Bengal Popular Art History of Kalighat
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In the nineteenth century, the only school of painting that was flourishing in Bengal was the traditional art of scroll paintings that was popular in the rural areas. These paintings were done on cloth or patas. They depicted conventional images of Gods and Goddesses and scenes from epics like Tulsidas’ Rama charita manas.
The artists were villagers who travelled from place to place with their scroll paintings and sang the scenes from the epics depicted in the paintings during village gatherings and festivals. These artists were called patuas or ‘painters on cloth’. Meanwhile the British, having established themselves in the country politically, started to evince interest in art, literature, and music. They set up institutions that imparted a European style of academic training to Indian artists.
The Calcutta School of Art was one such school and attracted traditional artists–the patuas—to the city. Initially these artists were concentrated around the temple at Kalighat where there was a demand for religious art. Gradually, they started to learn from the newer techniques and discovered that these could help them increase their earnings. They started creating new forms of art and the Kalighat painting was born.
The Kalighat School was an agreeable and unique blend of two different styles of painting—the Oriental and the Occidental. It is characterised by generously curving figures of both men and women and an earthy satirical style. It developed during the nineteenth century in response to the sudden prosperity brought to Calcutta by the East India Company. Many of these nouveau riche families came from not particularly exalted caste backgrounds, so the orthodox tended to frown on them and their often very tasteless conspicuous consumption.
To the common people the babus, as they were called, were equally objects of fun and sources of income. Thus the ‘babu culture’ portrayed in the Kalighat patas often shows inversions of the social order (wives beating husbands or leading them about in the guise of pet goats or dogs, maidservants wearing shoes, sahibs in undignified postures, domestic contretemps, and the like). They also showed European innovations (babus wearing European clothes, smoking pipes, reading at desks, etc.). The object of this is only partly satirical; it also expresses the wonder that ordinary Bengalis felt on exposure to these new and curious ways and objects.
The artists were villagers who travelled from place to place with their scroll paintings and sang the scenes from the epics depicted in the paintings during village gatherings and festivals. These artists were called patuas or ‘painters on cloth’. Meanwhile the British, having established themselves in the country politically, started to evince interest in art, literature, and music. They set up institutions that imparted a European style of academic training to Indian artists.
The Calcutta School of Art was one such school and attracted traditional artists–the patuas—to the city. Initially these artists were concentrated around the temple at Kalighat where there was a demand for religious art. Gradually, they started to learn from the newer techniques and discovered that these could help them increase their earnings. They started creating new forms of art and the Kalighat painting was born.
The Kalighat School was an agreeable and unique blend of two different styles of painting—the Oriental and the Occidental. It is characterised by generously curving figures of both men and women and an earthy satirical style. It developed during the nineteenth century in response to the sudden prosperity brought to Calcutta by the East India Company. Many of these nouveau riche families came from not particularly exalted caste backgrounds, so the orthodox tended to frown on them and their often very tasteless conspicuous consumption.
To the common people the babus, as they were called, were equally objects of fun and sources of income. Thus the ‘babu culture’ portrayed in the Kalighat patas often shows inversions of the social order (wives beating husbands or leading them about in the guise of pet goats or dogs, maidservants wearing shoes, sahibs in undignified postures, domestic contretemps, and the like). They also showed European innovations (babus wearing European clothes, smoking pipes, reading at desks, etc.). The object of this is only partly satirical; it also expresses the wonder that ordinary Bengalis felt on exposure to these new and curious ways and objects.