by Ashoke Nag
The British Raj era European painters, who travelled to India from the late 18th century and early 19th century, did not focus only on landscapes, but brought a novel brand of Indian art. The aristocrats of Bengal (the eastern India state now), whose reign in those years was at its pinnacle, invited these artists over to their homes for long stints and to churn out paintings. They asked them to paint on mythological and religious subjects and portraits of the families in their own technique. This was the oil on canvas style which was an unfamiliar genre in the Indian art scene.
Since the Westerners drew blood from Indian miniatures for the mythological works, they banked on Indian miniature artists to paint the figures. In the process, the Indian miniature artists picked up the handling of oil paintings. In this cauldron of artistic activity, a uniquely magnificent range of paintings emerged. These came to be known as Early Bengal Oils. Which is not to say that this group of artists from the West, did not punctuate their oil works with some watercolours.
“Sometimes, Early Bengal Oils are dubbed as Dutch Bengal paintings. But, it’s not absolutely accurate, because the painters travelled not just from Holland, but other European locales like France, Germany and the UK, to mention some countries. At the same time, Indian artists who were trained by the Europeans, also produced their own brand of works. These painters are distinct from those groomed in the government art school who worked entirely in the Western style those days. In that sense, Early Bengal Oils were very Bengal in flavour,” says art collector and connoisseur, Dr Prakash Kejariwal, who stocks one of the largest collections of this art form.
The brilliance of Early Bengal paintings perhaps comes from the richness of old Indian miniature paintings which were compositions of powder tempera and indigenous pigments. The zamindars (aristocrats) lost interest in Early Bengal works with the emerging predominance of the Government School of Art (which later became the Government College of Art) and early 20th century Literature Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengal School of Art led by names like Abanindranth Tagore (Rabindranath’s nephew) and famed artist Nandalal Bose.
The erstwhile aristocratic families woke up to the significance of these works rather late, in end-20th century, when some of these paintings appeared at the auctions and began fetching healthy prices. By then, most of these paintings in their collections were either destroyed or sold out. Restoration efforts to rejuvenate the paintings were not adequate.
Since Early Bengal works were largely eclipsed by Modernist paintings in the later years, latter-day collectors and investors were not drawn to searching them out and parking their funds in them. They had not chanced upon the opportunity to be enlightened about the brilliance of this genre of art. It’s only when some overseas buyers began picking them up from auctions abroad and also in India that domestic buyers thought of giving these early creations a look. The general buyer in India is still to realise that European works with history usually enjoy tall prices.
Observes a well-known Bengal artist Ramananda Bandopadhyay, “Early Bengal painters had reached into the Western technique of oil, but the works were totally Indian and Bengali in spirit. The figures in the paintings all had an Indian look, starting from the eyes. Just as old Indian genres of paintings, like the Mughal and Rajput art schools are distinct in their mood. It’s not just that Early Bengal is a unique phase of art, their significance also lies in the fact that these artists introduced the oil medium in Indian art.”
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