Fine Arts: Class 12 — Chapter 6: The Bengal School and Cultural Nationalism

Prior to British rule, Indian art served diverse traditional purposes, including temple sculptures, manuscript miniatures, and rural mud wall decorations. With the advent of colonial rule in the 18th century, British officers sought to document Indian life, flora, fauna, and customs. This led to the commissioning of local artists, many of whom migrated from declining courts like Murshidabad, Lucknow, and Delhi.

• Stylistic Fusion: Combined traditional Indian techniques with European academic realism, relying on close observation rather than memory and traditional rule books.
• Medium and Patronage: Painted primarily on paper using water-based media, commissioned by British East India Company officials for documentation and personal albums.
• Key Artwork: Group of Courtesans (1800–1825) by Ghulam Ali Khan, showcasing realistic portraiture and detailed interior settings.

With the introduction of photography in the mid-19th century, the documentary role of Company Painting declined. British-established art schools promoted the academic style of oil painting, using European techniques to depict Indian subjects.

• Style and Technique: A self-taught artist from the Travancore Court in Kerala who mastered Western academic realism and oil painting by studying European collections in Indian palaces.
• Themes: Depicted dramatic scenes from classical Indian epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
• Mass Production: Established a lithographic press to copy his paintings as oleographs, making art accessible to the public as calendar images.
• Key Artwork: Krishna as envoy (1906) and Rama Vanquishing the Pride of the Ocean.

Emerging in Calcutta during the first decade of the 20th century, the Bengal School was closely tied to the Swadeshi nationalist movement. It rejected Western academic realism as foreign and sought to create a modern, indigenous art style.

• E. B. Havell: Principal of the Government School of Art, Calcutta, who advocated for the reform of art education to focus on Indian traditions.
• Abanindranath Tagore: Spearheaded the movement, drawing inspiration from Mughal, Pahari, and Ajanta traditions rather than Western styles. He developed the signature wash technique.
• Indian Society of Oriental Art: A journal and society founded to promote indigenous art values and foster a new generation of nationalist artists.

Founded by Rabindranath Tagore as part of Visva-Bharati University, Kala Bhavana became India's first national art school. Nandalal Bose, a student of Abanindranath, headed the department and integrated folk art traditions into the curriculum.

Mahatma Gandhi invited Nandalal Bose to create panels for the Haripura Congress session. These Haripura Posters depicted ordinary rural folks—such as musicians, farmers, and women churning milk—using bold, sketchy lines and vibrant tempera, aligning with Gandhi's socialist vision.

• Rejection of Academic Art: After training in colonial art schools, Jamini Roy rejected Western realism to adopt the flat, colorful style of Bengal's village pat paintings.
• Materials and Themes: Used organic pigments (rockdust, tamarind seeds, alluvial mud, indigo) on home-spun fabric to depict rural life, women, and children.

Following the 1905 Partition of Bengal, art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy and Japanese nationalist Kakuzo Okakura promoted Pan-Asianism to unite Asian nations against Western imperialism. Japanese artists visited Shantiniketan, introducing the Japanese wash technique to Indian students.

An exhibition of works by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and other Bauhaus artists in Calcutta in 1922 introduced Indian artists to Western abstract art. Gaganendranath Tagore adopted Cubist geometry to paint mysterious interiors and satirical caricatures of westernized Bengalis.