View PDF - Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch

Transcription

O LIVER F ORGE
BRENDAN LYNCH
Bengal School Painting
29 October - 7 November 2009
Front cover:
Detail from catalogue no.1, page 9
Catalogue
Chroma Design Associates
www.chromadesign.co.uk
Photography
Alan Tabor
www.alantabor.com
O LI VER F ORGE
BRENDAN LYNCH
Exhibition of
BENGAL SCHOOL PAINTING
from the Collection of L.T.P Manjusri (1902-82)
Thursday 29 October – Friday 6 November 2009
St James’s Open Day, Sunday 1 November 2009
11 am - 9 pm
Weekday hours:
10 am – 6 pm
Weekend hours:
Saturday 31 October, 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 1 November, 11 am – 9 pm
2 Georgian House,
10 Bury Street,
St. James’s,
London SW1Y 6AA
Telephone 44-20-7839 0368
www.forgelynch.com
Asian Art in London
29 October - 7 November 2009
www.asianartinlondon.com
INTRODUCTION
The Tagore Family and the foundation of the Bengal School of Painting
In 1854 the Industrial Art Society was founded in Calcutta
and shortly afterwards a government art school was
established. It was not however until the end of the century
that its conventional Western teaching methods began to be
questioned by a small but highly educated sector of Bengali
society. It was the prescience of the Tagore family, for
generations traditional Bengali feudal landlords (zamindars)
distinguished by their interest in and support of the arts,
which nurtured the birth of the Bengal School, creating a
new and independent artistic identity for India in the early
twentieth century.
Four of the most important artists that emerged are featured
in this exhibition and are briefly described as follows.
Starting in the 1890s, the two Tagore brothers, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath, nephews of the poet and
Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), were
passionately involved in the quest to establish an indigenous
Indian school of art free of Western influence.
Abanindranath (1871-1951), who was Vice-Principal of
the Calcutta School of Art from 1905-15, (1) is considered
the founder of the Bengal School of painting. Described as
the “archpriest of Orientalism”, by Professor Partha Mitter,
the distinguished Oxford scholar who has done much in
recent years to expose and research Indian painters of the
late nineteenth and twentieth century (2), his style was
mainly derived from three diverse influences. He fused
subjects from Mughal and Rajput painting with Japanese
and Chinese influence, (following the visit of the Japanese
painter Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) to Calcutta in 1902),
and adapted the English watercolour technique to form a
distinct gouache wash. Perhaps the inherent contradictions
of what he was trying to achieve are summed up by
Benode Behari Mukherjee, who wrote in Lalit Kala in
1962 “Abanindranath never tried to render vividly the real
or the peculiarities of the form of the object. But as chief
ingredients both abstraction and realism are traceable in his
compositions” (4).
Gaganendranath (1867-1938), is remembered for his
satirical lithographs lampooning colonial life in Bengal, but
he in turn took a radical new approach to painting, albeit
a Western one, in applying Cubism to Indian subjects.
Professor Mitter describes him as “the only Indian painter
before the 1940s who made use of the language and syntax
of Cubism in his painting” (5). Whereas Abanindranath’s
personality is described as colourful, his highly cultured
brother was more of an individualist and he had embraced
French Cubism even before the Calcutta Exhibition
of Bauhaus artists, including Kandinsky and Klee, in
1922, where his own work was also exhibited. In 1907
Gaganendranath Tagore established the Indian Society
of Oriental Art, an organization for the promotion of the
Bengal School artists and from 1920 their journal, Rupam,
became highly influential (6).
In 1920 Nandalal Bose (1883-1966) was chosen by
Rabindranath Tagore to become director of his newly
established art school, Kala Bhavan, at what had become
Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan. Rabindranath
became famous internationally after he won the Nobel Prize
for literature in 1913, and by 1901 had already established
a school at Santiniketan (‘abode of peace’), on his family
estate in rural Bengal, where he sought to realise his
holistic educational experiments through “environmental
primitivism”. The sage-like Tagore, bearded and robed,
had become a figurehead for idealistic Indian nationalism
and Bose, who had studied at the Calcutta School when
Abanindranath was vice-principal, was passionate about
nationalist themes in his art. His work was influenced by
early Buddhist and Hindu murals such as those in the cavepaintings of Ajanta and Bagh. In 1930 he was asked by
Gandhi to design a lithograph to
publicise the Mahatma’s famous Salt March, following
which he became recognised as an artist of national
importance (7). Bose is known for his exceptional skill
in drawing though he experimented with a variety of
techniques throughout his career. In 2008 a retrospective
exhibition of his work was organized jointly by the San
Diego Museum of Art and the National
Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (8).
Following Jamini Roy’s (1887-1972) classical training at
the Government School of Art, Calcutta, 1903-08, he turned
for inspiration to indigenous themes, having experimented
with various Western styles such as impressionism. One of
his first influences was the Kalighat school of painters and
this led to his exploration of both style and technique of
the traditional patua painters of rural Bengal, whose scrollpaintings were taken from village to village by story-tellers.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
By the mid-1920s he was experimenting with paintings
of the Santal tribes of Bengal and this is a recurring them
in his work. A friend of Abanindranath, under whom he
had studied, his first exhibition was organized by Muluk
Dey in 1929, which won praise from Sir Alfred Watson,
editor of the influential Statesman newspaper. He sought
an idiosyncratic style that was more evolved and modern,
rejecting both Western and Bengal School influences, but
whose roots were firmly in rural Bengal. Roy received
widespread recognition and was recipient of the Viceroy’s
gold medal in 1934 and the Padma Bhushan from the
Government of India in 1955 (9).
Detailed artist biographies written by Emilia Terracciano can be
found at the back of this catalogue.
Benode Behari Mukherjee “Abanindranath Tagore” in Mulk Raj Anand, ed., Lalit Kala Contemporary, no.1, New Delhi, June, 1962, pp.26-33
Mitter, P., Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922: Occidental Orientations, Cambridge, 1994
Mitter, P., The Triumph of Modernism: India’s artists and the avant-garde 1922-1947, London, 2007, p.18
Benode Behari Mukherjee, “Abanindranath and his Tradition” in Mulk Raj Anand, ed., Lalit Kala Contemporary, no.1, New Delhi, June, 1962, p.
24
Mitter, 2007, op. cit., pp.18-25
Benode Behari Mukherjee “Gaganendranath Tagore” Mulk Raj Anand, ed., Lalit Kala Contemporary, no.1, New Delhi, June, 1962, pp.48-51
Mitter (2007), op.cit., pp.79-91 and Benode Behari Mukherjee “Nandalal Bose” in Mulk Raj Anand, ed., Lalit Kala Contemporary, no.1, New
Delhi, June, 1962, pp.36-41
Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, Rythms of India: the art of Nandalal Bose, San Diego, 2008
Mitter (2007), op.cit., pp.100-122
Bengal School Painting from the Collection of L.T.P. Manjusri
The exhibition comprises twenty-nine paintings, including
six works by Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) , founder
of the Bengal School of Painting, and two by his brother
Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) , who went on to
become the first Indian artist to embrace Cubism. There
are two works by Nandalal Bose (1883-1966), whose art
was championed not only by Rabindranath Tagore but
also by Mahatma Gandhi, the majority of whose studio
was donated to the National Gallery of Modern Art, New
Delhi, in 1982 (1). Finally there is an exceptional group of
thirteen paintings by Jamini Roy (1887-1972), who studied
under Abanindranath but reverted in style and technique
to the traditional folk artists of Bengal, and went on to be
collected by Indian and international luminaries such as Dr.
Stella Kramrisch, J.B.S. Haldane and Peggy Guggenheim,
his first London exhibition being opened by E.M. Forster
in 1945 (2). In addition there are a number of lesser known
artists contemporary to the Tagores, such as Sarada Ukil
(1889-1940), as well as later followers, Gopal Ghosh (191380), Sailoz Mookherjea (1906-60) and Ramkinker Baij
(1906-80).
The collection was formed by L.T. P. Manjusri (190282). Originally a Buddhist monk, he went to Santiniketan
in 1932 to study Chinese, and having come under the
influence of Bose and other artists, he returned to Sri Lanka
in 1937, where he spent the rest of his life as a painter and
collector. He was a founder-member of the “43 Group”, ten
painters who established themselves in Colombo in 1943,
in the footsteps of the Bengal School, with the objective of
establishing a new Sri Lankan modernist school (3).
1. Quintanilla, S. Rhie, Rythms of India: the art of Nandalal Bose, San Diego, 2008, p. 224; and Farrooqi, A., ed., Catalogue of Collection, Vol.1,
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 1989, 328-331ff.
2. Mitter, P., The Triumph of Modernism: India’s artists and the avant-garde 1922-1947, London, 2007, p. 110
3. Weereratne, N., The 43 Group: a Chronicle of Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka, Melbourne, 1993, pp.123-6.
BENGAL SCHOOL PAINTING
From the Collection of L.T.P. Manjusri (1902-82)
We are grateful to Emilia Terracciano, an independent scholar currently
completing a doctoral thesis on Modern Indian Art at the Courtauld
Institute of Art, London, for her assistance with this catalogue.
1.
Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951)
Illustration to Burton’s Baitala Pachisi:
The Lotus Princess
Gouache on paper, signed vertically in Bengali at lower right
55.8 by 38 cm.
This incident is taken from the first story of Sir Richard Burton’s free
version of the Baitala Pachisi (Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of
Hindu Devilry, London, 1870, pp. 57ff). In the story, a young prince is
attracted by a princess whom he sees bathing in a lotus pond in the forest. By means of a lotus flower, the princess silently communicates her
love for the prince, here seen galloping across the nocturnal sky.
Abanindranath made several illustrations to this text during his formative period under the influence of his teacher, E.B. Havell, principal
of the Calcutta School of Art. In this painting however the artist gives
quasi-Cubist overtones to a traditional Mughal-inspired setting with
pool, palace and arched gateway. His exploration of space, painted by
way of overlapping and faceted planes, may have been influenced by his
exposure to the works of Bauhaus artists. Bauhaus works were exhibited
for the first time at the 14th annual exhibition of the Indian Society of
Oriental Art in Calcutta on 23rd December 1922, and included works by
Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger.
The distinguished scholar and later curator of Indian Art at the Philadelphia Museum, Dr. Stella Kramrisch, who had then been teaching at
Santiniketan, encouraged the Indian public to visit the exhibition ‘for
then they may learn that European art does not mean naturalism and that
the transformation of the forms of nature in the work of an artist is common to ancient and modern India.’ (St K [Stella Kramrisch], “Modern
Phases in Western Art” in Catalogue of the 14th Annual Exhibition of
the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta, 1922, pp. 3-4).
A date of circa 1920-25 has been suggested for this work.
8
2.
Himalayan landscape
39.6 by 26 cm.
A Himalayan landscape has been rendered in Abanindranath’s romantic
style. The artist would have encountered such scenery during his stay
in Darjeeling from 1919 to 1920, and it is therefore likely that this work
dates from that period.
10
11
3.
The Meeting
Watercolour on paper, signed vertically in Bengali at lower right
18 by 13.2 cm.
The subject of this painting, in which two figures in archaic dress meet
under a tree, has not yet been identified.
A date of circa 1920 has been suggested for this work.
12
13
4.
Scene from the Mahabharata: the myth of Savitri and Satyavan
Watercolour on paper, signed vertically in Bengali at lower left
24.6 by 16.5 cm.
In ‘The Book of the Forest’ of the Mahabharata, the chaste and beautiful
Savitri marries Satyavan, son of the blind king Dyumatsena. Savitri learns
that Satyavan is destined to die one year from that day. Three days before the
foreseen death of Satyavan, Savitri wears the clothes of a hermit and takes a
vow to fast and keep vigil. On the morning of Satyavan’s predicted death,
she accompanies him to the forest where he quietly dies. Yama, god of Death,
comes to claim his soul and the wise Savitri follows him. Impressed by her
dedication and purity, Yama restores Satyavan’s life, blessing Savitri with
eternal happiness. She is seen here in front of a funeral pyre at the moment
when Yama himself, visits her in the forest.
14
15
5.
Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938)
Rural landscape with boat
Ink on paper, signed with initials at lower right,
31 by 21 cm.
The vist of the Japanese painter Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) to Calcutta in 1902 had
a strong impact on the work of both Tagores. It was followed by visits from other artists
such as Okakura Kakuzo and his two pupils, so that by 1910, an ambitious exhibition of
Japanese art was organized by the Indian Society of Oriental Art, which Gaganendranath
had founded in 1907. (Ratan Parimoo, Gaganendranath Tagore, National Gallery of
Modern Art, New Delhi, 1996, p. 52). Gaganendranath did not receive a formal art
education, unlike his brother, and in this experimental phase he adopted Japanese-style
brush painting and sumi-e ink techniques. In this ink sketch and in Chinese landscape
[no.6], he practises such techniques.
6.
Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938)
Chinese landscape
Ink on paper, signed with initials at lower left
25.7 by 20.2 cm.
See note to previous item. A date of circa 1900-1915 has been suggested for this work.
17
7.
Fluting Krishna
25 by 16.2 cm.
18
8.
Portrait of a woman, perhaps the artist’s sister Sunayani Devi
Pastel on paper, signed vertically in Bengali at upper right
24 by 17.5 cm.
It has been suggested that this work dates from the early 1920s.
19
9.
Attributed to Nandalal Bose (1882-1966)
Study of a Yakshi
Charcoal on paper
34.8 by 20.6 cm.
This sketch depicts an early sculpture of a yakshi, or female earth
spirit, a symbol of fertility to the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. Such
sculptures are found in early architectural compositions. The style of
the headdress would suggest that Bose may have derived the figure
from one of the early Indian cave-frescoes which were such a great
inspiration to him.
20
10.
Nandalal Bose (1882-1966)
Chinese Landscape
Watercolour on paper, signed with initials at lower right
25.7 by 35 cm.
Both Bose and Abanindranath shared a pan-Asian approach in their
effort to establish an indigenous Indian style, both exploring Japanese
ink and wash techniques which they became familiar with following
the visit to Calcutta of a series of Japanese artist as of 1902. See note to
items 5 & 6.
21
11.
Gopal Gosh (1913-80)
Landscape
Watercolour on paper,
signed Bengali, in ink, and dated 1942(?) at lower right
18 by 30.5 cm.
Gosh was founder of the Calcutta Group in 1943 and is known for his
landscape painting.
22
12.
Sarada Ukil (1889-1940)
Young prince visiting a holy man in the forest
Watercolour on paper, signed in English, in red, dated 1919, at lower left
37 by 26.2 cm.
Srijut Saroda Ukil belongs to the second generation of the Bengal School, both he and his brother
studied under Abanindranath.
Ukil retrieved themes from the Indian epic past or scenes from romantic tales and reworked them
stylistically. Here he takes a traditional theme often found in miniature painting, the meeting between
a prince and a holy man in a forest, inserting indigenous architectural props and flora, to create a wistfully sentimental scene.
23
13.
Ram Kinker Baij (1906-80)
Monsoon Landscape
Watercolour on paper, signed in Bengali at lower right
19 by 28.8 cm. 24
14.
Large tree in a landscape
Watercolour on paper, signed in Bengali at lower left
20.2 by 28.5 cm.
15.
Woman, child & baby with dog
Ink and colour on paper, signed in Bengali at lower right
and dated 2/8/?6
28 by 21.2 cm.
16.
Sailoz Mookherjea (1906-60)
Turbaned man and women in a field
Gouache on paper, signed upper left
25 by 35.5 cm. A graduate of the Calcutta School of Art, Mookherjea travelled extensively in Europe in 1937-8, and was greatly influenced by French
modern art of the period. He appeared on the 1979 list of Nine Masters
of the Archeological Survey of India.
26
17.
Jamini Roy (1887-1972)
Woman on horse
18.
Seated woman
Tempera on paper, signed in Bengali at lower right
34 by 24cm.
35.2 by 21 cm.
It has been suggested that this work dates from the 1950s
It has been suggested that this work dates from the 1940s.
27
19.
Two cats and crayfish
Tempera on card, signed in Bengali at lower right
49 by 36.5 cm.
28
29
20.
Four Santhal Drummers
30.2 by 39 cm.
30
21.
Santhal drummer flanked by two women
39 by 43.7 cm.
31
22.
Group of twelve Santal musicians
27 by 61 cm.
32
33
23.
Two elephants
36.5 by 50cm. A date of circa 1935 has been suggested for this work.
34
24.
Attributed to Jamini Roy (1887-1972)
Standing woman
43 by 34 cm. A date of circa 1945 has been suggested for this work.
35
25.
Krishna and Balarama dancing
36.5 by 62 cm.
26.
Crane
29.2 by 23 cm.
27.
Nandi bull
21.3 by 27.3 cm. It has been suggested that this work dates from the 1940s
28.
Two deer in flight
23 by 36 cm.
29.
Cat holding fish in its jaws
Tempera on mosaic of paper, on palm mat,
signed in Bengali at lower right
34 by 45.5 cm.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Emilia Terracciano
Gaganendranath Tagore
Abanindranath Tagore
Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938), grew up in a family whose exceptional
creativity spearheaded Calcutta’s cultural life.
Abanindranath Tagore (1871 - 1951) was the pioneer and leading exponent of
the Bengal School of Art.
Brother of the artist Abanindranath, pioneer and leading exponent of the Bengal
School of Art and nephew of the poet Rabindranath, Gaganendranath received
no formal education but was trained under the British school watercolourist Harinarayan Bandopadhyay. In 1907, he founded the Indian Society of Oriental Art
with his brother Abanindranath. Between 1906 and 1910, the artist assimilated
the Japanese brush technique and Far Eastern pictorial conventions into his own
work (see his illustrations for Rabindranath Tagore’s autobiography Jeevansmriti published in 1912.) From 1910 until 1914, Gaganendranath developed
his own approach to SUMI-E or black ink (see Chaitanya series and Pilgrim
series.) Between 1915 and 1919, the artist, with the help of his brother, set up
the Bichitra club in the Tagore family house. The club served as an important
social, intellectual and artistic hub of cultural life in Calcutta, where many artists, including Nandalal Bose, A.K. Haldar and Suren Kar worked at their paintings. During these years, Gaganendranath abandoned the ideological revivalism
embraced by the Bengal School of Art and took up caricature to satirize the
westernised middle class of urban Bengal. The artist’s popularity was secured
in 1917 when Modern Review published many of his shrewd cartoons. From
1917 onwards, his lithographs appeared in a series of books, including: Play of
Opposites, Realm of the Absurd and Reform Screams. In these mocking pieces,
the austerity of Kalighat paintings is wedded to the simplicity of Japanese prints.
Between 1920 and 1925, Gaganendranath, who was well informed about modern European art, pioneered experiments in Cubism, using colour and ink. His
work however, was pictorially closer to the dynamism of Italian Futurism rather
than the work of Picasso and Braque. From 1925 onwards, the artist developed a
complex post-cubist style.
In his paintings, he sought to counter the influence of Western art as taught in art
schools under the British Raj, by modernizing indigenous Moghul and Rajput
traditions. His work became so influential that it was eventually accepted and regarded as a national Indian style within British and international art institutions.
Born in Calcutta, Abanindranath grew up in a family whose exceptional creativity spearheaded Calcutta’s cultural life. Nephew of poet Rabindranath Tagore,
Abanindranath was educated at Sanskrit College, Calcutta and was taught painting by European private teachers. In 1905 he joined the Calcutta School of Art
as Vice-Principal under Dr E.B. Havell. As a reformist art teacher and advocate
of Indian art, Havell staunchly opposed the inclusion of European art education
in Indian schools. The meeting fostered Abanindranath’s rejection of Western influences and his return to indigenous Moghul and Rajput traditions. Concern for
the revival and redefinition of an ‘Indian’ art at the Calcutta School stimulated
Havell and Abanindranath’s contributions to the Bengal School movement (also
known as New Calcutta School). In his work, Abanindranath retrieved themes
from the Indian epic past or scenes from romantic tales, such as Arabian Nights
or Omar Khaiyam and reworked them in a highly romanticised style. The artist’s
desire to emancipate Indian art from European influence was also fostered by
Japanese artist Okakura Kakuzo, who visited him in 1902. Later, studying Japanese art under Japanese artists, Taikoan and Hilsida, Abanindranath assimilated
far eastern techniques such as the ‘wash’ into his work. His Omar Khaiyam
series (1906-08) reflects such influences. Despite his sympathy for the national
cause, Abanindranath did not depict daily struggles in his work but withdrew
into fantastic landscapes. He developed an individualistic style to express personal and aesthetic reflections. In 1915 Abanindranath resigned from the School
of Art and focused exclusively on his paintings.
(Reference: Ratan Parimoo, Gaganendranath Tagore, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 1996)
(Reference: Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, Occidental
Orientations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994)
Ram Kinker Baij
Srijut Saroda Ukil
Ram Kinker Baij (1910-1980) was born in a village near Bankura in West
Bengal. Initially educated at Bankura, Ram Kinker moved to Santiniketan in
1925 where he studied under polymath Rabindranath Tagore. After obtaining a
diploma from the university he became the head of the sculpture department.
Srijut Saroda Ukil (1889-1940) born in Bikrampur, Dhaka, belongs to the second generation of the revival of Indian painting which began in Bengal, under
the inspiration of Dr. E. B. Havell and Abanindranath Tagore.
The artist expressed himself worked with considerable power both as a sculptor
and as a painter. His sculpture is characterised by energy and a love of movement, his figures and forms appear dynamic and earthy. These were often built
in cement, stone and plaster, achieving great strength with very limited technical
means. His style ranged from naturalistic, romantic to completely abstract. Ram
Kinker’s most famous sculpture is his Santhal Family of 1938: the robust Santhal tribals who lived around Santiniketan modelled for him. In painting, Ram
Kinker worked with oils, gouache and watercolour. Though the artist initially
adopted tempera and wash, he soon started painting in oil and watercolour to
achieve a more spontaneous and monumental pictorial style. His watercolour
landscapes from rural life and drawings of animals are also of considerable
interest, evidencing a keen interest in the tonal and plastic potential of the
medium.
(Reference: Grant Watson et. al., Santhal Family, Positions around an Indian
sculpture, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen and Bodhi Art, 2008)
Abanindranath succeeded E.B. Havell for a time as Principal of the Goverment
School of Art, Calcutta, and Saroda and his brother Barada were among his
early students. Following his master’s endeavour to free art from the academicism of the art schools, Saroda retrieved themes from the Indian epic past or
scenes from romantic tales and reworked them stylistically. His use of tepid
colours was highly personalized, allowing Saroda to imbue his scenes with a
wistful sentimentality.
(Reference: Sarada-Charan Ukil, Scenes from Indian life, Chatterjee’s Picture
Albums, Calcutta, no date)
Nandalal Bose
Jamini Roy
Nandalal Bose (1883-1966) was an influential figure of the Bengal School of
Art.
Jamini Roy (1887-1972) was a painter who drew on the popular and folk traditions of rural Bengal.
Bose was a direct disciple of Abanindranath Tagore, the leading artist and
exponent of the school, as well as the reformist art teacher Dr E.B. Havell.
Adhering to his mentor’s patriotic commitment, Bose retrieved themes from the
Indian epic past or scenes from romantic tales and reworked them in a highly
romanticised style. In 1910 and 1921, Bose visited the murals at Ajanta and the
Bagh caves and meticulously copied them from life. After a few years in the Art
School, Bose and other students of Abanindranath worked in the Vichitra Club,
a cultural organisation set up in the Tagore household. In 1919, Bose started
teaching at the Kala Bhavan (college of arts and crafts) at Santiniketan and in
1922 became its principal. This position enabled him to explore his enduring
fascination for murals, festival decorations and theatre stages. Here, he pioneered the teaching of handicrafts and fostered the belief that art should not be
cultivated merely for its own sake, but should cater responsibly for the interests
of society. In 1924 he travelled to China and Japan with poet Rabinindranath
Tagore and mastered the brushwork (see Arai Kampo) and wash technique
(see Sati and Siva Drinking Poison.) The artist sympathised with the Indian
Independence Movement and was an enthusiastic supporter of Mahatma Gandhi. Nonetheless, despite his sympathy for the national cause, the artist did not
depict daily struggles in his work but withdrew into fantastic landscapes. Not
unlike his mentor, Bose developed an individualistic style to express personal
and aesthetic reflections. Unlike his mentor however, Bose’s work reflected a
more experimental approach, openly showing the traces left by the wash and the
act of painting itself.
Born in Beliator, a village in the Bankura district (Bengal), Roy was raised in
a family of small landowners. In 1906 he entered the Calcutta School of Art
and studied under Abanindranath Tagore, pioneer and leading exponent of the
Bengal School of Art. Abanindranath’s tutelage secured Roy’s mastery of both
European and indigenous painting techniques. Initially, Roy adopted Khaligat
pats (scroll painting). In the mid 1920s however, after travelling through the
Bengali countryside, he embraced other popular and folk painting traditions.
Around 1934, he formulated a style which synthesised academic firmness of
drawing and geometry with folk techniques. His materials included lamp black
for outline drawing, seven basic colours, which he applied with organic tempera, and homemade canvas made with spun fabric. In the late 1930s, seeking to
restore the collaborative artisanal labour model, Roy set up a workshop where
several assistants reproduced his work as well as his signature.
(Reference: Jaya Appasamy, Abanindranath Tagore and the art of his times,
Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1968)
(Reference: Partha Mitter, The Triumph of Modernism, India’s artists and the
avant-garde 1922-1947, Reaktion Books, London, 2007).
Gopal Ghose
Sailoz Mookherjea
Gopal Ghose (1913-1980) was born in Calcutta, West Bengal. In 1943 he
became one of the founders of the Calcutta Group. Initially drawn towards the
Bengal School, Ghose turned to the pictorial vocabulary developed by European Expressionists and Cubists to depict nature en plein air. As such, the artist
reworked the genre of landscape painting, investing it with expressionistic qualities. Abanindranath Tagore is recorded to have told the artist: ‘You have set out
to see India through the eyes of an artist, I hope the world will someday see its
grandeur through your works.’
Sailoz Mookherjea is regarded as one of the first figures in modern Indian art to
have used oil colour with understanding, confidence and lyrical virtuosity. Born
in Calcutta (1907-1960), the artist spent his boyhood in Burdwan, studying there
and in Calcutta. In 1928, he joined the Calcutta School of Art and in 1937-38
visited Europe extensively. During his travels Mookherjea’s discovery of the
works of Matisse and other French modern artists encouraged his abandonment
of descriptive drawing in favour of distortion, rapid brushstrokes and expressive
colours. In his treatment of landscape, the artist creates spaces organically by
the movement of colour rather than by any clearly indicated recession. His brush
drawing flows, making blotchy coloured silhouettes instead of building form.
These he often juxtaposes in adventurous and sophisticated ways producing
asymmetrical and daringly balanced compositions.
(Reference: Dwijendra Moitra, Gopal Ghose, Lalit Kala Akademi, Contemporary Indian Art Series, New Delhi, 1966)
(Reference: Jaya Appasamy, Sailoz Mookherjea, Lalit Kala Akademi, Contemporary Indian Art, New Delhi, 1966)
43
O L I VER F ORGE
BRENDAN LYNCH
2 Georgian House,
10 Bury Street,
St. James’s,
London SW1Y 6AA
9 East 82nd Street,
New York N.Y. 10028
www.forgelynch.com
© Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd 2009
All rights reserved.
With the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted without
prior written permission of the copyright owner.

View PDF - Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch

Transcription

Similar documents

Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli

Gary L. Brandt, Faculty Northwest Indian College, [email protected]

Bose Offer

George V, George VI, or any other George

M.Sc. Physics St. Xavier`s College Bose Institute &amp

Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of

A. Das Gupta Rabindranath Tagore in IndonesiaAn experiment in