The forgotten Bombay School

Bombay School was based on realism, or naturalism, as taught by the colonial mindset that patterned it.

Rarely have art movements in India been as successful as the Progressive Artists’ Group, launched in 1947. Perhaps Independence and its spirit that encouraged new thinking had something to do with it. Collectives had been formed earlier — in Bombay (now Mumbai), and in Calcutta (now Kolkata) — but never had the impact that the Progressives did. Not on consumers and, as we’re discovering seven decades later, not on prices either. But its success came at a cost too. The Bombay Progressives, alas, eclipsed all the work that had been done by the Bombay School before it. And years later, art-lovers are still paying the price for it.

There was no formal Bombay School as such, just as there is no formal Bengal School, but the term referred to a style of art being practised in the western region premised on the academic training artists received at the Sir J J School of Art. This was based on realism, or naturalism, as taught by the colonial mindset that patterned it. It was old-fashioned, but it brought in rigour and practice on a scale almost never experienced before in India. Artists were taken outdoors to train in landscape painting; they were sent off to Ajanta and Ellora to learn drafting and documenting; and they undertook classes with life models — often nude — to gain knowledge of human anatomy, which served them well when painting portraits.

The city’s patronage of artists was decided by the Bombay Art Society that bestowed awards on artists and honoured them with public recognition. Trained artists soon began to paint scenes popular with the public — gatherings at pilgrimage points, market scenes, cityscapes and seascapes — but, mostly, they resorted to mythological and historical scenes rendered dramatically. These enjoyed the custom of the city’s wealthy elite as well as the royal families who came to Bombay for the races. Artists prospered. Modernism was a mere blip on the horizon.

A painting by D C Joglekar

At the same time that Bombay was showing off its mastery over the tenets of Western art techniques — light, depth, perspective, chiaroscuro — its counterparts in Calcutta were rejecting it in favour of a nationalistically derived vocabulary that favoured a glorification of India’s past. It compared the nation with godhood and the idea of a motherland was consolidated with Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata painting. Mahatma Gandhi took up its cause and the Bengal School gained ground based on a rising sentimentalism. It became associated with “Indian” art.

A further blow was wielded by the Progressives who, ironically, labelled the Bengal School revivalist, thereby adding insult to injury and completely overlooking advancements in art language in Santiniketan. At any rate, the Bombay School went into decline and never recovered. It had had its time, and while there were no laments for its passing, it is saddening that critics, scholars and collectors have paid so little subsequent heed to it. Collectively, its artists represent a period of training that resulted in art that has stood the test of longevity.

Some of those artists need to be recognised nationally and their contribution acknowledged. These include M V Dhurandhar — often labelled the true successor of Raja Ravi Varma — but also A H Muller, the father-and-son Haldankars S L and G S, the talented L N Taskar, M K Parandekar, Abalall Rahiman, V B Pathare, A A Almelkar, N R Sardesai, D C Joglekar and several others. Their works were shown in London where they won awards — examples of the colonies falling in line with British ideals — which may be a reason for their fall from national grace. But it’s time to shine the spotlight on them for their individual achievements and contribution. Indian art would never have been the same without them.

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