Test: The Bengal School and Cultural Nationalism- 2 - Humanities/Arts MCQ

Shantiniketan, an art school, became a place where Western and Indian art styles could coexist and where students could learn to appreciate and create art from a global perspective.

Gaganendranath Tagore made several paintings using Cubist style and caricatures, in which he often made fun of rich Bengalis blindly following the European style of living.

E.B. Havell and Abanindranath Tagore designed a curriculum to include and encourage technique and themes in Indian art traditions with the aim of creating a true modern Indian art.

The European artists had rejected academic realism and created a more abstract language of art.

The Bengal School of painting was an art movement and a style of painting that originated in Calcutta and was associated with the nationalist movement (Swadeshi).

Nandalal Bose, a student of Abanindranath Tagore, was invited by poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore to teach art at Shantiniketan. Bose was instrumental in shaping the curriculum and direction of the art school at Shantiniketan.

In 1922, an important exhibition of works by Paul Klee, Kandinsky, and other artists, who were part of the Bauhaus School in Germany, travelled to Calcutta. The European artists had rejected academic realism and created a more abstract language of art.

Abanindranath Tagore and E. B. Havell were critical of colonial Art Schools and the manner in which European taste in art was being imposed on Indians. The Bengal School, which was spearheaded by Abanindranath Tagore, set the stage for the development of modern Indian painting.

Raja Ravi Varma was a self-taught artist of the Travancore Court in Kerala who mastered academic realism and used it to depict scenes from popular epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Many of his paintings were copied as oleographs and were sold in the market.

Nationalist artists in India accepted changes introduced by colonialism, such as the influence of modern western styles of painting, but continued to assert more Indian taste in art and even accepted a larger Asian identity for a while. The legacy of this conflict was going to leave a deep impact on the later history of modern Indian art. Therefore, option c) Modern Indian art accepted changes introduced by colonialism but continued to assert more Indian taste in art is the correct answer.