Kalighat painting

The 19th century saw the emergence of the Indian painting style known as Kalighat painting, also known as Kalighat Patachitra or Kalighat Pat. In the area of the Kalighat Kali Temple in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), in the modern Indian state of West Bengal, a group of skilled scroll painters known as the Patuas were the first to practice it.These paintings and sketches were created on both hand-made and machine-made paper, with strong outlines, vivid color tones, and few background elements. The paintings captured a socio-cultural landscape that was going through a number of changes during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Kalighat pat reached its height, by depicting mythological tales, Hindu gods and goddesses, and scenes from daily life and society.With 645 paintings, including watercolors, line drawings, and hand-painted lithographs, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London currently holds the greatest collection of Kalighat paintings worldwide.

   

Ganesha in the lap of Parvati.                              Krishna and Balram

History

The precise genesis of Kalighat painting is a topic of discussion and conjecture among historians and art critics because there is no historical record that pinpoints the exact period or tracks the beginnings of this style of painting, which was created by the patuas at Kalighat. The paintings appear to be from the first half of the 19th century based on tangible evidence, such as the kind of paper and colors employed. Additionally, historians have determined that the paintings' emergence roughly corresponds with the founding of the current Kali temple at Kalighat, in the first or second quarter of the 19th century, based on the dates on which these paintings were acquired by different European collectors.For example, the artworks in the museum were "created and collected over a period of 100 years from 1830s to the 1930s," according to the Victoria and Albert Museum website. However, according to S. Chakravarti, "Kalighat paintings were in vogue not earlier than 1850s."

Furthermore, by the early 19th century, Calcutta had developed into a major economic hub thanks to the commercial activity of the British and other European settlers, which drew immigrants seeking work. The Kalighat Temple, located in the city's southern region, gained popularity and drew hundreds of pilgrims, some foreign tourists, and locals.the artists and artisans, for whom the temple grounds offered the ideal setting for product sales. With the intention of taking advantage of the newly expanding market, the craftsmen and artists began to migrate to the area. Among them were the talented artists known as patuas, who came from rural Bengal, particularly from the 24 Parganas and Midnapore.These painters used to paint lengthy narrative stories on handmade paper or cloth scrolls, which frequently grew to a length of twenty meters or more. The artists were referred to as patuas because this type of work was termed patachitra, with each portion being named the pat.The Brahma Vaivarta Purana, written in the thirteenth century, contains the earliest reference to this group of itinerant folk artists. These artists portrayed traditional depictions of gods and scenes from the two Hindu epics, carrying their scrolls as they moved from one location to another and sang the scenes and episodes in the paintings at public events or during village festivals.

The Kalighat Temple, and the river, Adi Ganga, 1887

The intrinsic characteristics of the Kalighat genre evolved over time as a result of these artists' migration to the Kalighat region, the challenge of accelerating their pace of production, and the influence of various art forms nearby. They replaced their typical long linear, narrative style with single frames of chouko (square) pat showing one or two figures. They also removed extraneous details, kept the background simple, and used a basic color palette. They benefited from the importation of ready-made paints and paper from British mills.These artists no longer had to go to audiences since possible purchasers now came to them. They also transformed the way they conducted business by becoming sellers of their works rather than performers, as they had previously done. As a result, once they moved to the city in the middle of the eighteenth century, their style and viewpoints completely changed from those of their country upbringing.Scholars from W.G. Archer to Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Jyotindra Jain have noted that, up until recently, this "basic imperative of producing pictures cheaply, quickly, and in vast numbers to cater to the growing market of the city" was the primary driving force behind the changes in form and format of these paintings. Around Kali's main shrine and along the Adi Ganga ghat—a reference to the ancient, deserted riverbed that flowed beside the temple grounds and was once the Ganges' ancient course—these artisans would erect stalls and their communities.

A Babu with a hookah. Note the features of this painting - for Archer these features represented a Western influence, while other critics like Ajit Ghose defended the Kalighat School as a truly indigenous style.

On the other hand, renowned art historian and museum expert Jyotindra Jain has a different perspective on the Kalighat artists. "Certain inherent correspondences between Kalighat paintings and the traditions of making and painting clay figures, or between the sutradhar carpenters' sketches and wood carvings, or between the storytellers' scrolls painted by the patuas," he observes. implying that, in addition to the patuas, the traditional craftspeople of Bengal, including potters, carpenters, and stoneworkers, were also involved in the production of the paintings. The working class and merchants from many regions of the nation also found a market for these paintings. As a result, the nineteenth century saw a boom in the market for the Kalighat paintings.

Painting Method

The entire creative process was overseen by the family, much like an assembly line production system, and the drawing process was straightforward but exacting, with each step being distinct and well-defined. The procedure is explained in detail by Mukul Dey: "At first, one artist would [be] copying the outline from an original model sketch in pencil, and another would do the modeling, depicting the flesh and muscles in lighter and darker shades." After that, a third family member would add the appropriate colors to the background and other body parts. Finally, lamp black would be used for the finish and outlines.The brushes were created from squirrel fur or goat tail, and the colors were combined with gum and ground on a round stone using granite mullers. In addition to the more frequently depicted front and side profile faces, three-quarter profiles were also experimented with. Shading to suggest volume was accomplished by washing color from the dark hues on the outside periphery to the lighter interior portions.

A painting in process: Annapurna dispensing food to Shiva.

These paintings feature a wide range of colors, from opaque-based pigments to water-based colors. Blue, indigo, yellow, green, carbon black, and other colors were among them. While colloidal tin [12] was widely used to mimic the surface luster of diamonds and pearls, silver and golden were employed for ornaments and jewelry. Aparajita flowers were used to create the blue color, turmeric root was used to create the yellow color, and soot from burning oil lamps was utilized to create the black color. These colors were taken from a range of natural materials. Later, British factory-made water colors were imported to replace homemade ones, saving time and effort. Binding was done with gum prepared from the bel fruit and occasionally crushed tamarind seeds.One of the first accounts of these paintings was given by art collector Ajit Ghose, who wrote: "The drawing is made with one long bold sweep of the brush in which not the faintest suspicion of even a momentary indecision, not the slightest tremor can be detected." Frequently, the line encompasses the entire figure in a way that makes it difficult to determine where the artist's brush initially touched the paper or where the piece was completed." Ghose likened these paintings to Chinese calligraphy after being struck by the "exquisite freshness and spontaneity of conception and execution" of these works.

The British were rapidly Europeanizing the city's culture, intellectual realm, and ways of life as they solidified their control over Indian territory and transitioned from traders to the land's monarchs. During this period, these paintings tried to challenge European hegemony by establishing a distinct Bengali identity in the colonial capital. Milton Singer's description "cosmopolitan folk culture" properly characterizes these paintings, which were somewhat integrated into the new urban mass culture of the metropolis and partially changed from their village ancestors.

Theme

A wide range of religious and secular themes were portrayed in Kalighat paintings. Although depictions of the pantheon of Hindu deities, particularly Kali, were prevalent, Kalighat artists also responded to current events and painted scenes of life and society in Calcutta at the time. Following their departure from their rural homes, these artists documented aspects of their new metropolitan surroundings that caught their attention.

Religious themes

Hindu gods and goddesses, such as Shiva as Panchanan or with Parvati, perched on Nandi or dancing with Sati's lifeless corpse; Lakshmi as Gajalakshmi or in her normal form; and Chandi as Durga, Kamalakameni, and Mahishasuramardini, were frequently purchased by pilgrims as keepsakes. These artworks featured representations of Radha, Balarama, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, scenes from Krishna's early years in Vrindavan, and other deities like Kartikeya, Ganesha, Saraswati, and others, as well as Vaishnava topics like the several incarnations of Vishnu. The Kalighat patuas skillfully depicted scenes from the two great Indian epics, carrying on the traditions of ancient Patachitra painting. From the 1860s onward, Maxwell Sommerville (de), a publisher from Philadelphia, traveled throughout Africa, the Middle East, Thailand, Europe, India, and Burma. He observed the mystical customs of these regions and gathered artifacts, including 57 Kalighat paintings, nearly all of which featured Hindu gods and goddesses. Sommerville's collections are currently housed in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Savitri begs Yama not to take Satyavan, a scene from the Mahabharata.

Interestingly, there are clear indications of the effects of British colonialism in the portraits of these traditional deities: the goddesses' heads are adorned with Victorian crowns, they sit in the manner of English noblewomen, violins are used in place of veenas, and the backgrounds are made of thick curtains reminiscent of English playhouses. However, nationalist artists, collectors, and elites, like cultural anthropologist Gurusaday Dutt, who was unable to find the Indianness or the emotional and spiritual authenticity in these paintings, would later criticize the Kalighat school for this very appropriate portrayal of religious themes and figures. These paintings were criticized by Dutt, a civil servant as well.

The Kalighat patuas grew around the location of a Hindu temple, but they also featured icons and subjects from other religions, such as Christianity and Islam, including prophets, angels, and taziyas. The picture of the "Duldul Horse" that Hussain, the younger grandson of Prophet Muhammad, rode to his death in the Battle of Karbala is a highly well-known image. The Kalighat repertoire has powerful images from both Islam and Christianity, according to A.N. Sarkar and C. Mackay. The painters aimed to depict every aspect of the genuinely global market that was open to them.

Jamini Roy and Kalighat painting

While Jamini Roy would return the folk to its origins by depicting them from his own social position, these city-dwelling folk artists represented the predicament of the urban inhabitants. "Roy rejected the Kalighat artists for having lost the rural ideal when they moved to Calcutta to serve an urban population." However, Roy acknowledged the debt of learning from Kalighat art in his endeavor to produce the three women and Janani picture, which by his time had gained popularity.According to Anuja Mukherjee, Roy was able to problematize the need to serve a population that was very different from the rural pristine exotic. "Jamini Roy's efforts was to make the paintings local and national." As a result, he outperformed the same strata of the artisans he was employed by in his attempt to return to the roots and challenge the "hegemony of metropolitan on art."

       

Two cats holding a large prawn, Jamini Roy.    Cat stealing prawn, Kalighat Painting.

In sharp contrast to the migrant artisans who observed their immediate surroundings and mirrored them on their pats, Roy's language of nationalism was the precise preservation of the ideal country image. Roy moved the urban paintings to the countryside by using motifs like cottage, tree, alpona, etc. Thus, it seems that his vocabulary was "limited to aesthetic parallelism." As a result, it never attained any level of authenticity and lacked the earthiness and vigor (or cunning humor) of its close folk antecedents, whether they were from Kalighat or Puri.In contrast to the more lively and dynamic Kalighat Pats, Bishnu Dey emphasizes how Roy's paintings were static due to his incapacity to comprehend the modern issues that the Patuas skillfully depicted.According to Mukherjee, "and it was the difference in the painting of the eyes that accounted for the divide in popularity." Roy's most "lucrative motif" was the eye. While the eyes in Kalighat's paintings are self-engaged, Roy's figures have eyes that engage the audience. According to Mukherjee: "What I am trying to say is that the women, the cat, durga, ganesh and even asura stares back at the viewer with a dead pan expression, while the observed in the Kalighat paintings simply disengage themselves from the viewer" .This, she claims, enables us to see how the nineteenth-century elites perceived the underclass.

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