The Modern Indian Art Chapter Notes | Fine Art for Class 12 - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

Introduction

British considered fine arts as European and believed Indians lacked sensibility to create or appreciate it. Art schools were established in major cities like Lahore, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras by mid and late nineteenth century, which promoted traditional Indian crafts, academic and naturalist art reflecting Victorian tastes. Against this colonial bias, nationalist art emerged, and the Bengal School of Art was a prime example. India's first nationalist art school, Kala Bhavana, was set up in 1919 as part of the newly established Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan, conceptualised by poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Gaganendranath Tagore and Rabindranath Tagore
Gaganendranath Tagore used the language of Cubism to create a unique style of his own, with paintings of mysterious halls and rooms made with vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines. Rabindranath Tagore turned to visual art quite late in life, creating a small visual world that was a complete departure from the Bengal School's more elegant and delicate style.

Nandalal Bose and his students
Nandalal Bose joined the Kala Bhavana in 1921-1922 and was familiar with nationalism in art. Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinker Baij, Bose's most creative students, developed their own unique style of sketching and painting that could capture their immediate environment, flora and fauna, and those who lived there. Benode Behari Mukherjee was drawn to the lives of medieval saints rather than well-known epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Ramkinkar Baij's art reflects his everyday experiences and is given to the celebration of nature. His Santhal Family sculpture, made out of modern material like cement mixed with pebbles, was in sharp contrast with the earlier sculptor D. P. Roy Choudhury's academic realism style.

Jamini Roy
Jamini Roy, a student of Abanindranath Tagore, rejected pursuing academic art and realized the rural, folk art in Bengal had much in common with how modern European masters painted. Like village artists, he made his own colors from natural materials and used simple and pure colors to make his art relevant to the rural community.

The Progressive Artists’ Group of Bombay and the Multifaceted Indian Art 

• Modernism in India emerged after Independence from the British Raj.
• The Progressive Artists’ Group of Bombay formed in 1946 led by Francis Newton Souza.
• The group also included M. F. Husain, K. H. Ara, S. A. Bakre, H. A. Gade and S. H. Raza.
• Souza believed in questioning the conventions that had prevailed in art schools and wanted to challenge traditional sense of beauty and morality.
• Husain combined Indian themes with western expressionist brush strokes, and drew inspiration from Indian mythology, village crafts and folk toys.

Abstraction

S. H. Raza moved towards abstraction and used landscapes as a favorite theme. His colors ranged from bright to soft, modulated monochromes. K. K. Hebbar, S. Chavda, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta and Krishen Khanna moved between abstraction and figurative. Abstraction had a wide appeal for many artists across the 1960s and 1970s, including sculptors like Piloo Pochkhanawala and printmakers like Krishna Reddy. K. C. S. Paniker, who established Cholamandalam, an artist village near Madras, was a pioneer in abstraction and showed how it had a long history in India. Many artists and critics grew worried about their imitation of modern art from the West and felt the need to establish an Indian identity in their art.

Neo-Tantric Art

Biren De, G. R. Santosh, and K. C. S. Paniker turned to the past and local artistic traditions to create a unique Indian abstract art. This style became successful in the West and later in India and came to be known as Neo-Tantric art. It used geometrical designs seen in traditional diagrams for meditation or yantras and was both modern and uniquely Indian. Eclecticism, in which an artist borrowed ideas from many sources, became an important feature of many Indian modernists, including Ram Kumar, Satish Gujral, A. Ramachandran, and Meera Mukherjee

The New Figurative Art and Modern Art from 1980s

In the 1970s, Indian artists began using figures and stories that were easily recognisable in their art as a means of expressing their concerns towards social problems that arose after the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971 and the birth of Bangladesh. Artists like K. G. Subramanyan, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, and Bhupen Khakar in Baroda and Jogen Chowdhury, Bikash Bhattacharjee, and Ganesh Pyne in West Bengal started using storytelling in their paintings to depict the social problems that disturbed them. Many of these artists drew their inspiration from old miniature paintings and popular art forms like calendars and folk art.

• Printmakers like Jyoti Bhatt, Laxma Goud, and Anupam Sud started using figures of people and animals to depict the conflict between men and women in a world full of social inequality. Arpita Singh, Nalini Malani, Sudhir Patwardhan, and others turned their attention to the plight of people living in big cities and painted such urban problems while trying to see the world from the eyes of the oppressed.
• In the 1980s, the Baroda Art School saw a significant departure in the way artists began taking an interest in their immediate surroundings. They became aware of their role as citizens in a democracy, and social and political concerns found a place in the artistic production of this period. These artists combined fact with fiction, autobiography with fantasy, and drew their style from other art historical styles. Gulam Mohammed Sheikh painted the busy lanes of the old bazaar in Baroda while invoking a medieval town in Sienna and the style of Italian painters like the Lorenzetti brothers. K. G. Subramanyan, Sheikh’s teacher and a founding member of the Baroda Art School, was interested in mural art or art on large public buildings, which can be seen by everyone. He did not want art to remain confined to art galleries but be made a part of public buildings for all to see.

New Media Art: from 1990s

In the 1990s, with the liberalisation of the Indian economy, the impact of globalisation was felt in big cities. Artists began to look for ways of reacting to the changing times, and the medium of video caught their attention. Photography was also attractive as it allowed multiple copies to reach numerous people simultaneously. However, the art form that was increasingly seen as contemporary was installation. It provided a way to combine painting, sculpture, photography, video, and even television in one space. This medium, which could spread out into a whole hall, could fully grab the attention from all sides, providing an immersive experience. The traditional medium of easel painting and sculpture that was created by artists who would earlier proudly sign on them as an expression of their unique creativity lost importance.

• New media artists started exploring themes like migration, displacement, gender, and sexuality. They were also interested in exploring the potential of technology in their art. For example, Nalini Malani, one of India’s leading contemporary artists, uses light and shadow in her work to create the illusion of movement and to convey a sense of time. Her work is a powerful critique of the patriarchal society that she grew up in. Another artist, Shilpa Gupta, has created interactive installations that invite the viewer to participate in the art. Her work explores themes of identity, borders, and political conflict.
• The emergence of new media art in India reflects the country's rapid social, economic, and cultural changes. 

The Lives of Medieval Saints

• Created by Benode Behari Mukherjee in 1946-47, during India’s Independence from Colonial rule
• The mural is located in Hindi Bhavana, Shantiniketan
• Technique used: fresco buono
• Covers almost 23 meters of the upper half of the three walls of the room
• Figures created with bare minimum lines, each figure relates with its neighbor by a rhythmic network of lines
• Reminds us of the syncretic and tolerant tradition of Indian life as found in the teachings of great Bhakti poets like Ramanuja, Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas and others
• Mukherjee was one of the earliest artists in modern India to realize the potential of a mural to become public art

Mother Teresa

• Painted by M. F. Husain in the 1980s
• Depicts the saintly figure of Mother Teresa
• The painting features a figure of the faceless Mother, holding a baby, appearing several times
• Attention given to the hand of the figures
• The central figure of the seated Mother has a grown-up man lying on her lap horizontally
• The flat shapes used to depict the scene are modern and appear like a collage of paper cutouts
• The kneeling figure of the woman on one side gives us a hint that the story about healing and nursing the helpless is unfolding in India
• Husain created a new language of modern Indian art

Haldi Grinder

• Painted by Amrita Sher-Gil in 1940
• Depicts Indian women grinding dry turmeric
• Painted in Indian style
• Uses bright, saturated pigments
• Sher-Gil drew parallels between miniature traditions of north India and modern art of Paul Gaugin
• The women and trees are painted as flat shapes, a semi-abstract pattern as a modern artist
• Sher-Gil was not interested in creating any depth in the landscape

Fairy Tales from Purvapalli

• Painted by K. G. Subramanyan in 1986
• Painted using water and oil colors on acrylic sheet
• Draws inspiration from different art traditions from India and the world
• The title refers to his home in Purvapalli
• His imaginary landscape consists of a strange world in which birds and animals rub shoulders with humans
• The male and female figures on top reminds us of urban folk art like the Kalighat painting that was popular in Colonial Calcutta in the late nineteenth century
• Figures are arranged on the top of each other, creating a flat space, a sign of modern art
• Palette remains earthy - ochres, greens, and browns

Whirlpool

• A print made by India’s celebrated printmaker Krishna Reddy in 1963
• Captivating composition created out of various shades of blues
• Result of a new technique in printmaking called ‘viscosity printing’ that he developed along with Stanley William Hayter
• Different colors are applied on the same metal printing plate
• Each color is mixed with linseed oil in varied concentration to ensure that colors do not run into each other
• Subject matter of the print deals with water current and aptly captures the technique based on understanding how water and oil behave with each other
• The print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA

Children
"Children" is a monochromatic etching with aquatint by Somnath Hore. The figures in the print are five skeletal children, each with a huge malaria spleen and ribcage for the thorax. The strong definitional lines create a narrative effect of malnutrition without placing the figures in a specific context. This artwork is part of Hore's larger body of work which includes representations of vulnerable individuals such as peasants, wounded animals, and beggars.

Devi
This is a picture called "Devi" made by Jyoti Bhatt in 1970. He was influenced by traditional art and created his own unique style. The picture shows a mix of old and new elements, with a central image of the goddess Devi surrounded by patterns and designs. This represents the philosophy of Tantric beliefs about the power of self-evolution and self-involution. Bhatt made many other artworks too.

OFF Walls
"Of Walls" is an etching on paper made by Anupam Sud in 1982. It shows a lonely woman sitting on the pavement in front of a dilapidated wall. The woman's face is hollowed out, giving her a sad expression. In the foreground, we see the lower part of a sleeping man, adding to the sadness of the scene. Sud was interested in social problems faced by marginalized communities and depicted them artistically.

Rural South Indian Man–Woman
This is a colorful etching print on paper made by Laxma Goud in 2017. It shows the figures of a rural South Indian man and woman with trees in the background, inspired by his childhood memories of nature. Laxma Goud is known for his unique style that blends classical, folk and popular cultures. His work is a combination of highly ornate contours and realistic depictions of peasants, with a touch of puppet-like stylization. Some of his other artworks include Woman, Man, Landscape of Turkey, and Xiyan China.

Triumph Of Labour
Triumph Of Labour is a bronze sculpture made by Debi Prasad Roy Chowdhury in 1959. It shows four men trying to move a rock, emphasizing the importance of human labor in nation building. The sculpture is placed on a high pedestal, replacing the notion of portraits of kings or British dignitaries.

Santhal Family
Santhal Family is a metal armature and cement mixed with pebbles sculpture created by Ramkinker Baij in 1937. It shows a Santhal man carrying his children in a double basket joined by a pole, his wife, and dog walking alongside. It is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India and is placed outside Kala Bhavana. The material of which it is made of is important, as the artist has preferred cement, the symbol of modernization.

Cries Un-Heard
Cries Un-Heard is a bronze sculpture made by Amarnath Sahgal in 1958. It shows three figures flinging their arms above and crying out for help in vain, representing the destitute families in need of help whose cries fall on deaf ears. The sculpture is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Ganesha
Ganesha is an oxidized copper sculpture made by P. V. Janakiram in 1970. It is in the collection of NGMA, Delhi. The artist has used sheets of copper to create pictorial sculpture as free-standing forms, and ornamented their surface with linear elements. In this sculpture, Ganesha is playing vina, a musical instrument, and is crafted frontally, lending an important indigenous character of cave and temple sculpture.

Vanshri
Vanshri is a hemp-fibre sculpture made by Mrinalini Mukherjee in 1994. It is entitled 'Goddess of the Woods' and shows a figure with an inward expression and protruding lips, emphasizing the powerful presence of natural divinity. The intricate way in which the artist has knotted and woven the complex shape out of jute fibre is the result of years of handling the new material.