Art Schools and Nationalist Art in India

• British viewed fine arts as a "European thing"
• Thought Indians lacked the training/sensibility to create and appreciate fine arts

Art Schools in India

• Art schools were established in major cities like Lahore, Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras by the mid- to late-19th century
• These schools promoted traditional Indian crafts + academic/naturalist art reflecting Victorian tastes
• Indian crafts only received support if based on European tastes and market demands

Nationalist Art Emerges

• Nationalist art emerged against a colonial bias
• Bengal School of Art, nurtured by Abanindranath Tagore and E.B. Havell, exemplify this
• India's first nationalist art school, Kala Bhavana, was established in 1919 as part of Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan, conceptualized by Rabindranath Tagore
• It carried the Bengal School's vision but followed its own path to create art meaningful for Indians

Influence of European Art

• Intense political turmoil occurred during World War I
• Modern European art influenced Indian artists through art magazines
• Bauhaus exhibition traveled to Calcutta
• Tagore family artists (Gaganendranath and Rabindranath) became aware of international trends like Cubism and Expressionism, which rejected academic realism

Experimentation with Abstraction

• Some artists thought art should not copy the world, but create its own using forms, lines, and colors
• Landscapes, portraits, or still life could be considered abstract if drawing attention to abstract design

Gagendranath Tagore

• He used Cubism to create his own unique style
• His paintings of mysterious halls used vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines.
• It differed from styles of Picasso who used geometrical facets

Rabindranath Tagore

• Rabindranath turned to visual art later in life
• He made patterns out of doodles and developed a unique, calligraphic style from crossed-out words
• Some doodles were turned into human faces/landscapes floating in his poems
• He had a limited color palette of black, yellow ochre, reds, and browns
• Tagore created a small visual world departing from the elegant Bengal School style and was inspired by Mughal, Pahari miniatures, and Ajanta frescoes

Nandalal Bose

• Nandalal Bose (in 1921-1922) joined Kala Bhavana
• Training by Abanindranath Tagore exposed him to nationalism in art without hindering his or his students' artistic exploration

Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinker Baij

• Two of Bose's creative students, considered how to understand the world
• Developed a unique sketching/painting style capturing the environment + inhabitants
• Shantiniketan had a large Santhal tribe population that artists painted/sculpted
• Literary themes also interested them

Benode Behari Mukherjee's Art

• Benode Behari Mukherjee focused on medieval saints instead of well-known epics
• He did a mural called Medieval Saints, on the walls of Hindi Bhavana in Shantiniketan that charts Indian medieval history through the lives and teachings of figures like Tulsi Das and Kabir

Ramkinker Baij's Art

• Ramkinker Baij celebrated nature in his art
• Sculptures and paintings responded to environment like "Santhal Family", which depicted a Santhal family's daily activity as a life-size outdoor sculpture in Kala Bhavana
• Made of modern materials like cement mixed with pebbles using metal armature
• His style contrasted earlier sculptors like D.P. Roy Choudhury, who used academic realism to celebrate working-class labor

Jamini Roy

• He connected his art relevant to rural context
• Jamini Roy rejected Government School of Art training in Calcutta
• Realized rural/folk art in Bengal mirrored that of modern European masters like Picasso and Paul Klee
• Picasso arrived at Cubism by learning from bold forms in African masks
• Roy used simple and pure colors and made his own colors from vegetables/minerals like village artists
• Family members easily reproduced his art like the artisanal practice in villages
• Roy signed his paintings which made his style uniquely personal, diverging from art school naturalism, Raja Ravi Varma's Indianised naturalism, and delicate Bengal School style

Amrita Sher-Gil

• Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941), half Hungarian and half Indian, contributed to modern Indian art in the 1930s
• Trained in Paris with first-hand experience in Impressionism and post-Impressionism
• She developed art with Indian themes/images and assimilated Indian miniature/mural traditions with European modernism
• Sher-Gil died young but left behind impactful/experimental work for future modernists

Modern Ideologies and Political Art

• After Sher-Gil's death, India was affected by global events like WWII
• The Bengal famine caused massive rural migration to cities

Calcutta Group

• The humanitarian crisis made artists reflect roles in society
• In 1943, Prodosh Das Gupta led young artists to form the Calcutta Group, including Nirode Mazumdar, Paritosh Sen, Gopal Ghose, and Rathin Moitra
• The group favored universal art free from past values
• Disliked Bengal School for its sentimentality and interest in the past
• Wanted their art to reflect their own times

Artistic Simplification

• Calcutta Group simplified visual expression via excluding details
• The aim was to emphasize elements, material, surface, forms, colors, shades, and textures
• Compared to P.V. Janakiram, a sculptor from South India, who worked with metal sheets
• Calcutta artists were drawn to socialism/Marxism because the modern philosophy asked class difference questions in society
• They wanted art to address social problems

Printmaking

• Chittoprasad and Somnath Hore chose printmaking as a medium to make multiple artworks to reach more people
• Chittoprasad's etchings, linocuts, and lithographs showed the poor's condition
• The Communist Party asked Chittoprasad asked to sketch famine-affected villages for pamphlets named "Hungry Bengal"

Progressive Artist's Group of Bombay

• The freedom desire grew among artists witnessing independence from British rule after the war.
• In Bombay (1946), Francis Newton Souza led the Progressives
• Included M.F. Husain, K.H. Ara, S.A. Bakre, H.A. Gade, and S.H. Raza
• Souza questioned art school conventions. To Souza, modern art was a new freedom challenging traditional beauty/morality
• His experimental works focused on women, painted as nudes with exaggerated proportions

M.F. Hussain

• He wanted to make painting styles understandable in Indian context
• Used western expressionist brush strokes with bright Indian colors
• Drew from Indian mythology, religious sources, miniature paintings, village crafts, and folk toys
• Hussain combined a modern style with Indian themes enabling his art to represent Indian modern art internationally
• His Mother Teresa painting exemplifies the mix to make the work more international

Abstraction - A New Trend

• While Hussain remained figurative, S.H. Raza moved into abstraction, with landscape as a favorite theme using bright/soft monochromes
• While Hussain used figurative art to show Indian themes, Raza made abstraction
• Some Raza's painting drew from mandala/yantra designs and used bindu as oneness from Indian philosophy
• Gaitonde pursued abstraction
• K.K. Hebbar, S. Chavda, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, and Krishen Khanna moved between abstraction and figurative

Sculptors

• Abstraction was important to sculptors like Piloo Pochkhanawala and printmakers like Krishna Reddy
• Material usage was as important as shape creation
• Abstraction had wide appeal across the 1960s and 1970s in painting, printmaking, and sculpture
• K.C.S. Paniker established Cholamandalam, an artist village near Madras, and pioneered abstraction by using motifs from Tamil/Sanskrit scripts, floor decorations, and rural crafts

The Tension Between Indigenious and International

• Tension arose between internationalism, using western styles like Cubism/Expressionism, and indigenous styles of using native arts by the 1970s
• Amarnath Sehgal balanced abstraction and figurative, creating wiry sculptures i.e., Cries Unheard
• Mrinalini Mukherjee works leaned toward abstraction when using hemp fibre (i.e., Vanshri)
• Indian artists/critics worried about blindly imitating Western Modern art
• The need to establish an Indian identity/style in art grew
• In the 1960s, Biren De and G.R. Santosh (Delhi) and K.C.S. Paniker (Madras) turned to past and local art traditions to create a unique Indian abstract art

Neo-Tantric Art

• The style was successful in the West before coming to India
• Known as Neo-Tantric art for using geometrical designs/yantras for meditation
• Works made during the Hippie movement found a ready market
• The style seen as Indianised abstraction
• Biren De used captivating color/pattern experiments
• G.R. Santosh created visual cosmic male/female union energy, reminding of Tantric philosophy purusha and prakriti
• K.C.S. Paniker made diagrams/scripts evolved region style both modern/Indian
• Eclecticism, borrowing from sources, became a modern Indian art feature
• Ram Kumar, Satish Gujral, A. Ramachandran, and Meera Mukherjee exemplify eclecticism

Bombay Progressive Artist's Group Manifesto

• Started with the artists
• Artists declare aims and how they differed from others
• In 1963, J. Swaminathan formed Group 1890, and wrote manifesto
• Artists being free from ideology, adopted a fresh look at materials with rough texture/surface as a new artistic language
• It included Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jyoti Bhatt, Ambadas, Jeram Patel, and sculptors like Raghav Kaneria and Himmat Shah
• Short-lived but impacted the next artist generation, especially those tied to Cholamandalam School near Madras

Tracing the Modern Indian Art

• Modern art in India drew ideas from the West
• Modernism as an art movement in India occurred when it was under British rule
• Evident in artists like Gaganendranath, Amrita Sher-Gil, and Jamini Roy, who became modern as early as the 1930s
• Modern artists saw themselves as avant-garde or at the frontier

Influence from the West

• Traditional art that decorated churches and palaces lost context with technology development after the Industrial Revolution
• Early modern French artists i.e., Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet worked outside art institutions
• Cafes/restaurants became important for artists, writers, film-makers, and poets meeting to discuss modern life artistic role in India
• F.N. Souza and J. Swaminathan rebelled against art institutions, identified with Western artists

Colonial Influence

• Modernity and colonialism were closely connected
• Nationalism was a political movement following the Indian Revolt of 1857, and it gave rise to cultural nationalism
• Ideas like swadeshi in art were held by Ananda Coomaraswamy in the late 19th/early 20th century
• Indian modernism not a blind West imitation, careful process carried out by the indian artists.
• Bengal School rose under Abanindranath Tagore reflecting nationalism, then took new form at Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan
• Nandalal Bose and Asit Kumar Haldar drew from past traditions, i.e., Ajanta frescoes, Mughal, Rajasthani, and Pahari miniature paintings
• Gagendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil, Ramkinker Baij, and Benode Behari Mukherjee showcased a distinct modern attitude in Indian art
• The Indian artists of the 1940s and 1950s rarely looked at their immediate cultural milieu.

New Figurative Art

• From the 1970s, artists moved toward figures/stories easy to recognize to express social concern after the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971 and Bangladesh's birth
• K.G. Subramanyan, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Bhupen Khakar told stories in paintings, while Jogen Chowdhury, Bikash Bhattacharjee and Ganesh Pyne painted social problems
• They explored old miniature paintings and popular art forms like the proceeding generations

Art Style of the New Generation

• Designed for larger publics
• Figures (people and animals) appeared in prints by Jyoti Bhatt (Devi), Laxma Goud (Man Woman, Tree), and Anupam Sud (Of Walls) to show conflict over inequality.
• Arpita Singh, Nalini Malani, and Sudhir Patwardhan focused on plight of people in big cities to show the point of view of the opressed
• In the 1980s, the Baroda Art School developed its attitude by the late 1950s and artists were aware of their role as citizens which placed social/political concerns in the artwork
• Combined fact, fiction, autobiography, and fantasy while drawing styles from the past
• Gulam Mohammed Sheikh painted Baroda's old bazaar, invoking a medieval town in Sienna and Italian painters styles

K.G. Subramanyan

• Sheikh's teacher and Baroda Art School founding member who studied in Shantiniketan
• Learned about art public roles from teachers Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinker Baij
• Interested in mural art for everyone to appreciate on public buildings
• Attracted to sand casting by Rajasthani artists
• Learned to create relief sculptures by repeating shape
• A famous mural sits on Kala Bhavana's outer wall, since not wanting art confined to galleries

'Place for People'

• A popular exhibition ('Place for People' in 1981) held in Delhi and Bombay with six artists: Bhupen Khakhar, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Vivan Sundaram, Nalini Malani, Sudhir Patwardan, and Jogen Chowdhury
• Geeta Kapur, was an art critic, who wrote about it.

Bhupen Khakhar's Style

• Bhupen Khakhar painted the local barber/watch repairer as he painted queer men experiences, with middle class morality struggle
• Important contribution by Baroda narrative painters showed openness to popular everywhere from highways to small towns and shops

Mumbai Inspirations

• Younger painters in Mumbai were inspired by bold Khakhar + Baroda artists/popular art like calendars, film hoardings.
• Used photographic images on canvas
• Relied on double meanings and experimental technique, which in watercolour is painted

New Media Art Developments

• With the 1990s Indian economy liberalization, globalization came
• India advanced in information technology but also saw social/political concern
• Artists sought ways to react to these changing times
• Easel painting/sculpture by artists lost importance and video caught attention

Art Installations

• Photography was attractive for easily reaching many people
• The art form increasingly seen as contemporary was installation
• Provided a way to combine painting, sculpture, photography, video and even television in a larger space
• Art installations offered a immersive experience
• Early installation artists came from big cities: Nalini Malani (Mumbai) and Vivan Sundaram (Delhi) because it was greatly dependent on technology
• The subject matter was grim and thought provoking

Photorealism

• Photography, long regarded as the rival to the art developed new thoughts
• New technique called ‘photorealism', used by Atul Dodiya in Bapu at Rene Block Gallery, New York
• Youger artist used oil paint or acrylic the manner of a photograph/television screen
• T.V. Santosh and Shibu Natesan used the technique to comment on communal violence on one hand and to comment on India's technological advancement.

Photography as a Documentation Tool

• Photography used to document the changes in Society as the artists saw them
• Sheba Chachi, Ravi Agarwal, and Atul Bhalla photographed those living on the margins of society that who not often seen
• Artists expressed concerns for ecology by expressing concerns about the pollutions on Rivers and the Urban congestions.
• Almost all major Indian cities have publicly and privately owned art galleries that have a goal on towards creating art using all sorts of mediums, including digital Paintings.