Art & Culture: Paintings

Art & Culture: Paintings

Subject: Art and Culture

Context: Year-long celebrations marking 150 years of Abanindranath Tagore have begun with a host of online workshops and talks paying tributes to the leading light of the Bengal School of Art.

Abhindranath Tagore: 

• Abanindranath Tagore (1871 –1951) was the principal artist and creator of the “Indian Society of Oriental Art”.
• He was also the first major exponent of Swadeshi values in Indian art, thereby founding the influential Bengal school of art, which led to the development of modern Indian painting.
• He was also a noted writer, particularly for children. Popularly known as ‘Aban Thakur‘, his books Rajkahini, Buro Angla, Nalak, and Khirer Putul were landmarks in Bengali language children’s literature and art.
• Tagore sought to modernise Mughal and Rajput styles to counter the influence of Western models of art, as taught in art schools under the British Raj.
• Along with other artists from the Bengal school of art, Tagore advocated in favour of a nationalistic Indian art derived from Indian art history, drawing inspiration from the Ajanta Caves.

Bengal School of Art:

• It is also called the Renaissance School or the Revivalist School, as it represented the first modern movement of Indian art.
• Its leading artist was Abanindranath Tagore and its theoretician was E.B. Havell, the principal of the Calcutta School of Art.
• They broke away from the convention of oil painting and the realistic style, and turned for inspiration to medieval Indian traditions of miniature painting and the ancient art of mural painting in the Ajanta caves.
• They were also influenced by the art (wash technique) of Japanese artists who visited India at that time to develop an Asian Art movement.
• Associated Persons: Nandalal Bose and Kshitindranath Majumdar
• Popular Paintings: Bharat Mata, My Mother, Journey’s End, etc.
• Popular Books: Rajkahini, Nalak, Buro Angla and Khirer Putul etc.

Nandlal Bose: 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.