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Home , Benode Behari Mukherjee, Lalit Kala Akademi, Nandalal Bose

the art of the art of CONTENTS

January – March 2012 Director’s Note 5 © 2012 Art Gallery Pvt. Ltd., Editor’s Note 7

White, Black And Grey: 10 The Colonial Interface Paula Sengupta

‘Revivalism’ And The 32 11 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110016, ‘Bengal School’ Tel: 91 11 46005300 Sanjoy Mallik DLF Emporio, Second Floor, Vasant Kunj

New Delhi 110070, India History And Utopia 44 Tel: 91 11 41004150 Ina Puri Email: [email protected] www.delhiartgallery.com Late 18th Century -1910 62

PROJECT EDITOR: Kishore Singh 1911-1920 103 EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Shruti Parthasarathy PROJECT COORDINATOR: Nishant and Neha Berlia 1921-1930 120 RESEARCH: Aditya Jha, Puja Kaushik, Poonam Baid, Sukriti Datt 1931-1940 140

PHOTOGRAPHY OF ARTWORKS: Durga Pada Chowdhury 1941-1950 164

RESTORATION: Priya Khanna 1951-1960 208

DESIGN: Madhav Tankha, Vivek Sahni – Vivek Sahni Design 1961-1970 252

PRINT: Archana Printers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 1971-1980 298 All rights are reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, 1981-1990 340 electronic and mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing 1991-2010 368 from the publisher. 2000-2010 400

ISBN: 978-93-81217-23-8 Artist Profiles 415

Front cover: Author Profiles 452 Back cover:

Artist Groups in Bengal 453

Bibliography 454

Artist Index 461 DIRECTOR’S NOTE

engal – the association with its art (and literature, and cinema, and food) is instinctive, almost as if it’s DNA-coded into its people. For Indians, as for people around the Bworld, Bengal in general, and Calcutta (now ) in particular, is the crucible of, especially, modern art. Here it was that coloniser and colonised first met in a clash of cultures, and the Bengali is still arguing about who triumphed from that epic collision. While that adda will classically find no winners, or losers, here, within Delhi Art Gallery, I am delighted to say that we have never worked harder than for this particular exposition. My colleagues in the documentation division have been burning the midnight oil to meet an extremely tight deadline for pulling in material from different sources, reading up books and catalogues, researching dates – in which exercise I have contributed not a little to the chaos and debates – but in my defence, let me say that Bengal and Bengal-influenced artists are the lifeblood of Delhi Art Gallery. I was educated, so to speak, on Indian modern art when I first travelled to what is now Kolkata, and to places around it, where the culture of art was still alive and strong, and where it was easy to see works by the masters, even though large swathes of it was lying in a state of neglect. I was lucky that artists and their families let me in to see and acquire these fabulous treasures, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am that with this exhibition, I will have fulfilled my dream of putting together what must be the largest such exposition on the art of Bengal. There is no other private collection with a repository as rich as that of Delhi Art Gallery, and I am proud that we can showcase the splendid contribution Bengal has made to the world of through this exposition. Much as I must thank everyone who has worked on this exhibition from within as well as outside Delhi Art Gallery, it is the hundreds of artists and their families as well as the early patrons and collectors of Bengal art who have inspired my close-to fifteen years of collecting, who are owed my gratitude. I am delighted to have the opportunity to now take this fountainhead of Indian modernism and bring it to art-lovers in India and around the world. I hope it will be an equally enriching experience for all of you. Ashish Anand

5 EDITOR’S NOTE

hat is the extent of Bengal art? With only one clear focus – that it must reflect our insist- ence on modernism in all its implications – we were still unprepared for the sheer length Wand breadth of what the region’s art practice offered us. We were, of course, sure that we would not be narrowed into a straitjacketed fit that looked at Bengal art as defined for too many years as the outcome of what is discussed as the Bengal School, or as revivalism – both terms which one of our scholars, Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, places within quote marks. This healthy debate – both in the es- says in this book, and between ourselves at the Gallery when we set out to take stock of the project, has shaped this book. It has done so in ways that, I hope, will invite everyone from scholars to art- lovers to review their own and current perceptions about Bengal (not Bengali) art.

For a start, we decided to define for ourselves what Bengal represented. Because of the considerable scholarship previously available, we found that there were no hitches when it came to going back to a time when the first winds of modernism blew in from Europe in the form of traveller-artists who arrived in India in general, and Calcutta in particular. Documentary evidence of their work has sur- vived in the form of those works either in Calcutta itself (Victoria Memorial being a treasure trove) or in national museum collections and in, particularly, the British Museum and Library in London. Printed references of their works made possible a study of the images as well as the peculiarities of the occidental eye and art practice. There, were, of course, Dutch artists who probably preceded the British and influenced the local artists in Bengal – leading to what came to be known as Dutch-Bengal art, which later developed as Company . In Calcutta, it was a period of change and transition.

That influence and those changes and their documentation was less difficult than what was to follow. In the suburbs and villages surrounding Calcutta grew a printing industry that was shaped by local subjects and European technology; several of the lithographs, oleographs and chromolithographs in our collection contained printed references of the names of the presses Paula Sengupta discusses in her essay – but the challenge lay in providing dates for them.

Dates – about which artists typically have been lackadaisical in the past – were to become our bane, beginning with those printed works. When might the original have been done? When the first litho- graph? When the bazaar prints? Experts were consulted, we pored over books, the existence of the presses within their time frames was taken into account – to the extent possible, the dates ascribed to works are accurate or near-accurate suggested by our research.

6 7 The same skills were called on repeatedly as a large number of works by even well-known artists particular affinity to Bengal in their works – ergo, they could be eliminated from the selection. There is remained undated. In the past, scholars had tended to leave a very wide window when it came to no doubt that some scholars, or even artists, will take us to task over this method, but it was one we dating works that had not been ascribed a date by those artists long since dead. We did not have that felt was fair and without prejudice. luxury because we had decided – and at times it had seemed frustrating – to place the selected works in a chronological order. Earlier representations from Bengal had tended to place groups of artists to- The selection of the artists was difficult enough, that of finalising the artworks was painful. How gether, or placed them by either subject or groups. We avoided what would have been thus conveni- many Nandalal Boses could we include? Did we really have to eliminate those beautiful Benode Behari ent for what we felt was more important: for readers to be able to see the parallel developments taking Mukherjees? Were the works representative across different periods, genres and all mediums? Was place in the region. our selection, in a sense, good enough to be a retrospective of Bengal art? If mostly we were fortunate to suffer a problem of plenty, some gaps became evident and had to be plugged – in a hurry. The di- In a sense, this coalesced too with our understanding of Bengal art which included, of course, what rector pulled out all stops and all his contacts and set to travelling, to come back with more treasures, is referred to as pre-Independence art alongside what the Bengal School, and which required more changes on our pages, causing dismay to our book designers in the bargain. his students came to represent, the work that was happening in Santiniketan which represented still another genre of modernism, to, of course, the later course of modernism that took select aesthetics A final hurdle remained with regard to cut-offs. There are, after all, a large number of recognised artists from the revivalists but charted its own vocabulary in response to what the artists experienced around practicing in Bengal – but since Delhi Art Gallery confines itself largely to the space of the masters and them. And what a sensory overload it represented across different mediums, the same period show- the moderns, the younger contemporaries – no matter how popular – were kept out, including such casing works by widely different artists, styles and genres in an approach that showed the existence artists as Chittravonu Mazumdar, Jaya Ganguly, Paresh Maity and Jayasri Burman. of many layers of simultaneous art practice. Just as the dates had caused us no little trouble, the spellings of names was a nightmare. Artists signed That this imposed the rigour of dating each individual work made the task that much more challeng- in one way, books spelt their names in various other ways, and there was an existing inconsistency ing. As in the previous case, we studied all published references, ascertained when artists were paint- with regard to their names anyway, given how people had spelt their names in varied manners – ing in a particular style, or series, or using a certain medium; we contacted the artists’ families (some Bampada (Bamapada in some books) Banerjee signed his works as Banerji, but convention uses the were extremely helpful while a few pleaded ignorance), we rang up institutions and generally made former spelling, so we chose to go with that. As a result, there are minor variations in the detailing of pests of ourselves – but the reservoir of information that we have been able to generate, and use, in works, but we have made every effort to record these, so the information provided is at least accurate. this book should go a long way in fuelling more research and also show the gains of persistence. If spellings confounded us, getting information on some artists, or their photographs, was like look- ing for a needle in the proverbial haystack. The research and documentation team read through end- If the inclusion of geographical Bengal notched up a fresh approach to looking at its art, there arose less reams to drag out any reference from long-forgotten and dusty books and journals, trying to piece the other issue: which were the artists we would include, or leave out? On the face of it, what ap- together profiles on artists who had left behind their work but little else about themselves. We hope peared simple became a complex issue the moment we tried to engage with scholars, or artists, about this effort will go a long way in adding to the documentation available on lesser-known artists from the bonafides of including an artist’s works in our final selection. Our own litmus test finally came to the past. our rescue. Was the artist from Bengal? If so, that artist was to be included, provided the artist’s prac- tice was based in the state for a little or all his/her life. Did the artist study art for an extensive period In the end, therefore, we’re left with only the matter of statistics. The book documents 401 works by in either Calcutta or Santinketan? If you ticked yes, chances are that the artist would be included in 104 artists – possibly the largest such endeavour with reference to Bengal art undertaken – and not the selection and not be edited out if, like Ramgopal Vijaivargiya, the artist continued to paint in a including the many images researched for the accompanying essays, but which do not all form a part style that was associated with Bengal. K. G. Subramanyan was included because of his long and inti- of the Delhi Art Gallery collection. Added to or removed, debated and pared down – as we look at this mate association with Santiniketan, both during and post his studies when he returned to teach there comprehensive selection, and reading material, it is with a sense of awe at the achievements of the and work. Sakti Burman found place because he held his first-ever exhibition in Calcutta, claims his artists of Bengal art that we now commend it to you. It will, I hope, remain a point of reference, serve Bengali genes, and his art does make reference to Bengal such as in his use of Durga in the paintings. as rigourous documentation and be a source of joy for years to come. If inclusion was difficult, omission was doubly so – but we reconciled to the fact that Arpita Singh, for instance, or Anjolie Ela Menon, do not play up their Bengaliness in any overt way, nor show any Kishore Singh

8 9 ‘REVIVALISM’ AND THE

‘BENGAL SCHOOL’ Abanindranath Tagore (Back Row, Sec- ond From Left) Seen With His Disciples. Seated From Left To Right – (Back Row) Satyendra Dutta, Abanindranath, Hakim Khan, ; (Middle Sanjoy Kumar Mallik Row)- Venkatappa, And (Front Row) – Durgesh Sinha, Asit Hal- dar, Sailendranath Dey, Kshitindranath Majumdar

It is quite common to meet the two terms that Such a chronology certainly has ample logic to it; for to distinctive linguistic configuration, and on the ‘The Bengal School, while it originated in Bengal with form the title of this essay – they are used almost it was the initial efforts from Abanindranath to look other the Santiniketan experience and the contact the work of Abanindranath Tagore, nevertheless simultaneously and interchangeably to imply a back at the tradition of Indian miniature paintings with propels him beyond the soon became national … in the second generation period, a location, a stylistic tendency and a related to evolve an alternative and viable personal language boundaries of a harking-back-to-the-past such that the activity of his followers spread over the country philosophy in the emerging early modern in in the context of the then present, which sparked off his later works, especially those done in the decade and their students (the third generation) were Indian art. While the term ‘revivalism’ is intimately the ‘school’ and the stylistic characteristics associated of the 1960s, would perhaps need to be defined from many parts of India. Local artists who had connected to linguistic convictions that formed a with it. However, what needs to be simultaneously beyond ‘revival’ of any kind. Subsequently, the no connection with the master or his disciples also shared common ground for the artists constituting pointed out is that, even within the oeuvre of the transformation of the ‘Bengal School’ in the hands adopted the style, which finally lost itself in remote, the category, the term ‘Bengal School’ is an obvious initiator, referring to past traditions did not remain of Nandalal’s students like attenuated and weak variations.’ locational nomenclature. As an introductory stilted at the level of merely reviving a ‘lost world’ and would be the third stage of proposition for the first, it would be worthwhile to back to life. Rather, it involved a process of continual development. In his The art of Abanindranath Tagore and Regional Responses consider that the pursuance of a lost and glorious past re-interpretation and transmutation whereby to the Spirit of Revival (2005), Dr. Ratan Parimoo claims did not carry the same meaning to all the members each stage in Abanindranath’s development as that revivalism in visual arts ‘closely interdependent belonging to this category, and that even such re- an artist was marked by a repeated restructuring the aesthetics of with the scholarly efforts of reassessment of India’s invocation gradually so transfigured in the hands and reconstitution of the artistic quest — crossing hoary artistic heritage is a belated but a glorious of many that it may no longer be possible to label over and beyond the assured satisfaction with the ‘revivalism’ culminating phase of India’s “Renaissance” during these final results as ‘revival’. For the second, there achieved in an attempt to seek fresh ground. This is the colonial rule’. He draws attention to E. B. Before we consider artists and art-works associated have been sufficient scholarly contributions that what makes his oeuvre so varied and distinctive, and Havell’s efforts at the Government School of Art in with the pictorial language identified by the name have stressed the fact that the stylistic convictions it is this that needs to be addressed and contemplated Calcutta and to his long essay, ‘The revival of Indian ‘Bengal School’, it shall prove useful to consider extended well beyond the geographical boundaries while looking back at the repetitive continuation of handicrafts’ (1901-1907; published c. 1910) as an in- briefly how art historians and critics have referred of a land of the Bengali speaking community. a certain pictorial mannerism that later gained the depth report on textile weaving in the country, as to it. For instance, Jaya Appaswamy writes in her disparaging nomenclature which ‘Bengal School’ has well as to ’s essay, ‘Art and monograph Abanindranath Tagore and the Art of His The above-mentioned convention charts the history come to signify. Swadeshi’ (1911). According to Dr. Parimoo, Havell Times (1968), that the ‘Bengal School’ was the ‘first of the ‘Bengal School’/‘revival’ beginning with was ‘convinced that the “revival of Indian art” could aesthetic development that appeared at the turn of Abanindranath Tagore, and continues down to his It is also in this light that one needs to mention be accomplished… In an essay of 1912 [‘The basis for the century’, and that the term was ‘now associated students, admirers and followers who aimed to Abanindranath’s student Nandalal Bose. With artistic and industrial revival in India’], he reasserted with a style rather than with a period of time or derive their individual pictorial diction from that Nandalal, on the one hand a broadening of limits that the cause he had at heart was “promoting the with a regional development’. She wrote: which was personally evolved by Abanindranath. for what defines the past pictorial traditions leads revival of India art and craft” … “to help educated

32 33 Indians for a better understanding of their own to cordon off the school as a closed and rarified unit one cannot imagine how much greater his success national art” … “revive your architecture, your – and questioned the exclusiveness or validity of the would have been, but that there can be no doubt industries and your commerce, and give a higher type of “Indian” art it propagated. that the position of the ‘Indian’ style would have motive for every work you find to do. Your art, thus been more assured in world art. Chatterjee held the ennobled, will not fail to ennoble yourselves”.’ ‘What began as an “avant-garde” movement, had, in opinion that the ascetic ideal of forsaking-the-world- the course of two decades, become a kind of parallel as-mere-illusion was a much later development, Among the most severe critics of the ‘Bengal School’ establishment in itself. Though its aesthetics openly and that a delight in natural forms and activities is Amrita Sher-Gil. In a letter dated December 23, negated such a stand, the Abanindranath camp, can be observed even at Ajanta. On the other hand, 1936, to Karl Khandalavala, she wrote under the title by the early twenties, stood most clearly identified without mentioning Ravi Varma by name, Sister ‘Ellora, Ajanta, revelations’: by its lowest common denominator: by its fixed Nivedita of the Ramakrishna Mission condemned stereotype of “Indian-style” . The collective, a painting of Shakuntala, saying that for a country ‘Ajanta curiously subtle and fascinating. Portions of unfortunately, had come to be defined by this where the posture of a lady lying stretched on the both, specially Ajanta, that are not good… But when standardised unit and its patterns of conformity. floor was unimaginable in public, it was strange it is good, I don’t think I have ever seen anything that To counter the Western academic style, the Bengal that almost every home contained a picture of a can equal it. Simply extraordinary. I don’t wonder School offered their own formula of an “India- fat young woman writing a letter on a lotus leaf though that it could have produced the Bengal style”. As formulae replaced formulae, what began in that position. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy began school. Dangerous stuff to take into the system as a “movement”, a creative urge towards change by acknowledging a nationalising influence in Ravi unassimilated. I could describe the characteristics of and a new identity, folded inwards into a “school”, Varma’s choice of themes, but was of the view that Ajanta and the Bengal school in two words. Ajanta stagnating even as it reached its peak of success. It the rendering, with its theatrical conception, want is painting with a kernel, the painting of the Bengal was, therefore, inevitable that new innovative trends of imagination, and lack of ‘Indian feeling’ in the school has only got a shell, it is a lot of things built and more self-conscious waves of modernism in treatment of sacred and epic Indian subjects were round nothing, a lot of unessential things and it emerged outside the bounds of the serious drawbacks. In his opinion too, Ravi Varma’s would cease to exist if those unessential things were school, defying classification under its set categories gods and heroes were in effect common men and taken away from it.’ of an “India-style”.’ women who find themselves in situations for which they do not have a proper capacity. In contrast, And again, in a letter dated August 24, 1937, she Coomaraswamy championed Abanindranath wrote: Tagore, praising paintings like the Meghaduta series content vs style: and The Passing of Shah Jahan for their tender grace and ‘And again about Tagore … He paints from the kernel, adapting to change ‘Indianness’, not only as the renewed flowering of which is what the Bengali people have no notion of past liveliness, but as a strong and vigorous promise and which is the only way to paint soundly.’ It is against the backdrop of the adoption of of an abundant future. European realism in Indian art that the new ‘Indian’ In an essay titled ‘Indian art today’, Amrita wrote: pictorial language initiated by Abanindranath has Abanindranath’s prominence, therefore, was been hailed as contextually relevant. And the person as much from a shifting notion of style as an ‘It is only in the sense that the Bengal school has most obviously cited in opposition is Raja Ravi associated aesthetic, debated furiously and made at least a certain layer of people in India aware Varma, who had received phenomenal acclaim as a defined with passion by individuals dedicated of the great art their country possessed in the past full-fledged, individual, professional throughout the to the upholding of tradition and the national. that this movement has justified its existence.’ country. It coincided, and was coeval, with the swadeshi movement in the British-dominated Indian As an example of a comprehensive summing-up, Contemporary responses to his pictorial language political scenario, and may probably be seen as Abanindranath Tagore Tapati Guha-Thakurta mentioned the Bengal School form an index to the debates around the adoption the cultural counterpart of the political battle Birth of Krishna Watercolour on paper, c. 1895-97 in her book, The Making of New Indian Art/Artists, Aesthetics of an alien form of realism into the emerging new for independence. It was from within this will to Published: Kripalani, K. R., ed., Abanindra and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850-1920 (1992), thus: ‘The Indian art. For instance, Ramananda Chatterjee felt define a distinction that Abanindranath would Number: The Visva-Bharati Quarterly diversities and divergences that marked the Calcutta that if a man of Ravi Varma’s originality and feeling point to art being associated more with ‘fancy’ May-Oct 1942, plate no. 15 art scene during the first decades of the century served for beauty had in youth followed the Indian style, (shakh, in Bengali) than training (shiksha). The

34 35 Abanindranath Tagore dissolved rather than revealed in sharp definition, If we skip over the intervening phases to a series The Passing of Shah Jahan led to the by-now well-known technical innovation of forty-five paintings on the theme of the Arabian Oil on wood, 1902 of ‘wash’-painting – dipping a painting numerous Nights that Abanindranath painted in the 1930s, Published: Appasamy, Jaya, times in a bath of water to arrive at an overall tonal we will observe how the painter clears the mist of Abanindranath Tagore and and chromatic harmony. Siddhas of the Upper Air symbolism to give way to a world of facts, where the the Art of his Times (New Delhi: , introduces the element of bhava or the evocation of protagonists are like performers who don costumes 1968), facing title page mood, which Abanindranath subsequently held as to play characters in a world of storytelling. In the the highest of priority in a work of art. In Shah Jahan process of interweaving fact and fiction, the rational dreaming of the Taj, the linear and the tonal, the distance and the fantastic, Abanindranath set his Arabian Nights and the flatness, the naturalistic and the abstracted, against the backdrop of his own city, Calcutta. The are held in a blended harmony by the unifying mystery of its urban structures took on the character overall tint of wash. Therefore one does not see the of the Arabian Nights; Calcutta did not become the brilliantly modelled clouds in the sky as a necessary metaphor but play-acted the Arabian Nights within disjuncture to the less tonally varied flatness of the itself. This was not a literal translation of a textual emperor’s dress or even the amorphous expanse narrative into the visual but a retelling in which Abanindranath Tagore of the bank of an equally pale river. The effect of a anachronistic intrusions of the anglicised Calcutta Fom the Rubaiyyat of Omar misty haze amalgamates the diversity of elements ambience replace the Arabia of old, seen best in the Khayyam into a single harmonious statement where the paintings Hunchback of the Fishbone and Sindbad the Sailor. Watercolour wash on paper implied psychological impact is of a dreamy mood Abanindranath Tagore and the and a vision of a forthcoming project imagined And finally, when we venture on to the found-object Art of his Times (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1968), p. 22 introspectively at its prospective site. assemblages christened Kutum Katam and the final two series of paintings titled Kavikankanchandi and In the several versions painted of The Rubaiyat of Omar Krishnamangal (both 1938), we find Abanindranath vibrant cultural ambience of the Tagore house at Khayyam, the possibilities of the wash technique are engaged in the rejection of all classical reference Jorasanko provided an ideal backdrop for this. explored to their full. The Omar Khayyam pictures in favour of an adaptation of the folk in form, not only respond to translated versions that composition and rhythm. Among his earliest attempt to depart from the strict themselves took liberties with the text in the process realism of the European academic kind is Shuklavisar of translation, but even re-interpret them further – This brief invocation of Abanindranath carries the (tryst by night). Not surprisingly, Abanindranath pictorially – in the Indianisation of costumes and intention of drawing attention to the fact that if he was far from satisfied, and felt that his Radha was settings, or the redefinition of the character types. is assumed to be the initiator of a ‘school’, then it is more like an European lady clad in a sari and left Thematically as well as in linguistic terms, this is within his own practice that the range and breadth uncomfortably out on a cold night. Passing through a further index to choices that were possible from of the possibilities would serve to break all notions the subsequent Krishna-lila series, when he arrived within the pictorial norm that would lead to the of stricture and limitation that critics of the ‘new’ at the Abisarika, the fusion of various traditions, formation of the ‘Bengal School’. Indian language claim. including European naturalism, produced a composite language through synthesis. Abisarika’s In the Phalguni phase that followed, Abanindranath Radha belongs neither to the past worlds nor wholly stepped out of the assurance of his own schema Abanindranath Tagore to the present. and embarked on a relatively more impressionistic the politics of Shah Jahan dreaming of the Taj language with themes that responded not to any assimilation and change Watercolour on paper, c. 1910-11 It was through his interaction with Hishida hoary past but rather the immediate present – the Published: Kripalani, K. R., ed., Shunsho and , painters from the performance of a play by Rabindranath Tagore. Once We now briefly trace salient examples in Nandalal Abanindra Number: The Visva- circle of Japanese aesthete and connoisseur Kakuzo again, as a reinterpretation of an interpretation, from Bose’s work, who begins by following in the footsteps Bharati Quarterly May-Oct 1942, Okakura who arrived in Calcutta around 1903, that the text of the play to its performance and on to the of Abanindranath with his Sati (1907) where the plate no. 24; Abanindranath Tagore Golden Jubilee Number Abanindranath arrived at a transformation in Siddhas paintings, Abanindranath moved in the direction of Abanindranath-invented ‘wash’ technique has (Calcutta: Indian Society of of the Upper Air. The ‘veil of atmosphere’, with forms free interpretations. been put to the service of glorifying the by-then Oriental Art, 1961), p. 40

36 37 abolished, inhuman practice, elevated to the realm of iconic appreciation and sanction in the name of harking back to a supposed ‘golden’ past. He soon stepped aside from the dichotomies of such conflicts, not only in the choice of themes but also by shifting attention away from the world of Indian miniatures to the solidity of form-space equation in India’s tradition, especially Ajanta. Such a deviation and departure is evident in his Siva Drinking Poison (1911) as well as Parthasarathi (1912).

A second transition occurred when Rabindranath Tagore invited him to Santiniketan in 1914. Nandalal warmed to the welcome, but it took him eight years to snap his umbilical ties with Calcutta entirely and to take up the responsibility of heading , the institute of fine arts at Santiniketan. In between, Nandalal had accompanied Rabindranath to a boat trip on the river Padma. These experiences of rural Bengal brought him out of what has been called the hot-house situation of Calcutta into a more intimate exchange between the two norms, the mythic being Two of Nandalal’s pictures evidence how it may Nandalal Bose encounter with nature. The results are most apparent grafted on to the immediate, and the immediate be possible for a painter within the stylistic norms Arjuna in the stylistic as well as thematic transformation by being elevated to the level of the mythological, causes of the so-called ‘Bengal School’ to respond to the Ink and tempera on silk, 1938 63.6 x 29.4 in. / 161.5 x 74.6 cm. the Thirties and Forties. It is the closer experience of a perceptual shift in our response to the image. immediate contemporary without being overtly Collection: National Gallery of nature at Santiniketan, and Rabindranath Tagore’s documentary. The first is a tempera-on-paper,Bagadar Modern Art, New Delhi pantheistic ideology that enabled Nandalal to cast For Nandalal, a third transition came about through Road (Hazaribagh). Past the familiarity of a typical Acc. No. 151 his mythological Shabari from the epic Ramayana his association with . Nandalal had Nandalal landscape, an unusual element becomes Published: Rhythms of India: The in an absolutely secular mould. Executed as a set of hardly ever been overtly political or propagandist, but apparent – the utterly lyrical and idyllic calm being Art of Nandalal Bose (San Diego three paintings of Shabari in three different stages Gandhi recognised the potential in the artist and the cut through by a fleet of armoured tanks moving in and New Delhi: San Diego Museum of life, she is depicted as essentially a tribal woman fact that the painter’s ideals were in conformation diagonally behind the hut and the tree, a silent and of Art and NGMA, 2008), p. 132 rather than the mythic personality who eternally with his own. Consequently, Nandalal gave tangible intrusive entry. Armoured tanks certainly did not waits for her meeting with Rama. In the words of R. form to Ganshi’s and his conviction that the true occupy a position of priority with Nandalal as objects Siva Kumar, by forging ‘an intersection between the India rested in its villages. He gave concrete visual of pictorial meditation; and yet, in 1943, Nandalal mythic and the everyday, Nandalal has cast Shabari form to the Gandhian persona and principles. This failed to remain unresponsive to what was obviously as a woman of the local Santhal tribe’. is borne best by a series of pictures done for the 1938 a recurrent and immediate experiential reality in the Congress session at Haripura, popularly known as backdrop of the Second World War. As an image that Almost on a similar trajectory, his Arjuna (1938) the ‘Haripura posters’. Celebrating Indian village constitutes a direct response to the visible actualities is hardly classical despite the abstracted norms life in all its diversity, these pictures share a vibrant in a historic circumstance, this painting stands at Nandalal Bose corresponding to the ideal as in the fingers of his palette and earthy colour, but what is of significance a remote extreme from Nandalal’s Annapurna and Shiva Drinking World Poison ( Second Version) hands, or even the delineation of the features in above the method and the material is the vision Rudra, a symbolic-metaphoric comment on the 1943 Watercolour and tempera on paper, 1933 his face. But it is precisely in the sum total of those involved in the energetic, spontaneous line which Bengal famine. Closely similar would be the 1944 21.3 x 29.9 in. / 54.0 x 76.0 cm. features that the classicised equivalents from Ajanta appear a cross between the effortless flourish of a watercolour on paper titled Kinkar’s Statue which Collection: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi Acc. No. 4792 (or the miniature traditions) are absent, and have folk painter and the sophisticated, refined control adopts Ramkinkar Baij’s cement-concrete sculpture Published: Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose (San Diego been replaced by a curiously earthy resonance of the arising out of the cultivated sensibilities of a modern Santhal Family and the villagers moving around it as and New Delhi: San Diego Museum of Art and NGMA, 2008), p. 116 tribal archer resting on the ground. This alternating artist. its theme. The sculpture and actual human figures

38 39 Nandalal seen with his students at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan in 1948. Phot: K. Vervanadhanu, courtesy Rabindra Bhavan, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan Published: Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose (San Diego and New Delhi: San Diego Museum of Art and NGMA, 2008), p. 81

populate a common territory, sharing the same flutter of birds in flight or the liquid movement of domain and expressing the same physicality. The water. For one who had begun by retrieving a golden, sole distinction is the hue, lighter tones for the classical past back into contemporary painting, this human bodies and a darker tint in the sculpture. is a testament of what may be possible within the But what disrupts this harmony of co-existence, and domain of what is termed either ‘revivalism’ or the the statement of an art-life continuum, is the drone ‘Bengal school’. Due to their brilliant departure from of the aircraft flying above, a not-so-quiet reminder the supposed limits and strictures, they stand out in of the political situation of a world at war and the distinction from the repetitive and easy reiteration turbulence at the time of making the painting. of an established formula that the two terms have come to signify in critical analysis. The complete breadth of Nandalal’s creative horizon can be comprehended if one analyses his at Santiniketan and Baroda, his linocut images Nandalal Bose for illuminating Sahaj Path – Rabindranath Tagore’s distancing reality – Annapurna Bengali primer for children, as well as his landscapes, and the reality of distance Watercolour and tempera on paper, 1943 both drawn and painted. This is no occasion for a 10.2 x 15.9 in. / 26.0 x 40.3 cm. detailed recapitulation of individual oeuvres, but it An example of the stylised linguistic code that Collection: National Gallery of should suffice to refer to such images asThe Waves from came to stand in for the ‘Bengal School’ would Modern Art, New Delhi the Sixties. Extremely minimal, these cryptic marks be evident if one compares Nandalal Bose and Acc. No. 4794 on paper are hardly non-objective, though they Kshitindranath Majumdar’s respective rendering of Published: Rhythms of India: are certainly non-particular. The free brushstrokes the theme Jagai Madhai. In the former, the characters The Art of Nandalal Bose (San in monochrome ink evoke at the same time the have the appearance of real personages in portrait, Diego and New Delhi: San Diego Museum of Art and NGMA, rippling movement of wind in the paddyfields, the individuality of anatomical details, mass and volume 2008), p. 138

40 41 in the forms, despite a common concern with pictorial style. In the latter, the painting not only introduces the towering figure of Nityananda, but is distinctly different due to the sinuous, smooth and flowing lyricism of the line and the mellow tone of the palette that drains the picture of the potential strength and power inherent in the theme and its protagonists. This harking back to a past creates a soft and delicate apparition, and its obvious and conscious distancing from reality transposes it onto a rarified aesthetic plane, thereby making it appear barely palpable and nearly substance-less.

The same could be said of Kshitindranath’s Krishna Adorning Radha with Chandan Tilak. The attempt to infuse ‘mood’ into the painting through the overall tint, the extreme delicacy of the thin linear drawing and the attenuated bodies that do not appear to be Kshitindranath Majumdar possessed of solid substance, certainly evoke a world Gita Govinda distinct from the corporeal and the tangible. But Watercolour wash on paper Mazumdar Kshitindranath, Chitre in the process, the artificiality of the postures and Gita Govinda (Allahabad: Indian Press the abstracted essence in the physiognomy evoke Publication Pvt. Ltd.), 1962, plate 3 a charm that is immediately perceived to belong to the realm of the imagined. The tonal uniformity of

colour spaces further emphasise the painting as a M. A. R. Chughtai delicate exercise rather than a concretely modelled pictorial structure. Wash and tempera on paper 20.3 x 21.9 in. / 51.5 x 55.5 cm. What, then, can one attribute to the ‘Bengal School’? Collection: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi The popularly held belief based on a stylisation – Acc. No. 56 the ‘revivalism’ – evolved out of the assimilation and typification of a reworked Mughal, Pahari and Ajanta linguistic trait that was not the only option attenuated figures in insubstantial settings are too Venkatappa, Samarendranath Gupta, Asit Haldar, either possible or available within that paradigm. obvious traits of the watered-down version of the and even some of the paintings of Devi Prasad There were artists within the same ambience who ‘school’. The more firm and concrete version of what Roy Chowdhury (though his sculptures are in the could, and did, find avenues to articulate themselves is constructively possible within the parameters of European academic realist vein). What they and across and beyond these bindings. The attributes the school are demonstrated by Nandalal Bose’s other artists immersed themselves in, fully or briefly, of the period have been constructed not so much work as well as of Abanindranath Tagore – the two in the decades to which the ‘school’ is attributed, through any common denominator in terms of individuals whose personal styles spawned the they would themselves deny a conscious sense

K. Venkatappa stylistic traits among its constituent members as it school through their admirers and followers. of a ‘movement’. At a point in history, they were Rama-Sita has been through what its detractors were critical working within the prism of a style with which they Wash and tempera on paper of and wished to critique or reject. A thematic Kshitindranath Majumdar is representative of that flirted with for its possibilities. To say that was the 5.5 x 7.9 in. / 14.0 x 20.0 cm. stagnation that harked back to the epics and ‘brand’ of artists who typically characterise the whole and complete focus of their art would be to Collection: National Gallery of mythological narratives as well as sentimental and ‘Bengal School’ to so many. Sailendranath Dey diminish both them and Indian art. Modern Art, New Delhi romantic amorphousness in dealing with extremely would be another, as would A. R. Chughtai, K. Acc. No. 349

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