Page 14 - Eye of the beholder

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music, theatre, social reforms as well as the women coming out of the zenanas and taking active part in social life simultaneously enhancing the rejuvenation of the Bengali culture particularly in the 19th century. In this backdrop of socio-political churn, many European artists were attracted to Calcutta, and made the city their gateway to India. Among these artists, the ones with British pedigrees (William and Thomas Daniell; Johann Zoffany; Robert Home etc) have been researched and published well. However, recent research has also thrown light on the existence and contribution of some important non-British artists. Key among these early contributors to Bengal’s modernity in art was a German artist called Eduard Sunkel.
Politically too, it was a period of significance. The tension between the colonizers and the colonial power had resulted in the first war of independence of 1857, when nationalism became the focus and encouraged people to speak out. The emergence of Rabindranath Tagore and the start of the Ashram education in Santiniketan brought in another wave of cultural change in the first few decades of the 20th century.
The initial period of modernity in Bengal undeniably would be the early oil paintings that were executed inspired by the rich oils of European in its naturalistic style. Though these local artists lacked the grammar in the naturalistic representation, as they had no concept in the use of perspective for carving space on a two dimensional surface nor were they aware of imparting volume to figures through modelling in light and dark. Nevertheless they solved these issues according to the native intelligence and created works that were, lucid, spontaneous and incidentally brought together three strands of tradition namely Mughal miniatures, European naturalistic art and the indigenous patachitras.
There is not much documentation of the artists of the Early Bengal School, but it has been claimed that these artists were the descendents of court painters of Murshidabad and Bihar. When they lost patronage, they came to Calcutta and began catering to the rich aristocratic Hindu families, as evidenced by the religious paintings in oils that survive.
The thematic content of these early oil paintings by these itinerant artists comprised of Siva’s Marriage, Siva’s Family, Ganesh Janani, Durga and Annapurna. These works were created in the first few decades of the 19th century. Between 1850 and the turn of the 20th century were painted, Siva’s Sanskara, Ram, Lakshmana and Sita, Chaitanya and Krishna and Radha. Within this was a sub group of Chaitanya and Radha Krishna.
Early Bengal painting rendered in oils as that of Durga in the Sadhu collection mostly woven around mythological themes, predominated by the representation of Durga and her various iconic battles that she fought which marked the triumph of good over evil. The composition of these paintings reveals sensitive creativity and originality in their approach. Divested of drama or any emotions, the composition has the strength of decorative affinity to the Durga pandals that were created on the occasion of the Durga Pooja. As integral to Siva’s family, the representation of Ganesha on the left and Karthikeyan on the right can be observed. On either side of majestic Durga are the representation of Lakshmi and Saraswati.
Another painting from the same period and titled Kali in the Sadhus’ collection has the setting akin to the Durga Pooja pandals with a shallow platform on which the enactment of Kali killing