Snapshots of 19th century Bengal in paintings of Kalighat

New Delhi:

The 19th century paintings of Kalighat in West Bengal mirrored a phase of socio-political transition when the feudal Bengali gentry was opening up to European influences under pressure from the East India Company.

Now, 100 'Kalighat paintings' from the 1870-1930 period, taken from London's Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum, are being shown in Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and New Delhi. The exhibition also has 15 new patachitra (scroll) paintings from the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata.

The show, a collaboration between V&A Museum, ministry of culture and Bonita Trust, opened at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi Tuesday.

'The changing socio-economic situation of 19th century Calcutta inspired the imagination of the artists. The new mill paper -- which was invented a few years earlier -- allowed the artists to move their brush easily on paper,' said Sangita Gairola, secretary, ministry of culture.

Divided into six segments, the paintings depict 'Gods and Goddesses', 'Scenes from Life of Krishna & Epics', 'Social Commentaries', 'British and European Influences', 'Named Artists at the End of 19th Century' and 'Contemporary Kalighat Paintings'.

Symbols such as the 'rohu' fish, cats, prawns, women in kitchen, wrestlers, birds, animals, European sahibs, native workers, deities, babus, their modern wives and mistresses are common to the iconography.

The main event around which the art evolved was an 1873 scandal known as the 'Tarakeshwar affair' where a Brahmin priest was found having an affair with a housewife, an art critic said.

The 19th century Bengali babus -- dividing time between their wives in the city and their mistresses in the suburbs -- had suddenly discovered the joys of European luxuries such as ballroom dancing, riding in open carriages, English language and liberal literature.

The hybrid society of extra-marital liaisons, idyllic decadence and increased patronage of the arts led to the birth of Kalighat scroll paintings by migrant groups of painters in areas around the Kalighat temple in Calcutta. They painted on paper in water or natural colours.

Many of these paintings found their way to museums abroad after 1930, when the last of the Kalighat patua (painters) died. The tradition ended for almost 50 years till it began to revive in the villages of Midnapore, with a contemporary flavour.

Bureaucrat exhibits her new collection of paintings

New Delhi:

The season of spring heralds a break from the drab winter ushering in the multicolour hues of flowers in bloom, mellifluous music, pleasant weather and the promise of new beginnings. All this and more are depicted in Colors of Spring, a new exhibition of paintings by Nirmala Pillai, a bureaucrat in the Department of Telecommunication, whose recent works of art are being shown at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Gallery (AIFACS) here. Dancer Shovana Narayan inaugurated the exhibition that began on April 1 and is scheduled to continue till April 7. Painting for me is a great stress buster. I am always looking for new subjects and themes and complete my paintings after my day at office, says Nirmala. At her recent exhibition, visitors are greeted with a painting of a woman framed in an intricate wood frame, perhaps a self portrait at the entrance to the gallery. While inside the over 35 paintings, mostly acrylic on canvas and a few line drawings are reminiscent of spring and to further evoke the mood of the season, the artist has placed colored butterflies, apparently flitting about on artworks. Bright sunflower heads, a solitary woman looking out of the window at nighttime, another lone woman admiring herself in a vanity mirror, clear streams and lush fields, amaltas and jasmine flowers, are some of the themes of the exhibition.

Stonework jewelery embellishes one canvas while another sports cows, goats and other plastic animals grazing on grass. It is nice to know that creativity is coming through in so many ways. Nirmala is a poet, a writer and a painter. Her paintings have used so many mediums like bamboo, silver foil and plywood, it is really creative that the same person is doing many creative things, said Shovana Narayan. Raised in Mumbai, Nirmala, who hails from Kerala, is a postgraduate in English Literature from Mumbai University and later topped a journalism course. Ultimately she found her calling in a career as a civil servant. Nirmala, a self-taught artist says she has been painting ever since as a child and her first painting exhibition was held at the India International Centre here in 1993 followed by others. She has exhibited at the Prince of Wales museum in June last year and previously exhibited at galleries in Chennai, Mumbai, Ernakulam etc. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Lalit Kala Regional Centre in Chennai Apart from art, Nirmala is also a poet and author. She has published two books of poems and her stories have been published in magazines, anthologies and Internet magazines. I have finished my third collection of poems and also a novel am scouting around for a publisher now, says the multifaceted artist.