Stay Updated!

During the early and mid 1900s, the dilemma for many artists centred around interrogating Western influences on artistic expression, establishing a distinct identity and idiom for Indian art, and engaging with the role and function of the artist in a country like India. By then, indigenous artistic practices such as miniature painting, and folk and tribal art, had taken a backseat. The British encouraged a Western approach to art. A realistic, trompe l’oeil work was more valued than the practices previously favoured. Raja Ravi Varma, touted as the Father of Modern Indian Art, embraced this new approach by rendering Indian mythological stories in a realistic manner. As nationalistic sentiments simmered, anything seen as Western or imported was shunned, and a new wave of artists rejected Ravi Varma’s ideals.
Different schools of thought cropped up as a response to colonialism and Western ideals. The Bengal School artists included stalwarts such as Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, D. P. Roy Choudhury, A.K. Haldar, Kshitindranath Mazumdar, Sarada Ukil and A.R. Chugtai. Some artists, like Rabindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore, though allied with the school's general goals, preferred more personal idioms, experimenting with concepts like cubism and executing paintings in strikingly modernist terms. Others like Jamini Roy, in the spirit of Gandhi's teachings, turned their gaze inwards to the simplicity of Indian folk art.
Following the country’s independence in 1947, it might have seemed like the right moment for a form of expression that would match the significance of the occasion. But art does not always take its cues from historical or defining events. From the late forties through succeeding decades, artists addressed themes ranging from the everyday and trivial to the social and political. Others, such as F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza, K. H. Ara, M. F. Husain, H. A. Gade and S. Bakre who formed the Progressive Artists Group, were determined to fashion an art that was entirely Indian but also modern. Artists like Jagdish Swaminathan who formed Group 1890, adopted polarised views, believing that Indian artists must reject the hybrid mannerisms imported from Europe, and turned to primitivism to find their idiom. Certain others, such as those from the Cholamandal Artists Village outside Madras, attempted to distil an Indian idiom through the use of techniques derived from rural handicraft traditions and textile design.
Sculptors also experimented with different materials and techniques to lend a more personal and reflective quality to their work. Among the modern vanguard of Indian sculptors were Dhanraj Bhagat, Sankho Chaudhuri, Adi Davierwalla, Pillo Pochkhanwalla and Meera Mukherjee. In addition, printmakers like Krishna Reddy and Jyoti Bhatt championed means of artistic expression that had not been taught and explored in India during the preceding decades, opening up several new possibilities for artists in the country.
By the 1970s, a number of social and political events unfolding across the country left an impression on artists. The 1971 war with Pakistan, the famine and Naxalite Movement in Bengal, and the imposition of Emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi formed the backdrop for this phase. Artists began exploring issues triggered by these events, mainly through figuration. In the cities of Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi, Tyeb Mehta, Rameshwar Broota, Gieve Patel, Somnath Hore, Ganesh Pyne and Bikash Bhattacharjee, among others, felt it their responsibility to directly refer to the national situation and document the pain of the people. The role of the artist in a developing country and the need for social responsiveness were interrogated by these practitioners. This decade also saw many more women artists come forward on the artistic scene, the majority of them delineating a point of view that combined the feminist and the subjective. Nalini Malani, Arpita Singh, Madhvi Parekh, Navjot and others often addressed the issues of subjectivity and victimhood, but also expressed introspective and apolitical themes in their work.