Modern Painting in India

Modern Painting in India

Company Style: 1757–1858

• The traditional Indian painting declined and received a setback with the establishment of the British East India Company rule. The company rule was established in 1757 and ended in 1858.

• The European oil painting took the place of murals (wall paintings) and miniatures.

English Influence

• With the colonial rule, the English were charmed by the different manners and customs of people of all ranks, tropical flora and fauna, and varying locales.

• Partly for documentation and partly for artistic reasons, many English officers of the East India Company commissioned local artists to paint scenes around them to get a better idea of the natives.

Local Artists

• The painters were largely made on paper by local artists, some of whom had migrated from erstwhile courts of Delhi, Lucknow,   or Murshidabad.

• To please their new patrons, they had to adapt their traditional way of painting to document the world around them.

• This meant that they had to rely more on close observation, a striking feature of European art, rather than memory and rule books, as seen in traditional art.

Company School of Painting

• It is this mixture of traditional and European styles of painting that came to be known as the Company School of Painting (Company Style).

• This style was not only popular among the British in India but even in Britain, where albums, consisting set of paintings, were much in demand.

Prominent Painters

• Ghulam Ali Khan (Group of courtesans), Mazhar Ali Khan, Laichand, Gopal Chand Sevakram, Jhumaklal, etc.

Raja Ravi Varma: 1845–1906

• The Government of India established art schools in Madras (1850), Calcutta (1854), and Bombay (1857).

• The introduction of the western style of oil painting and the teaching of it to earnest Indian students by some of the European masters themselves resulted in such brilliant painters as Raja Ravi Varma.

Achievements

• Raja Ravi Varma, coming from the princely family of Travancore, with a profound knowledge of Sanskrit, produced at a rapid pace an amazing number of pictures illustrating every possible text in Sanskrit, revealing his eminence as a portrait-painter.

• He depicted scenes from popular epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata.

• They became so popular that many of his paintings were copied as oleographs (photographs produced by a printing press) and were sold in the the market.

• They even entered people's homes as calendar images.

• Raja Ravi Varma is revered as 'the Father of Calendar Art in India.'

Notable Paintings

• "Rama Vanquishing the pride of the Ocean," "Krishna as Envoy," "Shakuntala Patra-Lekhan," "Nair Lady," etc.

Criticism

• With the rise of nationalism in India by the end of the nineteenth century, this academic style, embraced by Ravi Varma, came to be looked down upon as foreign and too Western to show Indian myths and history.

Bengal School

Origin

• Under the inspiration of E.B.

• With the leadership of Havell (1861–1934) (the Principal of Government School of Art, Calcutta) and Abanindra Nath Tagore (1871–1951) (the Vice-Principal of Government School of Art, Calcutta), a new phase of Indian art began, which was known as the 'Neo Art Movement.'

• It was a revivalist art movement and a style of painting that originated in Calcutta, the capital of the Bengal Presidency, but later influenced many artists in different parts of the country.

• This came to be known as 'Calcutta School' or 'Bengal School'. It was traditionalist in theme and nationalist in inspiration.

Notable Books (E.B. Havell)

• "Indian Sculpture and Painting"

• "Indian Architecture"

• "Ideals of Indian Art"

Notable Paintings (A.N. Tagore)

• "Journey's End"

• "Shahjahan Looking at the Taj"

• "Buddha and Sujata"

• "Tear Drops on a Lotus Leaf"

• "Queen of the Forest"

• "Bharat Mata" etc.

Prominent Painters of the Bengal School

• Nandalal Basu ('Uma's Tapasya,' 'Gandhi's Dandi March/Bapuji,' 'Dhaki: Tiller of the Soil')

• Surendra Nath Gangooly

• Sarada Charan Ukil

• Hakim Khan

• K. Venkatappa ('Rama's marriage')

• Asit Kumar Haldar

• Kshitindra Nath Mazumdar ('Rasa-Lila')

• Abdur Rahman Chaghtai ('Radhika')

• Mukul Chandra Dey

• Gaganendranath Tagore ('City in the Night,' 'A Cubist City'), etc.

Rabindranath Tagore

• Among other artists of the Bengal School, Rabindra Nath Tagore (1861–1941) tried to innovate new experiments in painting in an original way.

• But the influence of Western art on his works was evident.

• The modernism of the Picasso style was attempted by Rabindra Nath Tagore in an Indian background.

Notable Paintings of Other Artists

• Jamini Roy: "Woman with Child," "Black Horse," etc.

• Amrita Shergil (1913–41): She was a painter who was one of the pioneers of the modern movement in Indian art. Her style was in marked contrast to the Bengal school. She died at the young age of 28.

• Notable paintings: "Camels," "Haldi Grinder," "Elephants bathing in green pool," "Hillside," "Professional model," etc.

After Bengal School: 1943 onwards

• After the Bengal Famine (1943), the Bengal School of Art lost its reputation.

• In 1943, under the leadership of Prodosh Das Gupta, a few young artists formed the 'Calcutta Group.'

• This group believed in an art that was universal in character and free from older values.

• They did not like the Bengal School of Art as it was too sentimental and deeply interested in the past.

• They wanted their paintings to speak of their own times.

The Progressives (1946)

• In 1946, another set of artists formed a group called 'The Progressives' in Bombay.

• Francis Newton (F.N.) Souza was the leader of the group, which included:

  • Maqbool Fida (M.F.) Husain ("Farmer's Family", "Mother Teresa")

  • K.H. Ara

  • S.A. Bakre

  • H.A. Gade

  • S.H. Raza ("Ma")

• While M.F. Husain largely remained a figurative artist, S.H. Raza moved in the direction of abstraction.

Abstraction

• Abstraction had a wide appeal for many artists across the 1960s and 1970s.

• In South India, K.C.S. Paniker ("The Dog"), who later went on to establish Cholamandalam, an artist village near Madras (Chennai), was a pioneer in abstraction.

Globalisation and Modern Art

• With liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s, the impact of globalisation came to be felt in big cities.

• Media like painting and sculpture that were created by artists, who would earlier proudly sign them as an expression of their unique creativity, have lost importance.

• Instead, the newly available medium, i.e., mobile, caught their attention, which provides many features (like painting, photography, videography, and so on) simultaneously.

• But it’s not all dark; painters are doing their work.

• The art of today speaks a language of its own, conveys a new philosophy, and reveals new thoughts.

Folk Paintings

Rangoli in Different States of India

Final Thoughts

Festivals and fairs form the heart of Indian culture and reflect the country’s diverse traditions and beliefs. Each religious community, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, or Buddhist, celebrates its own unique festivals, while every region of India has its distinctive local celebrations. National festivals like Republic Day, Independence Day, and Gandhi Jayanti unite the country in pride and patriotism.

Hindu festivals such as Diwali, Holi, Raksha Bandhan, and Ganesh Chaturthi are marked by rituals, devotion, and vibrant festivities. Muslim festivals like Ramzan, Eid-ul-Fitr, and Bakrid emphasize spirituality, fasting, and communal harmony. Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter celebrate joy, faith, and resurrection.

Regions across India host their own fairs, such as Kumbh Mela in Uttarakhand, Onam in Kerala, and the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, which showcase local culture, arts, and community spirit. These festivals not only preserve ancient traditions but also bring people together, creating a sense of unity, joy, and cultural pride across the country.