Bengal School of Art

EB Havell

The art traditions of India witnessed a steady decline in the 19th century, and Bengal was not too isolated to the deterioration. What could survive during those times were only the Kalighat folk paintings. In 1854, the Calcutta school of Art came into existence. Here, E.B. Havel, Head of the Calcutta School of Art, set for himself the twofold task of propagating a truer appreciation abroad of India’s cultural heritage and of weaning young Indians from indiscriminate admiration of Western art, specially its decadent and uninspiring products. In this, he was helped by Dr AK. Coomaraswamy and Abanindranath Tagore. While Dr Coomaraswamy rendered invaluable service in interpreting and popularizing our artistic heritage, the Indian Society of Oriental Art under Abanindranath’s patronage helped to free young artists who had allowed them to be hypnotized by the West from its spell.

Abinandranath Tagore

Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) was a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore. He was born at Jorasanko and was educated at the Sanskrit College, Calcutta. He learnt painting privately under English and Italian instructors. He led the revivalist movement in Bengal in the field of modern Indian paintings with the help of a band of disciples such as Nandlal Bose, A.K. Halder, K.N. Majumdar, S.N. Gupta and a host of others. The first major exponent of Swadeshi values in Indian art, he is known to have founded the Bengal School of Art or Neo-Bengal School. He was also a noted writer and known as Aban Thakur.  In the realm of painting, Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose are known to have expressed the nationalist ethos.

Contribution of Abinandranath Tagore in Indian Paintings

• He was of the belief that the western art was materialistic in character and India needed to return to its own traditions to recover the spiritual values in the art.
• Abanindranath Tagore’s works reflect the synthesis of Ajanta murals and Mughal painting. Essentially, a romantic painter, he delighted in painting the hoary past. He along with his disciples viz. Nandalal Bose and Ashit Kumar Haldar are said to be the Pre-Raphaelites of Bengal.  Pre-Raphaelites refer to a group of reformer English painters, poets, and critics, who came together and tried to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists.
• In those times, the Hindu Philosophy was becoming more and more influencing in the west. Taking clue from that, Abanindranath Tagore believed that Indian traditions could be adapted to express these new values, and to promote a progressive Indian national culture.
• The first major work accomplished by him was Arabian Nights series (1930). His later works show the influence of Chinese and Japanese calligraphic traditions.
• Famous paintings are: Bharat Mata, The Passing of Shah Jahan (1900), My Mother (1912–13), Fairyland illustration (1913), Journey’s End (circa 1913)

Abanindranath Tagore and Bharat Mata

Abanindranath Tagore portrayed Bhārat Mātā (1905) as a four-armed Hindu goddess wearing saffron-colored robes, holding a book, sheaves of rice, a mala, and a white cloth. The image of Bharatmata was an icon to create nationalist feeling in Indians during the freedom struggle.

The image was imaginative, with Bharatmata standing on green earth and blue sky behind her; feet with four lotuses, four arms meaning divine power; white halo and sincere eyes.

• The historical context, in which Abanindranath painted Bharatmata was the Swadeshi Movement sparked off in 1905 around the partition of Bengal. This image does not incorporate the map of India; instead it had followed the protocols of the emergent “Neo-Bengal” revivalist style of depicting the female form as ethereal and austere.
• She has four arms, which to Indian thinking, denote the divine power. The Shiksha, Diksha, Anna , Bastra, these are the four gifts of the motherland which she has been depicted as offering with her four hands.
• Though, she has been painted as a common Bengali woman, her divine statuture is most obvious from her four arms and the delicate halo that rings her head. The impact of this painting was that Bharatmata became the new deity of the country, even if she was first named “Banga Mata” and later was renamed by him as “Bharat Mata“.
• Bharatmata was used as a mobilizing artefact during the anti-partition processions. The critics appreciated as a new nationalist aesthetic.
• Sister Nivedita was such an admirer of this painting that she wanted to publish it in tens of thousands and scatter it all over the land so that there is not a peasant’s cottage is left between Kedarnath to Cape Camorin that had not the presence of Bharatmata somewhere on her walls.

Japanese Artists and Neo-Bengal school

In 1901-02, Josephine MacLeod, an American pupil of Swami Vivekananda had invited Japanese arts stalwart Kakuzo Okakura to India. Kakuzo Okakura wished to invite Swami Vivekananda, who by that time had become world famous, to Japan. However, Swami Vivekakanda passed away in 1902 itself. Kakuzo Okakura came in touch with the Tagores during his stay in India. This was the beginning of India’s cultural relations with Modern Japan. This meeting had a lasting impact on Indian art.

Contribution of Japanese artists

After Kakuzo Okakura went back to Japan, he sent two Japanese artists, Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida Shunso to India. These two artists taught the techniques of Japanese brush-n-ink works and watercolour wash to Abanindranath and his elder brother Gaganendranath Tagore. They learnt the technique and were free for innovating and modifying it to better suit their own needs.

The technique was so much liked, appreciated and promoted by Abanindranath Tagore that most of his students, who were later known as the artists of the Neo-Bengal school of paintings, followed this practice.

Contribution of Kokka Magazine

During the first decade of the 20th century, the Indian Society of Oriental Art brought out the exquisite color reproductions of original paintings by Abanindranath Tagore, Surendranath Ganguly, Nandalal Bose and other old masters of Mughal and Rajput art. The ISOA was helped by the expert technicians of the Japanese Art periodical Kokka and the Japanese woodblock printing method was used as a technique. Kokka, which literally means  “National Essence” was an influential art magazine of East Asia and Japan.

Nandalal Bose

Nandalal Bose (1882 – 1966) was a disciple of Abanindranath Tagore. He became the principal of Kala Bhavan, Shanti Niketan in 1922. His paintings show the scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life. Here are some notable trivia on his contribution to Indian art.

• As a young artist, he was deeply influenced by the murals of the Ajanta Caves and joined the band of artists who wished to revive classical Indian culture.
• To mark the 1930 occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s arrest for protesting the British tax on salt, Bose created a black on white linocut print of Gandhi walking with a staff. It became the iconic image for the non-violence movement.
• Nandalal Bose also originally painted the Indian flag, slightly different from its present form, and it was inspired by the freedom struggle.
• He became principal of the Kala Bhavan at Tagore’s International University Santiniketan in 1922.
• He was also asked by Jawaharlal Nehru to sketch the emblems for the Government of India’s awards, including the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Shri.
• He is also known to have taken up the task of beautifying the original manuscript of the Constitution of India.
• Most of his paintings have scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life. Due to influence of Rabindranath Tagore, he was invited to decorate the Congress sessions at Lucknow, Faizpur and Haripura. In the Faizpur session, the visual impact of his decorations pleased Gandhi very much and he remarked in his opening address” If Gandhi was the redeemer of the village and Rabindranath its poet…no artist of India has revealed the soul of the village people as Nanda babu..”.

Nandalal Bose was awarded a prize of Rs. 500 for his painting ‘Shiva-Sati’ in 1908. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1954. He became the second artist to be elected as Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, India’s National Academy of Art in the year 1956. He was conferred the title of ‘Deshikottama’ by the Vishvabharati University. He was honoured with the Silver Jubilee Medal by the Academy of Fine Arts in Calcutta. In 1965, he was awarded the Tagore Birth Centenary Medal by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His works have been kept in the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi which includes Gandhiji’s Dandi March and the seven posters made for the Indian National Congress for the Haripura Session in 1938. He expired in the year 1996.

Gaganendranath Tagore

Gaganendranath Tagore was a great-grandson of Dwarkanath Tagore, a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore and elder brother of Abinandranath Tagore. Like other Tagores, he was also involved in painting, theatre, reading and photography. But he is best known as a cartoonist who created political cartoons and social satires on Westernised Bengalis. He was one of the most famous cartoonists of his times.

Contribution to Indian Art

• Gaganendranath Tagore, along with his brother Abanindranath, is known for founding the Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907. This society later brought out a journal called Rupam.
• He was inspired by the visiting Japanese artist Yokoyama Taikan and other Far Eastern styles, early in his artistic life.
• He is said to be the first artist to explore with the French Style of paintings in India.
• He also came under the influence of experimentalist art prevalent in Europe at that time and was allured towards geometric compositions.
• Thus, Gaganendranath, elder by five years to Abanindranath, shared his brother’s enthusiasm for painting, but not revivalism. He was interested in near-contemporary experiments like Cubism.
• At the same time, their uncle Rabindranath Tagore committed to neither revivalism not Cubism, and in fact, he came out to be the first truly modern Indian painter, while playing the role of a patron by providing to painters a studio, called “Bichitra” at the ancestral Jorasanko house.

Indian Society of Oriental Art

Gaganendranath Tagore, along with his brother Abanindranath, is known for founding the Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907. This ISOA, sponsored by Europeans, much popularized Tagore’s Bengal School, as well as art and crafts of other Asian nations. It held regular exhibitions in India and abroad, and came out with exquisite color reproductions of original paintings by Abanindranath Tagore, Surendranath Ganguly, Nandalal Bose and other old masters of Mughal and Rajput art. This society later brought out a journal called Rupam.

Cubism

Cubism is a school of paintings as well sculpture in which the viewpoints of natural forms are amalgamated with the multifaceted surface of geometrical planes, thus rendering the painting or sculpture non-objective. It was initiated in 1907 by Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter and sculptor (1881-1973) and Georges Braque, the French painter (1882-1963). The adjacent image of a painting by Pablo Picasso is an example of Cubism. Cubism is known to have revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. In Cubist artwork, objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.

Bichitra

Bichitra was the name of a studio, which was provided by Rabindranath Tagore to the painters particularly his nephews Abinandranath and Gaganendranath Tagore of Bengal School of Art. It was located at the Jorasanko House, the ancestral home of the Tagores. What we know as Bichitra today is called the Rabindra Bhavan, a Research Centre and Museum where the Gurudev’s personal belongings, paintings & various editions of his works are exhibited. This today’s Bichitra has been designed by the Rabindranath tagore’s son Shamindranath Tagore.

Asit Kumar Haldar

AK Haldar (1890–1964) was a relative and one of the lieutenants of Rabindranath Tagore at Shantiniketan. His father as well as grand father was painter. Haldar became the first Indian to be appointed as the principal of a Government Art School. He was also the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London in 1934. The Allahabad Museum opened a large “Haldar Hall” with many of his works in 1938.

Contribution to Indian Art

• Between 1909 to 1911, Haldar visited Ajanta documenting the paintings and made efforts to bring the cave art to a wider Indian audience. A decade later, he undertook another expedition to the Bagh Caves.
• The art movement of Abanindra Nath Tagore succeeded to a great extent because of the assistance rendered by Asit Kumar Haldar, Nandalal Bose and Surendra Nath Ganguli.
• As a principal of the Kala Bhavan School from 1911 to 1915, he introduced many different styles to art to the students, and revolutionized decorative and ceremonial displays there.
• In 1923, he went on a study tour through England, France and Germany. On his return, he became Principal of the Maharaja’s School of Arts and Crafts, Jaipur where he remained for a year, before moving to the Maharaja’s School of Arts and Crafts in Lucknow. During the Europe tour, he found out that the Realism in European art had numerous limitations. He sought to balance physical attributes in proportion to the magnitude of the subject matter.
• He remained a budding poet also through out his life. In his book Ravitirthe, he has acknowledged his debt to Rabindranath Tagore and Santiniketan in helping to establish him as an artist.

Jamini Roy

Jamini Roy was born in 1887 Beliatore, Bankura District (Bengal) .He was one of the most famous pupils of Abanindranath Tagore. He studied at the Government School of Art in Calcutta.  He received his Diploma in Fine Art in 1908. He was inspired by the living folks and tribal art forms.  He was influenced by the Kalighat Pat, a style of art with bold sweeping brush-strokes. Between 1921 and 1924, he moved away from his earlier impressionist landscapes and portrait and his first period of experimentation started with the Santhal dance.

Contribution to Indian art

• His painting style was a reaction against the Western tradition. His techniques as well as subject matter were influenced by traditional art of Bengal. Initially he experimented with Kalighat paintings but found that it has ceased to be strictly a “patua” and went to learn from village patuas. His underlying quest was threefold: to capture the essence of simplicity embodied in the life of the folk people, to make art accessible to a wider section of people, and to give Indian art its own identity.
• He received a Viceroy’s gold medal in an all India exhibition in 1934. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1955. In 1955, he also became the first recipient of Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship. He died in 1972.

Ramkinkar Baij

Ramkinker Baij (1906-1980), was a powerful modern painter and sculptor, best known for his magnum opus “Santhal Family” sculpture. Born in the Bankura District of West Bengal, Baij was a son of a village masseuse and barber. He came to Santiniketan on account of the skilful posters he painted during the non-cooperation movement. Here, he became another disciple of Nand Lal Bose, and then became one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture. He joined the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan as a fine arts student. At Santiniketan, under the guidance of Nandalal Bose, his artistic skills and intellectual horizons acquired new depth and complexity.

Contribution to Sculpture – Santhal Family

Initially, he started making sculptures which were innovative in subject matter and personal in style. His first magnum opus in this genre was the Santal Family done in 1938. Santhal Family is widely considered to be the first public Modernist sculpture in India. This sculpture depicts a mother, father, child and dog from the Santhal tribe, carrying their few possessions with them to a new life.  It was made of cement cast and laterite pebbles.

The artistic creations of Ramkinkar Baij have been inspired by the lifestyles of rural dalit or Adivasi communities. Through his sculptures, he represented the tribal peasants of the region, giving the figures iconic presence and dignified grace that was so far limited to the images of Gods and Rulers.

He took a great interest in human figures, body language, and in the general human drama. His main points of reference were modern western art and pre and post-classical Indian art. Regarding his work, he said:  “I do not know whether what I am doing is modern or not, but it is based on my experience.”

Contribution to Sculpture- Yaksha and Yakshini

On achieving independence, Jawaharlal Nehru had an idea that the public buildings, many of which were large imposing structures, could be utilised to ‘encourage Indian artists to function in some way’ and sculptors, painters, designers, etc. could be asked to cooperate. At that time, the RBI was in the process of constructing/contemplating new buildings at New Delhi, Madras and Nagpur. A committee was set up to examine the proposal and to make recommendations on the subject. This committee recommended that the sculptures could be erected on either side of the main entrance of the RBI office at New Delhi, one depicting the idea of “prosperity through industry” and the other “prosperity through agriculture”. Then, the views of Carl Khandalawalla, an eminent critic and connoisseur of art, were sought. He suggested that RBI could consider having figures of “Yaksha” and “Yakshini” on the two sides. The artists were invited and the proposal that was accepted was of Ram Kinkar Baij. The art form of the male ‘Yaksha’ was drawn from the statue of the ‘Parkham Yaksha’ in the Mathura museum and the art form of the female Yakshini was derived from “Bisnagar Yakshini” from the Calcutta Museum. This is how Ram Kinkar Baij became immortal with his Yaksha and Yakshini.

Paintings

His paintings too take on expressionist dimensions like his sculptures, which are filled with force and vitality.

Legacy and Awards

There is a book called ‘Dekhi Nai Fire’ based on Baij’s life and work, written by Samaresh basu. In 1975, Ritwik Ghatak wisely made a documentary on Baij named ‘Ramkinkar’ where he featured him as a political icon. He was awarded Deshikottom by Visva-Bharati University. In 1970, he was honoured with Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He died in 1980.