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Famous Paintings From Bihar
Famous Paintings From Bihar
Popular art is the expression of people’s sensitivity. Importance of popular art reside in the fact that it simultaneously creates a form of artistic expression while revealing the psychology of the society from which it emerges, reflecting its moral values and customs.The Mithila's Pride
The people of Mithila in northern Bihar stick to their centuries old custom and orthodox belief that the land of Mithila or Mithilanchal is holier when compared to other parts of Bihar. The belief possibly stems from the historic fact that Mithila was first to be brought under the influence of Aryan culture. and to this day the Mithilis take pride in their continuity of language, custom and culture. They are known to adhere to the minutest details in rituals from birth to death according to the dictates of the Shastras (sacred texts on ritual worship).
Traditiional Wall Paintings
The tradition of painting walls for beautification of dwellings in Mithila is believed to have survived from the epic period. Tulsidas gives a vivid account of Mithila decorated for the marriage of Sita with Ram. These decorations are mythological murals, added with deities of Hindu pantheon, besides regional flora and fauna. The earthquake of 1988 devastated parts of Darbhanga and Madhubani. Perhaps, the greatest damage caused was in the palace complex, replete with paintings done two centuries ago, as per the Mithila traditions.
The land of Mithila is covered by the present districts of Champaran, Saharsa, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur, parts of Monghyr, Beguserai, Bhagalpur and Purnea. Madhubani is the heartland where the paintings are more profuse than elsewhere.
Madhubani Paintings
The ceremonial folk paintings - popularly identified as famous Madhubani paintings - are the exclusive monopoly of women artists, passing down for generations from mother to daughter. The girl learns to play with the brush and colours at an early age which finally culminates in the Kohbar (nupital room), which acquires great sanctity in the social life of Mithila. All religious ceremonies relating to the marriage are performed in the Kohbar.The deep (earthen lamp - a symbol of happy conjugal life) is kept burning in all through for four days.
The Theme of Mithili Painting
The Kohbar is replete with paintings based on mythological, folk themes, and tantric symbolism, The paintings in this chamber are designed to bless the couple. The central theme of all paintings are love and fertility, though the approach may vary. It can commence with the story of Sita’s marriage or Krishna - Radha episode with the ecstatic circle in which he leads the gopis. Maithilis are Sakti worshippers with the influence of Tantric rituals and so Siva-Sakti, Kali, Durga, Ravana and Hanuman also appear in their murals. Symbols of fertility and prosperity like fish, parrot, elephant, turtle, sun, moon, bamboo tree, lotus, etc are more prominent. The divine beings are positioned centrally in the frame while their consorts or mounts or simply their symbols and floral motifs forms the background. The human figures are mostly abstract and linear in form, the animals are usually naturalistic and are invariably depicted in profile. It beings with the flow of the brush without any preliminary sketching. Though natural colours and twings have given way to brushes and artificial paints, the subject of Madhubani paintings remain unchanged.
Madhuani Paintings -- As A Commercial Activity
The chief exponents of these paintings are the Maithili Brahmins and Kayasthas. In the village of Jitwarpur (stronghold of Brahmins) and Ratni (dominated by the Kayasthas) the Madhuani paintings have emerged as a commercial activity where children can be seen engaged in arranging the hand crafted paper or fetching the colours. The commercialisation of Maithili art took place in 1962 when an artist touring this village was attracted by the murals. He persuaded the women to paint in their traditional way on paper. This was a great success and a ticket to trade. Since then the painting medium has diversified. Wall paintings were transferred to hand made paper (which was of poster size) and gradually it preyed for other mediums and motifs like greeting cards, dress materials, sunmica etc.
Extracting of Natural Colors
In the beginning, home made natural colours were obtained from plant extracts like henna leaves, flower, bougainvillea, neem, etc. These natural juices were mixed with resin from banana leaves and ordinary gum in order to make the paint stick to the painting medium. Home made paints, though cheap, was time consuming and produced less than the requirement. The solution was to switch to the synthetic colours avaibale aplenty in the market. Now colours come in powdered form, which are then mixed with goat’s milk. However, black continues to be obtained from the soot deposits by the flame of diya, dissolved in gum.
The colours are usually deep red, green, blue, black, light yellow, pink and lemon. They created mood and hence played an important role. For instance, energy and passion find expression through the use of red and yellow, as monochrome crashed over large surfaces of the painting. Concentration of energy and the binding force is best reflected in red while green governs the natural leaves and vegetation. The Brahmins prefer the very bright hues while the Kayasthas opt for mutted ones. In another class called the Harijan style of painting, hand made paper is washed in cowdung. Once the paints are ready, two kinds of brushes are used - one for the tiny details made out of bamboo twigs and the other for filling in the space which is prepared from a small piece of cloth attached to a twig.
Patna Qalam
Besides the Madhubani paintings, Bihar is famous for the Patna Qalam (paintings). The 200 year old art form traces its origin to Humayun’s exile to Persia, from where he brought a select set of artists to illustrate Dastan-i-amir Hamza. The Persian artists who had migrated from Hirat had mastered the distant lines from the Chinese and added to it an intense individualism.
Gave Rise To Mughal Style of Paintings
Akbar greatly encouraged the painters and by the end of his reign a new kind of painting emerged out of the native and foreign fusion. This was referred to as Mughal style of painting which further ramified, later on, into numerous sub schools or qalams. Patna being one of them. In words of Abul Fazl, the Mughal paintings are "incomparable, transforming inanimate objects into life through the minuteness in details, the general finish, the boldness of execution observed in pictures".
Jehangir’s expertise in painting can best be summed up from his own memoirs: " As regards myself, my liking in painting and my practice in judging it has arrived at such a point that when any work is brought before me, either of deceased or those of the present day, without names being told, to say on the spur of the moment that it is the work of such and such a man. If any person has put the eye and eyebrows in a face, I can perceive whose work the original face is, and who has painted the eye and the eyebrows."
Aurangzeb's Dislike of Paintings
Aurangzeb’s dislike for art compelled the artists to leave Delhi in search of new patrons. Their first march was to Murshidabad where the Bengal nawabs were at the helm of their golden days. However, the glory of Murshidabad was shortlived and once again the artists panicked but this time they packed for Patna, which was fast growing into a commercial city with various European factories and trading centres. The migrant artists who settled at Patna produced numerous paintings which are commonly referred to as Patna Qalam.
Extracting of Natural Colors
In the beginning, home made natural colours were obtained from plant extracts like henna leaves, flower, bougainvillea, neem, etc. These natural juices were mixed with resin from banana leaves and ordinary gum in order to make the paint stick to the painting medium. Home made paints, though cheap, was time consuming and produced less than the requirement. The solution was to switch to the synthetic colours avaibale aplenty in the market. Now colours come in powdered form, which are then mixed with goat’s milk. However, black continues to be obtained from the soot deposits by the flame of diya, dissolved in gum.
The colours are usually deep red, green, blue, black, light yellow, pink and lemon. They created mood and hence played an important role. For instance, energy and passion find expression through the use of red and yellow, as monochrome crashed over large surfaces of the painting. Concentration of energy and the binding force is best reflected in red while green governs the natural leaves and vegetation. The Brahmins prefer the very bright hues while the Kayasthas opt for mutted ones. In another class called the Harijan style of painting, hand made paper is washed in cowdung. Once the paints are ready, two kinds of brushes are used - one for the tiny details made out of bamboo twigs and the other for filling in the space which is prepared from a small piece of cloth attached to a twig.
Khuda Baksh Oriental Public Library
The Khuda Baksh Oriental Public Library has among its collection two miniature portraits of Nur Jehan at different stages of her life. Painted by Syed Moinuddin, they reveal the Bihari miniature akin to Delhi’s ivory discs. of the two portraits, one depicts Nur Jehan as an empress dressed in formal regalia with her fair looks although an element of remorse creeps in. The other painting captures her happier mood (possibly before the death of her first husband) draped in the traditional orni (veil) that anchors her maidenly appearance.
The theme of Patna Qalam, though on small canvas, centres around the lives of ordinary people, their profession, customs and cultures of Bihar. Unlike the Delhi artist, they used the slating dot system. In the early days, the artists themselves prepared their own paper for painting and so were the colours assembled from various flowers, leaves, metals, shellac, clay, etc. Besides paper, paintings were also made on ivory, metal and mica sheets.
When the Britishers left India they purchased a good number of these Patna Qalams. Thereafter the art was on the scale of decline. Around 200 of them are preserved in Kensington Museum, London. Patna Museum has 65 of them while Chaitanya Mahasabha, Khuda Baksh Library, Lalit Kala Akademi, Government School of Arts and Crafts are few of the places for reviewing this famous school of painting.
More Info: http://www.iloveindia.com/
Famous Indian Painters
Painters
India have produced several great painters who have influenced the world through their sensitivities. Paintings of some of the Indian painters such as M.F. Husain and Tyeb Mehta have fetched astronomical sums at international auctions. This proves the popularity of Indian painters across the world. Here is a brief profile of famous Indian painters.Amrita Shergill was a renowned Indian painter. She was one of the most charismatic and promising Indian artists of the pre-colonial era. Most of her paintings reflect vividly her love for the country and more importantly her response to the life of its people.
Jamini Roy was one of the most significant and influential painters of the 20th century. He was born in a middle-class family in 1887 at Beliator village in Bankura district of Bengal. His father Ramataran Roy was an amateur artist who, after resignation from government service, spent the rest of his life in his village amidst the potters.
Raja Ravi Varma is considered as one of the greatest painters in the history of Indian Arts. He is famous for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Raja Ravi Varma is most remembered for his paintings of beautiful sari clad women, who were portrayed as very shapely and graceful. He is considered as modern among traditionalists and a rationalist among moderns.
MF Hussain was born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur, Maharashtra. He lost his mother when he was one and a half years old. Husain's father remarried and moved to Indore. MF Hussain did his schooling from Indore. In 1935, MF Hussain moved to Bombay and joined Sir J. J. School of Art.
Tyeb Mehta was a well known Indian artist, who was known all over the world for his brilliant painting. A multifaceted personality, he also dabbled in filmmaker and made a mark there. He held the record for the highest price for which an Indian painting has ever been sold, in a public auction. It was his triptych painting Celebration that, on being sold for 15 million Indian rupees ($300,000 USD), gave him this honor.
Anjolie Ela Menon is among India's lending contemporary female artists, who have created a name for themselves in the domestic as well as international art scenario. Her works are a part of significant painting collections across the globe. One of her art works, 'Yatra' was recently picked up by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco at California in the year 2006.
Born on 12 April 1924 to a Goan couple, Francis Newton Souza was an eminent Indian artist of his time. He was among that early crop of painters who hold the credit of popularizing Indian art in the western countries. Francis Newton Souza was the student of the Sir JJ School of Art in the Mumbai city.
Born in the year 1941 at Delhi, Rameshwar Broota has emerged as one of the most prominent painters of India in the present times. Having an innate passion for art, he joined the College of Art in the capital city during the year 1964. And he went to become the head of the well-known institute Triveni Kala Sangam devoted to the promotion of art and culture in the year 1967.
S.H. Raza, who was born in the year 1922 as Syed Haider Raza, is a internationally acclaimed Indian painter. Though he has resided and worked from France since the 1950s, yet he maintains close association with his motherland till date. Though he incepted doing figurative paintings, he gradually moved on to abstract later on.
Manjit Bawa, known for his striking portrayal of spirituality and simplicity through his paintings, was a one of the highly-skilled artists India has had. Born in a small town of Dhuri, Punjab; it was tough-going for him to bring out his love for spirituality and nature onto the canvas.
Born in the family of artists and painters, it was expected that Abanindranath Tagore would continue this legacy. And eventually he did, for the nation got its "Father of India's Modern Art" in the form of Abanindranath Tagore.
Highly influenced by renowned artist Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose gave India its first experience of modern Indian style of painting. With an exemplary touch of renaissance in Indian painting, Nandalal Bose played a significant role in shaping up the modern face of traditional art through his deep thoughts of nationalism, philosophical inclination.
Bikash Bhattacharjee, holder of two of the most prestigious awards: National Award and Padma Shri amongst many others, is a renowned Indian painter known for his spectacular depiction of reality as well as surrealism. Despite being born in Kolkata struck amidst a political turmoil and losing his father at an early age didn't stop him from discovering his true calling
"The person who is not roused by a pulsating image, a small touch or sound, can make no sense of the word 'beauty'. A person who neither knows, nor thinks beyond his worldly needs has no use for beauty." For someone who spent a majority of his life with weak sight and finally became blind at the age of 50 to produce such an enviable body of works in the field of art and literature,
Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal, better known to us as B. C. Sanyal, is considered to have ushered in the era of modernism in Indian art. A painter, a sculptor and a teacher of art to three generations of artists, B. C. Sanyal lived through the different partitions that India went through in 1905, 1947 and 1971.
An established artist and one of the brightest students from Santiniketan during Rabindranath Tagore's era, Mukul Chandra Dey was the first Indian to go overseas to study printmaking as a form of art and profession. Mukul Chandra Dey traveled to different cities across America and Japan to learn printmaking.
Satish Gujral was born in Jhelum, a small river town in Pakistan, formerly a part of undivided India. Gujral has gained a global recognition for his unmatched talents and creativity that cover a wide realm of art forms including painting, graphics, mural, sculpture, architecture.
More Info: http://www.iloveindia.com/
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