), Oil on Canvas, 60 x 88 cm. Sapumal Foundation

The early 20th century witnessed a gathering tide of Buddhist consciousness. During the last century, British policies had gradually whittled away the place of Buddhism in society. With the dawn of the 20^th century, there was an upsurge of religious and cultural sentiments throughout the colony. The stirrings of anti-colonial resistance combined with the beginnings of a renaissance in Buddhism.

Keyt was swept up in this new fervor and he published a series of articles on Buddhist subjects for a publication known as the Buddhist Annual. Grounding himself in the teachings of the Buddha, Keyt built up a thorough understanding of its doctrines and practices. He also acquired a knowledge of Sinhala and Pali and produced translations of Buddhist texts. In 1925 Keyt produced a series of line drawings for the Buddhist Annual, relating episodes from the Life of the Buddha. These drawings mark the beginning of his career as an artist.

The Buddha and His First Disciples,

George Keyt, The Buddhist Annual of Ceylon (1925) Volume II, No. 3

· The Enlightenment, George Keyt, The Buddhist Annual of Ceylon (1925), Volume II, No. 3

In 1938 George Keyt published his first major literary work, Poetry from the Sinhalese. In his youth Keyt had steeped himself in Romantic and Victorian poetry; he now imbibed the world of Sinhala verse in all its many forms. Completed when he was nearly 40, this work shows how far Keyt had moved away from his colonial inheritance. The sheer depth and variety of knowledge that it unveils suggests how much Keyt had grown and how deeply he had immersed himself in the culture of his land.

In 1938 Keyt published an illustrated short story, entitled The Walk in the Rain. The illustration depicts a figure stumbling through a stark, modernist landscape. The eye is drawn to a darkened figure in silhouette, trying to find his way through a storm of wind, rain and imagined fear. During this time he published two volumes of poetry. The Darkness Disrobed (1937) and Image in Absence (1937). These two works suggest that he stood on the threshold of a great change. His poem, The Path , begins with these words, “It is solid things I renounce. ” The last two lines end as follows, “And I travel where discernment and blind eyes fear to go, Or feel it is foolish to travel.”

Abandoning his wife Ruth and his two young daughters, Keyt began a new life with his children’s ayah, Lucia, in the hills and valleys of the Kandyan countryside. He found himself in the midst of a rural farming community, a world close to nature, governed by the sun and the needs of daily life. Turning his back on the life which he had lived, Keyt immersed himself in this new reality.

This new environment opened his eyes to a totally different way of looking at the world, giving him a depth and an originality which sharpened his creativity. Although Keyt himself came from a Westernized, deeply colonized background, he was able to understand and appreciate this world for what it was. As he moved further and further away from colonial convention, he was able to see more deeply.

No telephone bells rang in the Kandyan village. Oil lamps lit the evening. The smallest glimmerings of dawn began this day. The affairs of the village regulated the conversation. But this conversation was not so limited as some would suppose. The art was the great art of Kandyan dancing. The religion was the grand, humane, intellectual, inexhaustible Buddhist faith. The history was the continuous history of 186 kings recorded by Buddhist priests in the Pali chronicles. Sinhalese poetry, almost dead in the towns, still flourished in the country.

Martin Russell, George Keyt (Marg Publications, Bombay, 1950)

Ploughing (1953). George Keyt. Oil on Board. 92 x 123 cm Taprobane Collection

As he saw, he was able to create. In changing his world, Keyt had discovered an identity and a foundation. This gave him the confidence and the direction to evolve and explore. Keyt had not only changed his religion, he had changed his lifestyle, had left his wife and his home to adapt to a new a way of living. In doing so, he set about creating his own style of painting. Breaking with colonial culture, Keyt was able to identify with a national heritage and an indigenous consciousness.

All News Advertisement

Up Next

Horana Plantations and WNPS PLANT building an ambitious nine km Forest Corridor

Don't Miss

AKD in New Delhi: Some thoughts about the ‘Indian policy’ of a progressive government

Click to comment

Features

The Division Bell Mystery

Published

21 hours ago

2026/05/29

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 3

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

The Brahms and Simon detective novels, the first of which I wrote about last week, were amongst several books by the pair that Robert Scoble gave me when I was in Australia towards the end of last year. Amongst them was another thriller of a very different sort, though that too was written and set between the wars.

Called The Division Bell Mystery, it was set in the House of Commons, the first such book I believe, and was by Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP who became Minister of Education in Attlee’s government after the war, having served previously as Parliamentary Private Secretary to several ministers. Her hero Robert West is also a PPS, but a conservative, and his Minister, of Home Affairs, is an old style aristocrat, not much loved by the less orthodox Prime Minister, who nevertheless needs his support on many occasions.

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

West was just outside the door when the shot was heard, and when he opened it saw only the dead body with a revolver beside it. The assumption that this was suicide was however challenged by Oissel’s grand-daughter Annette, who was his heir, on the grounds that he would never have killed himself. But her view was given greater credence by the Inspector put in charge of the case who said there were no burn marks on the body which would have been the case had Oissel fired the pistol himself.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Oissel’s flat had been burgled while he was at dinner, and Jenks the policeman allocated to him, who had served the Home Secretary and seemed more acceptable to Oissel than someone from the Security Service, had been killed. Matters get even more complicated when Annette says her grand-father’s notebook in which he wrote his secrets in cipher was missing.

That was found in Jenks’ pocket, and then a photographer came to West to say he had been asked by Jenks to photograph this. More worryingly for West, he finds in the Home Secretary’s drawer a few pages from the notebook with what appears to be an interpretation of the cipher.

Ellen

Overwhelmed by all this he confides in a recently created peer who knows all about the business world, who insists that they leave the house party at which they had met over dinner and discuss the matter with the Prime Minister who promptly summons the Home Secretary.

But the Home Secretary had gone to Scotland to launch a ship over the weekend, so the meeting could take place only on the morning of the Monday, when difficult questions were expected on the adjournment motion. He admits at the meeting that he had got Jenks to take the notebook, and also that he knew the code since it had been created by him and Oissel when they were young.

He thought he should resign, and even contemplated suicide, but the Prime Minister told him that that would be even worse for the government, and that he should go home to bed. The Prime Minister said that he himself would handle the question, which he did with aplomb, insisting that confidentiality was needed until the inquest. What had happened would be made clear then, he declared, leaving West and Inspector Blackit and Lord Dalbeattie what seemed the impossible task of solving the murder.

Dalbeattie had suggested that West ask a female Labour MP who was very fond of him to get what information she could from the staff. That there was some involvement there had become clear when West, going back late one night to collect a briefcase he had left in a dining room, found someone lurking in the dark in the corridor outside the private rooms. Room J, where the murder had happened, was meant to be guarded throughout by a policeman, but he had left the room having felt dizzy, and it seemed that his coffee had been drugged. West’s sudden appearance however had prevented anyone else getting into the room.

Dalbeattie decides to recreate the scene of the murder and has a dinner party in Room J on the Tuesday night, inviting West and Annette and the society hostess at whose house he had met, and also Patrick Kinnaird, an MP who was engaged to Annette, as well as the Permanent Secretary to the Home Ministry.

After coffee Inspector Blackit comes in with Grace, the Labour MP who had got the confidence of the staff, and a journalist who had also been helpful, and just as they say they think they are on the track the division bell rings. Grace jumps up and tells the Inspector that that provides the solution and they get a ladder, and sure enough find the revolver in the space where the bell is. Directed at the place where Oissel had sat, it had been primed to go off with the ringing of the bell. The waiter who had helped to set things up made clear who the murderer had been.

The reason for the murder and the confused motives of all those involved made for a fascinatingly intricate mix. But also impressive in the book were the descriptions of the isolation possible in the crowded premises of the house, the forceful characterization of the members – Grace based on the writer, the society hostess based on Nancy Astor, the first female MP – and the laid back nature of senior politicians which West realized had to change in the brave new world of high finance.

Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.