High art of the past

Holi is as good a time as any to talk about one of the most neglected, but endearing, schools of art practice that flourished briefly before being snuffed out. Yet, it marks a continuity with the “Indian” art that merits attention. Though it had resonances elsewhere, it flowered particularly in eastern India where it was known as Dutch Bengal — as much for the artists in Dutch-occupied Chinsurah, Cossimbazar and Murshidabad who practised it as for the Dutchmen who may have been early collectors — but has since found respect, along with Kalighat paintings, as the Early Bengal School of art, a forerunner of the more ubiquitous Bengal School which began its foray at the start of the twentieth century.

The Early Bengal paintings had their brief hiatus from the mid- to the late-nineteenth century, overlapping briefly with the Bengal School. It consisted of paintings in oil made by artists unschooled in the academic institutions the British had set up, but trained, instead, in traditional ateliers of miniature art. When the British and other Europeans introduced their art to India, the local artists saw their business beginning to slip through their fingers. Their realistic paintings made in oil on canvas were more glamorous, and their size made them more appealing. Soon, everyone wanted them, so the traditional artist, sighting a loss of patronage, shifted gear.

Acquiring the tools of his art school-trained peers, he began to emulate them — trouble was, he had not been introduced to such concepts as depth, perspective, chiaroscuro, or, indeed, the golden principle, that was the hallmark of Western art. What he managed was to migrate, with a degree of success, the miniature format using water colours to oils on canvas, creating in the bargain a form of hybrid art that was delightful for both content and context. 

These paintings copied some aspects from their Western counterparts

These paintings copied some aspects from their Western counterparts such as the landscape within which they were set. If they were not entirely successful in managing the perspective, it lent them a charming freshness. Radha and Krishna’s courtship no longer played out in an Indian environment but against a Renaissance landscape, or Anglo-Indian architecture. If some of the paintings were simply larger format miniatures, others were more ambitious. The faces of the painted characters were less stylised than their miniature versions and some even managed a degree of enchanting realism. Madonna’s beatific face became Yashoda’s, for instance. The colours, though muted, retained a level of liveliness. 

Since these works paralleled the thrust in the printing industry in India, with Bengal as one of the major centres for the printing of books, these paintings came to illustrate versions of the Ramayana, Mahabharata or Gita that my generation of Indians grew up seeing on the bookshelves of our more spiritually inclined uncles and aunts. 

This brief flirtation did not survive long primarily because art-schooled artists enjoyed a training that was superior to these bazaar artists catering to the local sahibs, and were replaced in their lifetime by Raja Ravi Varma and the group of artists that followed in his wake. The Bengal School itself was soon criticised for its overt sentimentality and was replaced by an aggressive modernism. The Early Bengal, considered too decorative to qualify as high art, was dismissed into oblivion. 

It is only in recent years that collectors have begun scouting around for examples of this splendid school of paintings that are considered historic precisely because they lie on the fault lines of a cusp. They provide a link between tradition and modernism and are contenders for a place in the art history of the country. Any wonder they are pulling in values that their originators would have baulked at?

Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated