Page 15 - Eye of the beholder

the demon Mahishasura is depicted. The movement of the lion on which the goddess stands has the validity of movement as she balances herself on the animal in the act of piercing her trident into the demon. The influence of Mughal miniature tradition finds resonance in the delineation of the jewellery. The composition has symmetry and balance, while the colours used by the artist are complementary as the green and orange to bring the image of Kali alive. The iconographical representation includes the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati as well as the two sons of Shiva and Parvathi namely Ganesha and Karthikeyan placed on either side of Kali and at her feet respectively. The overall effect is one of decorative splendour with the splendid lotus petaled arch within which the dramatic act is played out. The intricacy of rich details in the background which has minute representations of gods and the simulation of the bronze petaled frames are noteworthy of artist’s dexterous skills of his firm drawings and deft planning in the arrangement of the composition. Yet he has imparted a sense of movement through postures, gestures and glances which is illustrative of his insightful perceptions of having studied the European paintings but equally his own local urban environment.
This painting is typical of what is referred to as the "Early Bengal" or "Dutch Bengal" school. Executed using oil paints on cloth or canvas, these unsigned works mostly hail from the region around Bengal from the early 1800s, and are thought to be authored by the earliest generation of Indian painters who took to the medium of oil painting. Having set up their colony in India before the British, the Dutch were at that time ensconced in Chinsurah and Chandennagore in the region around present day Kolkata. To cater to the emerging tastes, local artists appropirated the styles, techniques and the media from these dutch and other european artists, and used them to portray quintessentially Indian subjects and themes. What emerged was a curious and amusing blend of western technique and Indian style characterized primarily by Bengali religious subjects painted in a western style. The figures tend to be of Krishna, Durga, Shiva, Kali etc and are invariably rigid in their stance and posture, as is apparent in this painting. One can see traces of influence of Kangra and Rajput miniatures in these paintings, along with elements of christian iconographic paintings and the earliest attempts at integrating an element of perspective in the paintings.
For a long time, these paintings were neither studied nor appreciated. This has changed substantially in the last decade. Paintings of the "Early Bengal"genre have found a dedicated set of fond collectors both in India and abroad. These paintings sporadically come up in international auctions of Indian art and fetch decent prices. Museums such as the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachussets hold these works in their collection. Prominent art galleries and collections in India also hold a good corpus of these works.
These paintings are historically important; as the Bengal oils represent an interface between two cultures namely Indian tradition and European realism; as in these paintings an alien medium as oils found a new direction in the local idiomatic language of art.
SELECT REFERENCE
1. Art of Bengal, Exhibition catalogue, Published by CIMA, Calcutta 2000
2. INDIAN DIVINE - Gods and Goddesses in 19th and 20th Century Modern Art. Delhi Art Gallery; 2014
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