A study of influence of traditions on Indian Modern Art

Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 2009

Historical Development of Contemporary Indian Art was visualized as part of the special publications programme on the completion of Golden Jubilee of the Lalit Kala Akadami. It was planned to cover the period from late nineteenth century when Raja Ravi Varma had flourished until the Independence of India in 1947. The scope of the material to be covered was the parallel manifestations in pictorial-visual arts of several regions of the whole country. This has been the period of what the editors call 'art-turmoil, which includes both breakdown as well as rediscovery of our rich art tradition at a point when European aesthetic norms were introduced. This Conflict between indigenous and western modes leads to further conflict when Indian artists confronted first waves of modern movement of European Art. Accordingly, the editors proposed the tripartite structure and placement of various regions in a time-line sequence within each section of the book. The authors were chosen and approached to document art manifestations of their region revealing continuation of tradition on one hand and also the setting up of art schools and impact of European style art training resulting in a new mode which we gave the nomenclature of Naturalism'. Accordingly the first section covers the naturalistic phase in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil-Nadu. The second section is devoted to the intellectual and creative churning that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century when traditional art is rediscovered and re absorbed in fresh creative ventures which is widely accepted as 'Revivalism'. These aspects are covered in terms of broadly the impact of the movement spreading from Bengal and several regions have their own phase of Revivalism' overlapping the mode of Naturalism'. These regional responses to the spirit of Revival', is a belated but a glorious culminating phase of India's 'Renaissance' during the colonial rule. Such regional involvements and initiatives also resulted in conflict between tradition and European modes, which served as the ground or base for the emergence of the first phase of modernity that saga is covered in the third section. For the first time the focus is not on a few selected individuals but regional art manifestations contributing towards the national level phenomena.

ANU Undergraduate Research Journal, 2013

Indian Art History: Changing Perspectives, ed. Parul Pandya Dhar. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld., 2011

The shaping of the disciplinary practice of art history in the Indian context has been a fascinating process and brings to the fore a range of viewpoints, issues, debates, and methods. Changing perspectives and approaches in academic writings on the visual arts of ancient and medieval India form the focus of this collection of insightful essays. A critical introduction to the historiography of Indian art sets the stage for and contextualizes the different scholarly contributions on the circumstances, individuals, initiatives, and methods that have determined the course of Indian art history from colonial times to the present. The spectrum of key art historical concerns addressed in this volume include studies in form, style, textual interpretations, iconography, symbolism, representation, connoisseurship, artists, patrons, gendered readings, and the interrelationships of art history with archaeology, visual archives, and history.

The Chitrolekha Journal on Art and Design, 2018

Contemporary, as a terminology, means anything and everything that live-in or belong-to or occur-in the same epoch, especially the one that is prevailing. Being used in the realm of human art-practices, it refers to a specific time-frame rather than a special type of art. It was framed as a coin at the beginning of Modernism in western-world, while its definition – being anchored in the present – always had a start-date that kept on moving with time. Thus works bought by the Contemporary Art Society of London, for instance, way back in 1910 could no longer be described as so, while museums with a permanent collection such works inevitably find them aging. In addition to this, the contextual functionality of the term was also taken over time and again by various ‘–isms’ through the last six-seven decades. Multiple definitions came into the fore, since 1960s, of what constitutes Contemporary Art and today they vary widely from each other. The term however is now used specifically to limit the art of the present, produced in the latetwentieth century or the early twenty-first. To be more substantial, ‘contemporary’ now refers to art made and produced by artists living today, though commercial-galleries, art-dealers and artmagazines often restrict the coin to the works done after AD 2000 only. Thus it poses further issues with the mid or late twentieth century artists who are still productive after a long career, along with ongoing art-movements that have lasted for long – leaving us imprecise about the divide between contemporary and non-contemporary.

Valedictory Address at Asiatic society, Kolkata, at Seminar on Understanding Modern Art in Global Perspective, 2019

Modernity in art, specially, in painting, has been perceived as a fundamental break with earlier aesthetic conceptions in the Western formulation in the 20 th century. Its expressions have been diverse, initially European, later American, with further ramifications in the world. Indian modernity in painting has also been guided by the Western art market. The market has been driven by urban, industrial, commercial patronage, cemented by an alliance of auction houses, galleries, museums, curators, Biennales and Triennales. The alliance has been strengthened by prestige mongering festivals of arts, sponsored by the nation state as a cosmetic aid to diplomacy in the West. The Indian expression of modernity in art, specially, in non objective, abstract painting, has to untie itself from Western apron strings, and find its feet in an endogenous fusion of Indian and global horizons, in shape and meaning, material and techniques.

2015

The softness of river line soil has softened our minds, which gave the opportunity for the ancient artists of this most fertile delta of the world, comprised of approximately 700 rivers, to draw coarse lines over muddy surface and to mold any shape by fingers, a hypothetical beginning of art in this land. After Pala consequence, synthesis of Islam and Hinduism in rural culture gave birth of Bengal’s own artistic language during medieval period, where art was something inherent, instinct and intuitive. Folk art was not; even still not iconoclastic but the study of nature is prior to there. Bengal art had been possible only for the thirst to acquire precise negotiation with the surrounding nature. This observation resulted in a metaphysical fancy and was relevant in all forms of art. It represents the emotion of our community, not of the individuals. Thus the artists are lost, in the womb of past but not their arts. Prominence of folk literature had shaped the art of Bengal. From Beng...

Published in ongoing Discussion on Online Platform Artshrooms (Artist Collective), 2020

In India after post independence the Art scene was convinced of the 'Modernizing' process, some were influenced by a drive of western modern Art, with influence to European Experiments such in German, France, Italy and American modernism in Art. Some artist to try a middle way, giving the East-West oscillation a renewed swing, with giving importance to both views of western art and indigenous art phrase, in general it was difficult situation for Indian artist to take perspective. In this summary I tried to conclude overall activities taken place during late 20 th century and individualistic artistic Style developed by some of the artists during 1950 to 1980s. With some examples of the prominent Artists with specific idiom from indigenous Art form, influenced by Tribal, Folk and Traditional Art styles of India, Secondly Artist in 'search of Nationalism' in Art, 'search for Identity crisis', to create one's own stylized approach or find an identity as an artist and the third one in reaction to and influenced by European modern Art trends of mid 20 th century, with Spontaneous reaction to the expressionism of Rouault, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Modigliani, formed the inspirational bases for some of the Artistic drive. In conjunction to this specific preference to Art styles, figurative Abstraction and stylized Abstraction are visible in India.

The study of Indian art should begin with some question. But how was this art made? What were its guidelines? What was its purpose? These answers emerge from the study of Indian philosophy at large and Indian aesthetics in particular. This paper aims to present an overview of aesthetics in the tradition of Indian art, as it has been understood right from the Vedic to this day. With a basis of art theories from ancient treatises this paper hopes to present a brief view of what is considered the best and beautiful in art.