From the karkhana to the studio: A study in the changing social roles of patron and artist in Bengal 8135016283

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From the Karkhamz to the Studio A Study in the Changing Social Rules OF Patron and

Artist in Bengal

IATHLBLLI CHATTERJEE

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in 1 retrieve] system or transmitted in any form or by any mean|——elev:t:ronio, mechanioil, photocopying, recording or otherwi:.e—withnut the prior permiuion of the

publisher. Publisher: Indromohnn Sharma

Books J: Book: C4A,f20A Jannitpuri, New Delhi l1lJ 058

Printers: Ten‘: Print India

A-JSIZ, htayapuri. Phase-I, New Delhi lltl U64

Piano: Raj Press . ' 51, Mohan Sing]: Piece

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CONTENTS vii

Preface

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Iflustralfons

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Introduction

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Murshidabad : The Artist and the Korkhtmo

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Kalighat : Painting and Experience in Outcast Calcutta Nationalism and Form The Artist in the Studio 1 Jamini Roy and Consumer Society

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ILLUSTR ATIDNS

Court Scene from Na!-we-Danton manuscript, circa eighteenth century, Murshidabad (courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta).

Hunting Scene from Nu!-we-Damon manuscript, circa eighteenth century, Murshidabad (courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta). Mughal Emperor Shah Alam granting the Dewany of Bengal to Lord Clive —artist Benjamin West, IEIS a.o. (courtesy Hazarduary Palace, Murshidabad). Alivardi sitting with courtiers, eighteenth century, Murshidabad (courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Portrait of Fullerton by an Indian artist, eighteenth century

(courtesy India Clffice Library, London). Warren Hastings and his wife-—medium: oil painting, artist: John Zoltany (‘Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta).

European child going pony riding, circa eighteenth century, Company School—artist: Muhammed Amir of Kareya. Kamale-Kamini Pur—Chand Sadagar and his sons, early nineteenth century (courtesy Asutosh Museum of Indian Art, University of Calcutta}. Fake rnendicant, nineteenth century, Kalight {courtesy Asutosh Museum of Indian Art, University oi‘ Calcutta). Balm, nineteenth century, Kalighat (courtesy Asutosh Museum

of Indian Art, University of Calcutta). Bubu and

courtesan, nineteenth century, Kalight (Asutosh

Museum of Indian Art, University of Calcutta). Courtesan being adored by her lover, nineteenth century, Kalighat {courtesy Indian Museum, Calcutta).

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viii

From the Kurkimnn to the Studio

Ghor Knit, wood-cut print, circa nineteenth century, Calcutta {courtesy Victoria Memorial Hall). Victory of Indrajit—-artist: Raja Ravi Varma (courtesy Sri J aya-

cbamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore). The passing of Shahjahan—-artist: Abanindranath Tagore (courtesy Rabindra Bharati Society, Calcutta).

Abfn'ruriku—artist: Abanindranath Tagore (courtesy Indian Museum, Calcutta]. Bharat Mata—artist:-itbanindranath Tagore (courtesy Rahindra Bharati Society, Calcutta). Kn-run Group, I931-—-medium: tempera, artist: Jamini Roy (courtesy Mrs. Pranti Dey, Calcutta). Christ, 1938-—rnedium: tempera, artist: Jarnini Roy (courtesy Sahid Suhrawardy).

Women, 1928-medium: drawings, artist: Jamini Roy (courtesy Mrs. Pranati Dey, Calcuttta). Santhal Couple, l934—medium: tempera, artist Jamini Roy (courtesy John Irwin). Front cover: Tvro illustrations from the Nu!-we-Damon manuscript

and one painting by Jamini Roy Back cover: Tagore‘s Studio—ink-drawing by Nandalal Bose i

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PREFACE

People who visit Calcutta’s art galleries are outnumbered by theatregoers and filmaddicts. Even fewer people buy paintings. Yet mythological paintings done in oil decorated the library of my grandfather, a small landowner; while his contemporaries commissioned landscapes, portraits and, when their mood turned amorous, paintings oi‘ plump European beauties, Venus or Psyche at bath. The peasants bought potor in village fairs or on their visits to the temple at Kalighat. Today we hang mass produced prints of masterpieces, posters or calendar pictures._ This shift in taste, supported by changed

ideology, needs to be explored. Interesting studies of the history cl’ taste have been attempted by a number of art historians. My work began tentatively by using the parameters of social history of art, laid down by them. Pierre Bordeaux’s Distinctions appeared in English translations alter most of my work was completed; it opened up many more avenues of enquiry.

In this book I have attempted to chronologically chart the interactions between the artists and their audience, to clarify how the instituted artist of the court producing for an exclusive elientelle was marginalised along with the popular artists facing the onslaught of colonialism. In the colonial phase the norms and practice of art changed with our absorption of English education, paradoxically giving use at the same time to the concept of Indianness of Indian art. This Indianness in its many variants became a marketable commodity

which has continued to harness the Indian artists and their audience in their attempts to establish an identity. Some portions of this work had been published in various journals including Social Scientist, Journal of Arts and Ideas, Yubomuncs,_ and in two anthologies, European Artists and India, IFUU-I900 (edited by Dr. Hiren Chakrabarty, Calcutta, I98?) and Murxbud 0 Handoutottvu (edited by Shri Suhas Chattopadhyay, Calcutta, 1984). I take

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this opportunity to thank the editors of these books and journals. I

am grateful to the librarians and members of the stall‘ of ditferent libraries and museums for thier valuable assistance: the National Library, Calcutta; the Library of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta; the Library of the History Department, Calcutta University; Indian Museum, Calcutta; Rabindra Bharati Society, Calcutta; Victoria "Memorial Hall, Calcutta; Gallery of Jamini Roy’s paintings, Calcutta;

Nandan Museum; Visvabharati, Santiniketan; National Museum, New Delhi; National Gallery of Modern Arts, New Delhi and Victoria

and Albert Museum, London; The Indian Oflice Library, London. For useful suggestions and continuous encouragement, I am deeply indebted to Dr. Arun Dasgupla, Dr. Amita Ray, Dr.

Aniruddha Ray,_Dr. Chitrarekha Gupta and Shri Gautant Bhadra of

Calcutta University; Dr. Tanika Sarkar, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi; Dr. Sumit Sarkar of Delhi University; Shri Subir Ray Chaudhuri. Shri Manbendra Bandopadhyay, Dr. Jasodbara Bagchi, Shri Mihir Bhattacharya, Dr. Malini Bhattacharya and Shri Sibaji Bandopadhyay of Jadavpur University; Smt. Kalyani Dutta and Smt. Kalyani Ghosh of Basanti Devi College, Calcutta; Dr. Barun De and Dr. Nirmala Bandopadhyay of the Centre for Social Sciences, Calcutta; Shri Shiv Kumar, Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati; Shri Pratip Mitra and Smt. Sumcdha Mitra of the West Bengal Directorate of Archaeology; Shri Pratibha Ranjan Maitra of Murshidabad District Collectorate,

Berhampore, West Bengal; -‘Q Shri Sumanta Bannerjee, New Delhi; Smt. Maclhnsree Dutta, Bombay; Dr. Tapati Guha Thalturta, Calcutta;

Ms. Salima Hashmi, Associate Professor, College of Arts Lahore; Dr. Himani Bannerjee, York University, Toronto; Dr. Chandra Crhosh, Dr. Norman Hindson and Smt. Sibani Ray Chaudhuri of London. Shri Nirmalya Chatterjee and Shri Kumar Ghosh helped with the photogradhy while the typcacript was painstaltingly prepared by Shri Jamini Gangopadhyay. The introductory portion was corrected by ShriSamik.Banner_iee while the rest of the book was edited by my husband, Shri -Tirthankar Chattopadhyay of ' Kalyani University. If errors still survive, the blame is mine. Shri ELM. Pande, Director, School of Archeology and Shri Indramohan Shanna ol‘ Books and

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Preface

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Books, New Delhi, are remembered with special gratitude as without ' the‘1r1'nterest the book would never have been published. I coulcl no t have concentrated on this work for so many years without the lovmg care of Tara Didi, my aged nurse and lifelong compa nion. Calcutta

Itatnabali Chatterjee

January I, I990

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l Introduction THE. words ‘taste’ and ‘beauty’ as concepts dominating the understanding oi‘ the visual arts entered the English language in the nineteenth century. So did ‘artist’, ‘great art’ and ‘aesthetics’! A part of our own vocabulary now, these concepts came to us through a colonial education, transforming or replacing the vocabulary that had till then defined the understanding and production of art. The key word in this context is korkharro. U% from the Mughal period for a ‘workshop’ where a joint prodution of any luxury object was taking place, it also signified the studio.‘ In the transformation in the meaning of the word knrkhono from a feudal workshop to a contemporary factory area in an industry, one can read the changes brought about in our broader social

relations. A corresponding word like erred (used as an honorific title by the Mughals) meaning the ‘master craftsman’, came to be replaced by the Sanskritized shirjrri. A definite distinction was now made between the terms krrrigor (Skt. korrr-maker Pert.s.—gar),“ mirrri and ‘s!|ilpr". ‘While shifpi derived from shfipin came to mean the individual artist, words like korigor and rnisrri now mean artisans with no original skill. The acceptance of these different terms implies an internalization of the colonial norms of ‘great art’ and ‘minor arts’ by the Bengali intelligentsia who now came to use these to assess eontemporary Indian art. It also charts the transition that has taken place in the Bengali attitudes towards ‘art’ as social phenomenon. I Contemporaly historians of ‘modern India’ find it convenient to

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From lire Knrkfieno re the Studio

describe their story of India's independence as an ‘incomplete transition to modernity.‘ This ‘central ambiguity’ is also reflected in cultural history, with an English-educated intelligentsia split at the roots, as artists and art critics, leading to the formulation of artistic norms oscilating between a traditional-modern dichotomy which is yet to be

resolved. The quest for identity, reaching its highest point during the national liberation rnovement, sought refuge in the nebulous notion of an ‘Indianness’ which was never quite clearly defined, but has sat astride all Indian creative acts from the early twentieth century. Since the production and consumption of paintings came under its purview, the Indian artists and their patrons have also tried to define their role accordingly. The most important problem which confronted the modern Indian artist and his patron, when engaged in the act of recreating their tradition, was the severed links with their own history. For “colonial education had, in its first invading stage dismissed the colonized natives’ past as barbarous. The same perverted logic had opened the door to Western knowledge as the only way to civilization and progress. The colonized intellectual, regarded merely as a ‘Black’, ‘Brown’ or ‘Yellow’, was suddenly divested of an identity, and left with only two options; either to accept the ccloniaer’s verdict, and by accepting the capitalist ethos, to become the ‘black British’ of Macaulay’ dream, or in repudiation help to produce that unbroken chain of ‘great art’ which had no place in his immediate experience or memory. In the field of visual arts, the intelligentsia linked their concepts

of art of their new awareness of a middle class Self. That cultivated image of the sell‘ loomed over a whole series of debates continuing from the late nineteenth century. Even as Western art education came to be disseminated through a number of art schools setup by the British government, the practical knowledge acquired through We-stern training coupled with the published efforts of European Orientalists made the Indians aware for the first time oi‘ their great art heritage. The archaeological findings at Ajanta and the Bagh murals bolstered the self-confidence of the nationalist Indians, and were set up as the standard oi‘ lndia’s great art by the Europeans and accepted by the

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Introduction

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Indians. At the same time British liberalism, through the works of. Orientalists like Coomaraswamy (influenced by William Morris} and Havell projected an anti-capitalist bias which was incorporated in the. Indian’s dreams of national progress. The Indian nationalists, however, did not respond to William Morris’ vision of complete social change. Instead they fell a prey to their own contradictions and. accepted the ‘self image’ that was handed to them by the powers they wished to repudiate. The dominant ideology, that of the Coloniaer, in the early: twentieth century, based itself on the realization that the Indian’s self image was modelled on that of the civilized European, to-project. deliberately and nurture determinedly the concept of ‘Indianness’ as. a mystic and spiritual force to serve as the ‘other’. To continue with. their usual apparatus of oppression, the Coloniaers also promoted most of the regressive and obscurantist elements in the residual idelogy ofthe colonised people, till lndianness became the central metaphor in the demands of the tradition-minded nationalists who perceived in every social change the impending destruction of the older social order. By the early twentieth century the questions of the emergent nationalities were taking roots in the ditferent provinces, and the proposed partition of Bengal sparked off one of the most spontaneous popular agitations against the British Raj. Yet even this was harnessedwithin the broad format of an lndianness, which steadily assumed aregional outlook. The ‘Bengali’ was never totally merged into the, ‘Indian’. He merely incorporated the dream of a ‘free India’ into his dream of a ‘golden Bengal’. This idealiaing of a motherland, then considered necessary in a liberation struggle, came to be perpetuated through patriotic literature, songs, and plays. Closely linked to these, the visual arts sought to express the same ideology. Unfortunately for the visual artists, with the links with their past culture irretrievably disrupted, as they now tried to devise their own traditions, they only became rooted in a revived mysticism, that negated the possibility of the vigorous form, through which a people's struggle for freedom could express itself [as it had done in Mexico or Spain). Particularly in Bengal, the revived tradition suited the middle class intellectual, who glorified in the

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literary quality of the ‘national’ art. The Bengal School, as Abanindranath’s followers came to be known, shackled the art movement to their cause. The Bengal School style, as it spread allover India (particularly in the South), was identified with a mellow and subdued tone that cut the paintings ofi' from the physical world. Exceptions were noticed later in the works of Nandalal Bose, Benodebihari lvlukherjee and Ramlcinkar Baij at Kala Bhavan. By 1946, this mystified ‘Indianness’ in its many variants had become a marketable commodity. The art market, torn apart by a global war, continued to be dominated by colonial norms. The Indian artist, both in his sincere attempts to establish an identity and in order to survive as an art producer, went on working according to the norms of this market. His paintings [when sold) continued to eulogize a pre-capita-

list social order (the mythical Rama Rojyo) rather than the grim realities of a people striving under sub-human conditions. II

Since the major point of this study is an attempt at demystification of this ‘Indianness’ of Indian art, it would perhaps be useful to see how the art object—painting in this context—came to be produced in Bengal. Presumed that the ‘object of art createsa public that has taste for it’,' it is still necessary to study the mediating factors which shape the viewer's qualifies of appreciation. The need for certain kinds of arts at certain given moments of a people's history can only be gleaned from our knowledge of the country’s social and political

movements. In the context of Indian art history, any attempt at introducing the concept of class was from the days of early nationalism dismissed as alien or irrelevant. In spite of this, the ‘class struggle’ came to be used by a group of Marxist historians as a valid method for studying the social-political movements leading to liberation from colonial rule. Yet art historians--both European and Indian—continued to look upon Indian art with a tinge of nostalgia. The past arts of India (gpgcifluy those prior to 1200 ten.) were studied mainly to prove the achivements of a once great, now lost civilization, while the surviving metal practice (mainly in religious institutions and within mystical folk cults) were interpreted in terms of certain metaphysical ideas

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Introduction

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which have endured as the last examples of a vanishing social order. All this makes the task harder for present scholars, who wish to look at the problems of Indian art in the context of its social history. Such attempts would then lead one to emphasise the production relations of the paintings under survey. In pre-Capitalist India, the social links between the artist and his public were more clearly manifest than today. In the courts, the art form that prevailed depended very much upon the world view of the ruling class of which the artist was a necessary member. The form developed out of the joint participation of the patron and the artist in the actual construction of the paintings. In the case of the popular arts, the entire village community used art as part of a ritual, recreating their already lived experience in a happier, more satisfactory manner. Thus both for the ‘Court Arts’ and the ‘Popular Arts’, ideology played the most important part. Both the dominant class and the subject people (in pre-Colonial India) tried to transform through art, their imagined experience into the ‘real’. Art was supposed to have certain magic qualities, which gave it a functional basis. This social link between the artist-producer and his consumers, manifest through certain social practices, was severed in a capitalist society. The court artist, freed from the joint production system of the feudal workshops (the korkhorros), was insulated in the studio. His art and social life both came to be conditioned by the market. The popular arts disappeared once the village artisans lost their identity in the urban industry.

Keeping this in mind, the present work will focus on two aspects of the production of art as it shaped in Bengal between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. There will be an attempt to assess the social relations existing between the artist and his community. Corresponding class relations based on the appropriation and distribution of the social surplus will be taken into consideration to identify the demands that are placed on the artist by his patrons. The study will also chart way and how these needs altered at given periods. Equal emphasis will, therefore, be placed upon the functions of the artist as well as his audience. The second focus will be on the world view of the artist-producer

and his consumers (i.e. the ideology of the artist and his patrons).

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Accepting that ideology acts as a prime mover in any production of art, it is useful to look at the sum total of the beliefs of the artist and. his patron, as it is expressed through social practices other than art. Only then it is possible to isolate the object of art as ‘significant’ to a. given community. - In the visual arts, the perception scheme implicit in the structure or organisation of a particular painting or sculpture denotes its abilities of communication as a ‘sigh’ to a whole community. The relations that are constructed within a particular work of art itself impart to the viewer the visual criteria of the dominant class. This is then considered as given to the dominated, who either accept the cultural" hegemony through the adoption of the given form, or reject it by. clinging to their previous art forms. A conflict ensues, in which the class ideologies are expressed through the conflicting styles and manners of artistic production. . In a specific historical context, an art form may draw its main metaphors or images from a past art form, as the residual form is transformed by the dominant class to express its contemporary ideology. This is best seen in the cases of certain religious sects. (In post-Chaitanya Vaishnavism, a popular ideology, which to an extent challenged the caste system, was appropriated by the ruling class and placed within the formulae of the Brahmanical sects. The new image of Chaitanya merged into the past iconic forms of Rama or Krishna and was accepted as a new iconic manifestation of Yishnu.) A variation is noticed when alternate ideologies exist simultaneously. This marks the period of transition when the conflict has not begun and the dominant ideology has neither incorporated the ideology of the subject people, nor forced the latter to accept its own norms. In the context of the visual art this is obvious in the parallel trends of the ‘high art’ and ‘popular arts’ styles which show two distinct characteristics, separate but linked in their themes. Once again the religious arts ofl'er a good example. While the iconographic formula for the depiction of the goddess Kali remained the same for the nineteenth century Bengali popular artists and those trained at the Government Art School, the former depicted the icon in sweeping unbroken lines, emphasizing the emotive aspects; the art school trained artist on the -other hand, whether painting in oil or gouache, projected the physio

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introduction

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cal elements by using illusionist techniques, as the goddess was portrayed as a dark well-formed Bengali woman. '

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The four chapters of this boolc can be read. as complete essays_ in themselves; each chapter aiming to locate in a given historical situation the contradictions that developed within the patron-client relationships of the artist and his audience. The transition from the feudal relations of the court to the market relations of the twentieth century forced the lil-engali artists and their audience to evolve new pictorial images, and discard certain conventions. To chart this passage, the first chapter begins with an account of the production of painting in the eighteenth century Murshidabad Court, to which twentieth century artists like Abaoindranath Tagore tried to link their artistic experience. A common norm linking the arts became visible in India after the dissolution of the Gupta empire, The regional tendencies which developed (in several regions including Bengal) continued till the late mediaeval period. But with occasional interruptions from the Islamic courtly idiom. the indigenous style was subsumed within the popular art forms. Thus the last identifiable courtly style is located in the eighteenth century, when after the crumbling of the Mughal empire Murshidahad remained as one of the centuries where lvlughal cultural norms flourished for a time. The cultural practice of the Bengali gently, both Hindu and Muslim, was once again brought under a common norm, and the lvlurshidabad paintings earned the name of a school. Since the imperial Mughal system of the production of painting in the royal and aristocratic kcrlchancs tateliers) were continued in Murshidahad, the residual visual imagination of both the artists and patrons found expression in the continuance of certain stereotypes. The conflict began only when (to be specific, British) artistic norms were olfered as dominant. The Murshidahad Court artist clung to his original perception scheme which acted as his residual visual form, and in the ensuing conflict was pushed into oblivion. Here the conflicts for political hegemony acted as a direct point of

reference for the conflicts taking place in the ideologies of the two groups.

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By the nineteenth century, the residual ideology of the stuject people once again engaged in a conflict with the dominant ideology of the coloniaer, through the Kalighat paintings. More securely entrenched within a larger social community, the popular artists continued to

draw upon the tradititional forms and survived for a longer period. But here the contradictions within the ideology become apparent as the Pctncs challenged their colonized bourgeois patrons in their satirical paintings even as they remained rooted to the feudal values and projected the dominant ideology of the Hindu comprador. This perpetuated some of the oppressive measures which as absentee landlords the bourgeois patrons still continued. In their conservatism, the Kalighat paintings did not promote the modernizing reforms which characterized the progressive efforts of the liberal bourgeoisie. These popular artists therefore, even while propagating a vigorous art form with great potentials of survival, were pushed into oblivion when new technological methods of prints captured the city's art merket and the current demands for a bazaar art came from the urban poor as well as the rural pilgrims to Kalighat. The new perception scheme which altered the vision of the urban poor bound them to the emergentpetty bourgeoisie who upheld the same feudal norms in their satirical plays. The more progressive and liberal city elites sought as an alternative to this form a more lyrical literary idiom, which they discovered in the paintings of Abanindranath Tagore and his followers. ‘Nationalism’ in art (covered in the third chapter) therefore meant locating a middle class self image for the Bengali. During the process of modernization the ohadrclok (as the Bengali gentleman came to be known) had developed contradictory values. He now recognized as art only what the civilized European had taught him. Yet at the same time in his anti-colonial fervour he tried to find an alternative to the European art idioms. It is here that the second stream of European knowledge through the works of the Drientatists located for him the great art of the past he had been looking for. The nationalist Indian now claimed an alternative vision which however through revived images and a modified classical Indian formula, remained defensive without the required vigour to inspire a people fighting for liberation. The contemporary artist's confrontation with the capitalist ethos

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Introduction

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has been explored in the last chapter. Here the works of Jamini Roy, probably the roost popular artist of his age, has been studied 1o show how the process of modernization had pushed both Abanindranath Tagore in his nationalist, and Jamitti Roy in his anticapitalist fervour

to the residual artistic forms which did not reflect their lived experiences. Yet at the given historical moments, the social situation had created for them an audience (patrons) and through the interaction of the artists and their patrons a common ideology had been formulated. Yet the laws of the capitalist art market, in spite of their individual

eflorts, had forced these artists to isolated studios. By trying to unravel the process that severed the links between the Bengali artists and their community, I have tried to understand the dilemma of that community of viewers of which we form a part. _ NOTES AND REFERENCES

l. Raymond Williams, Cstltttre and Society ttso-tsso, Penguin Books HarmonisIorth i979, p. I3. I. Abul Full, Eng. trans. Blochntan and Elliot, .-tin-i-Jkonrl, Calcutta lilll‘, pp. ll}-H5. 3. Sunitikutnar Chatterjee, The Origin and Development oftfte Bengali Language,

Calcutta tsss, pp. est, tot.

1. Snrnit Snrkar, Modern India 1885-IMF, litlecmillan, Delhi 1933, p. l.

5. Karl Mats. A Contrtontton to the Critfqtte of Potttteol Economy. Progress Publishers, Moscow 1918, p. l97.

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2 Murshiclabad : The Artist and the Korkhctta TD a bewildered _

European, the Mughal Court with its richly

ornamented pillars and the rows of bowing men had appeared like

the set of a play, and the ruler on a high balcony separated from the rest of the people, its principal actor.‘ He failed to recognize that both to the contemporaries in the sixteenth and the successors in the eighteenth century, the court signified the domain of the Mughal ruler,

where each man was accorded his proper place. The rituals of the court had been carefully elaborated by Akbar who had also strictly codified the administration for an elficient extraction of the social surplus. Even as the Mughal state extended its authority over the distant provinces mainly by conquests, the major problem of acquiring the revenue had loomed large. The lvlnghal emperor had been forced to pacify with tnonsoitr and cash gifts the swelling number of the nobility who had wielded their sword for the emperor and waited to be rewarded. He had also to take into' consideration the older land right holders, and bring them within the administrative system. The inclu-

sion of the Hindus in the ranks of the nobility had angered the Muslim divines, and they agreed to pray for the state only when propitiated with moduli-i-mosh lands. Allegiance to the Mughal State had to be acknowledged publicly and in the court through the offering of the peshkostt. The state reciprocated through the ithilot—a special robe of honour marking the occasion, which later became the uniform of the lvlughal aristocracy. All this created a pattern of social behaviour which needed to be recorded. Painting mainly served this pttrp-om.‘ Mughal painting was essentially the product of a court. Among its many genres, portraits more than any other reflected the visual

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ltfurstltldobctf : The Artist and the Enrkhnnn

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ideology of the ruling class. From their inception in the Mughal Court, the portraits projected the social status of the model, as monarch, noble, soldier or hermit; pose, gestures, clothes and the background (as in European portraits) were meant to be read as the accepted attributes of a given social stereotype. The form varied when the social status of the individual model underwent a transformation, as in the changing political and economic conditions of eighteenthcentury Bengal. The assumption of authority which inspired these portraits had a definite bearing on the scheme of the paintings. The rt|ler's portraits

were distinguished from the portraits of nobles, by the use of symbols like the orb, the aigrette or a globe. These royal insignia like the halo could not be attributed to the noble unless he was presented as the heir-apparent.‘ The images were derived from court rituals, and the durbnr space, like the person of the ruler, was represented in painting as the repository of that final authority which no mortal power could assail. ' Paintings of the Murshidabad school are characterized by a variety of subjects and styles. The two copies of No!-we-Batman and Rcgnmofos testify to the Muslim patron's catholicity' of taste. Yet portraits remained the most important genre. These retained some of the identifiable characteristics of Mughal portraits (like the strict profile, and certain gestures signifying power). In general the provincial lvlurshidabad portraits lacked the grandeur of the lvlughal style. The portraits executed in Bengal in the eighteenth century were in three different mediums and styles. The portraits from the lvlurshidabad Court were mainly in gouache (a mixed medium in oil and water colour), a technique which was continued from the lvlughal court atelier; the portraits commissioned by the British from the Indian artist were in a modified style, mainly in transparent water colour on paper, later known after its patrons as the ‘Company Paintings‘; and finally the portraits painted in oil by European artist adventurers, who came to India in the eighteenth century, continuing to paint in the neo-classical style then popular in Europe. The three styles correspond to three distinct relations of artistic production.

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After I720 the lvlughal empire's function as a centralized political entity controlling the inflow of revenue and resources from the provinces to the Centre was in jeopardy. But the myth of its adminis-t trative efliciency retained its hold over the social relations of men who had been the subjects. The relations of production identified with close personal supervision remained one of the most important survivals controlling the artistic production. The crisis of l'l'35l-43 culminating in the invasion of Nadir Shah finally broke the centralizing powers of the lvlughal empire. A number of autonomous and semi-autonomous states sprang up on its ruin, including those which maintained the general framework of lvlughal rule, the ‘succession States’! Bengal under Murshid Quli, Awadh under Burhan-ul-mulk and Hyderabad under Asaf Jah were among those states where not only the administrative but social norms of the lvlughal rule were maintained. This was achieved through the manipulation of kinship ties, and direct control over cash grants and pensions; the retention of the lvlughal Court rituals [though in a reduced state) hearing the outward manifestation of continuity. After I713 lvlurshid Qnli Khan combined in his person the posts of the Dewan and the Subedar. He was forced to take into account the existent land rights of the erstwhile Mughal ramindars and ntottsoodors who were now challenging the authority of the hlawab. lvlurshid Quli tried to overcome this by transferring the jogtirs of the tnonsoodors to Clrissa. Then he arrested the recalcitrant and defaulting aamindars and made over their xamindaris to the charge of Bengali omins for survey measurement. A few favoured ramindaris remained and lvlurshid Quli and his successors found that it cut down on the cost of revenue collection and maintenance of order. It also enabled -the Hawabs to enter into direct political alliance with selected local lords.‘ The tensions that this created in the province prompted lvlurshid Quli to certain acts of social welfare. He now distributed part of the revenue yields between building mosques and palaces, and entertained

men of Islamic piety.‘ His acts of brute force, were sublimated through the court rituals. In the court that was set up at Murshidabad, the Nawab played

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out his role of authority "and fear of his personality was so deeply impressed on the hearts of all both high and low that the courage of the lion-hearted persons quailed in his presence. The Khan did not allow petty zamindars access to his presence and that mutasadis, amils and leading zamindars had not the heart to sit down in his presence; on the contrary they remained standing breathless like statues. Hindu zamindars were forbidden to ride on palkis, but were permitted the use of jawalahs. The mutasadis in his presence did not ride on horse back, whilst the mansabdars attended at state functions in their military uniforms.

In his presence one could not salute

another and if anything opposed to etiquette occurred on the part oi‘ any one he was immediately censured." This description by Salim also points to the source of lvfurshid Quli‘s power. “In the maintenance of the respect due to his sovereign he spared no one." Since the “Nawab was the deputy of the Emperor, his court remained as the ‘shadow’ of the court at Delhi, even when the latter had little authority left."" Interestingly, the court paintings of Mutshidabad do not offer in any of its ‘ruler portraits’ the pictorial schema of the two most important genres of the imperial Mughal paintings—‘The King in Court’ and the ‘King leading the army‘. Yet that the schema was retained in the artists‘ memory is evident in the illustrations of the Victoria Memorial Not-mo-Danton." The number of court scenes can be considered as direct illustrations of lvlurshid Quli’s court, though both the Court scenes and the battles echo the lvlughal pictorial compositions rather than the schema of lvlurshidabad paintings. In the battle scenes, the soldiers are either arranged parallelly, facing each other, or there is a zigzag pattern created by the army cutting through the picture space. The receding horizon with the figures of the cavalrymen reduced to coloured dots, still create an illusion of vast space. The inclusion of men in European (particularly British) uniforms adds a touch of historical specificity to the otherwise mythic narrative schema." This is to be found in the Na!-we-Damon illustrations. In the ruler portraits of the Nawabs (with the exception of -Alivardi on horseback) the majority deal with a scene of leisure. The 1*-lawab sits smoking, granting audience to only a few kinsmen and

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From the Krtrlrlrrrlsc to the Studio

favourites. The entire use of picture space is diiferent from that of the Mughal compositions of the court. The receding horizons ot‘ the Murshidabad paintings are etched out by an outline of trees or a landscape garden in which the Nawab‘s pavilion is marked out by a railing. The colour schema dominated by whites and grays (supposed to be dictated by Alwardi)" is in sharp contrast to the bright jewellike coIoI.u"s used by the Mugbal artists. (The paintings seem to illustrate the given description of Mir .l'urnla’s execution of justice. “I'~lawab whose practice it was to sit on the terrace facing the river, and permit all plaintiffs who wore no arms to come to him"). The court scenes ot‘ the Mughal paintings captured in their visual schema“ the heirarchy within the Mughal nobility. The highest point of the composition was the seated king on his throne. He was divided from the rest by a railing. While the nobles were arranged, standing according to their ranks, the railings wedged in between separated the figures. Otherwise the figures formed a human stair case which would best be presented (as was done by the lvlughals) through an aerial perspective. Though this pyramidal structure is retained in the illustrated folios of the Victoria Memorial No!-we-Demon," the actual ruler portraits, depicting the Murshidabad Nawabs, remain as variations of the ‘private audience‘ paintings of the lvlughal court. In the Murshidabad portraits the emphasis shifts from the public to the private. In their attempts to build up a secular iconography (for the Islamic ban on representing live creatures still acted as an ideological detereut on patrons and artists, so that no Islamic religious iconography could develop)" the Mughal artists, and, following them, the lvlurshidabad artists depended upon the daily routine of their patrons. A secular iconography came into existence and if the Mughal paintings of the ‘Imperial Durbar‘ projected the image of authority over a vast domain, the lvlurshidabad portraits signified its reduced status. II

In a portrait of Murshid Quli, the blawab is shown sitting erect, facing a group of oflicers, and in the background the night sky is illuminated by a cascade oflight. In contrast the Nawab‘s stance and appearance suggest an unusual severity." The viewer of this painting

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Hwshidebod : The Artist and the Kdrkhduo

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is at once reminded of Salim‘s account of the celebration taking place in the month of ltabiu-awal “and every night during that period from Mahinagar to Lalbagh he used to arrange illuminations with chiragh, so that from the brightness of the illuminations the altars of the mos-

ques and the pulpits with the inscription of the Qurun engraved thereon could be read from the other side of the river by spectators".“ It needed “more than one lack of labourers to light them". This splendid display “transt'orming the earth into the slry studded with stars" was matched by the hlawab’s hospitality to the learned ‘Syeds’, ‘Shailts' and ‘the Scholarly‘ whom the Nawab deemed it meritorious to serve humbly. He fed them in his banquets. he employed 2,500 to recite the Quron daily, and olifered presents along with copies of Queen made in his own hand to all the pilgrims for Mecca." Murshid Quli, strictly moral in his private life, still followed some of the extravagant conventions of the ‘Mughal Gmrah‘ without which the rule of authority could not be entrenched. But he was wise enough to make his patronage broad-based. He did not allow the rich to hoard up grains, and checked that the poor did not pay more than the price fitted." j Murshid Quli helped in developing the capital from a small mint town to a centre of commerce. The Nawabs after him continued his policy of building. Sujauddin beautified Murshidabad by dismantling even the public buildings set up by Murshid Quli as “they seemed too small according to his lofty ideals".“ In the gardens that he laid out numerous fountains played (and at night the prrries (fairies) came down). Here amidst this picturesque landscape he entertained only “the educated section of his otticers"." Sirajuddaula had the imumborc built at a great cost, we are proudly informed by the author of Torik-i-Monsuri. The interesting detail to be noted is that when it was being repaired workers who were engaged were fed from the royal kitchen and presented with two shawls each. “So that every lane of Murshidabad was hung with shawls."" Into this city ol‘ beauty and wealth, the intellectuals came from all over India “people of any talent flocked to Bengal, knowing that they would find ready appreciation from the Nawab" (Sujauddin)." The point of convergence was the Nawab’s seat of power.

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From the Korkharrtt to the Studio

The next ruler Nawab Alivardi Khan had in his entourage in Patna a number of learned men from Iran. A centre of Persian literary activities grew up in Azimabad (Patna), and the mosques, imomboros

and maktohs sprang up wherever lvlusalmans predominated in number. A number of good Persian poets like the great Hazin, Al muhammad-ul Madu Ba Ali, Sheilth Muhammad Hussain and Haji

Badruddin enriched the court culture. At a lower level Persian filtered down to the people through the educated, as the official language. Since some of the Persian scholars {like Qaai Crhulam Muaaffar) were made supreme Judges of lvlurshidabad, an economic incentive drew even the Hindus to Islamic learning.“ Thus the Nawabs of Bengal followed closely the rules laid down by Indo-Persian convention when playing out the role of pious patrons. III

‘Patronage’ developed in Mughal India (and was carried over to the succession states) as the major expression of the ruling class ideology. The acts of charity ‘legitimised‘ the use of force necessary for the extraction of the surplus as revenue. Since force had to be seen to be legitimised, the show of force involved a definite pattern of social behaviour, which included the consumption of luxuries. The nobleman who played out his social role, as the promoter of learning, the protector of religion, and the refuge of the poor, was also one who wore fine clothes and jewels, rode powerful elephants, mounted spirited horses, and carried shining arms. All the awe-inspiring objects associated with him and helping to erect his stereotyped image in art were artisan-produced. Hence it was the noble man‘s consumption pattern which made him provide and protect not only the peasants but also

the artisans." This role of the ‘patron‘ was best played out by Akbar and adopted by successive generations of kings and aristocrats.“ The masterservant relationship came to be included in all forms of extra-economic coercions exercised by the imperialist and the later Mughals. Thus sanctioned by lndo-Persian social norms. authority in eighteenth century India came to have one face only, the patron‘s. Abul Faaal described the close supervision schema followed in the Mughal court. In a specified space, the artisans assembled with

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their tools, and the painters with only their brushes. The colours and papers were provided by the employer. Every week they laid their works before careful patrons like Akbar and Jahangir, to be rewarded or dismissed. These imperial koriritcncs were production of necessities like clothes and armour were given equal attention as luxuries like perfumes and jewels, became the model institution for all noble households." This is why, when the Mughal empire was seen to be declining, it gave the impression of huge households in disarray. Exclusive consumption as a right of the patron was built into the core of this system of artisan production. It was Akbar who first threw open the career of an artist to

talent, by cutting through the caste heirarchics. (Daswanth, the son of a Poiiri-bearer," became a master artist in his court). The notion was adopted by the nobility so that both Hindus and Muslims commissioned artists to illustrate their sacred texts, without paying heed to the artist‘s religion. Yet this ‘individual identity‘ of the Mughal courtartist only granted him a marginal autonomy. The progress of production in the irorkhono with its close supervision scheme, made the artist depend on his patrons both for physical and intellectual support. Along with the colours and papers, the patron provided the theme. Thus the heirarehical relationship into which the patron and the artist entered during the construction of a painting made its formulation a joint social act." This is particularly noticeable in the Court portraits where the patron's demands for recording was matched by the artist's needs for eulogy.“ It also becomes apparent, that due to the attentions paid by the patron to the artists’ physical and intellectual needs, the relations of domination which conditioned

artistic production in the household itorititorros made it

impossible for the artist to set up an independent studio in the maket. Thus the Mughal artists can be considered as specifically instituted artists, belonging to the regular institution of the itoririrono, where the exchange factors are fully integrated in the working of the studio. When released from this studio the artist moved into another household institution of the Mughal noble where the same rules of exchange worked.“ Even as the dominant ideology continued to revolve round the extraction of revenue and its distribution among a small minority, the

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From rite Koritironc to rite Studio

constant point of reference for the patrons and artists in Bengal was the ‘imperial Mughal court in Delhi‘. Murshid Quli first set the pattern of behaviour which was carried right down to Mir Kasin even when the ‘succession state‘ had been severed from its central source of authority—“I as an Imperial servant am subject to the Crown and Throne of the sovereign of the Imperial capital. To submit to any one save and except the person who descended from the Timurid House ‘sits on the Throne of the Empire of Delhi would be an act of treachery?" The men surrounding lvlurshid Quli at Murshidabad, “being thrown into contact with the people in Delhi, in point-of refinement of manners and conversation resemble the people of Hindusthan, unlike those of the other parts of Bengal."" Thus to lvlurshid Quli's contemporaries, lylurshidabad became a smaller version of the im-

perial capital, with its own mint, revenue olfioes, and palatial buildings which were strictly based on the rules of Mughal architecture. The justice that lrlurshid Quli meted out to his subjects from his court followed the Mughal rules down to its last gruesome detail." Thus

Murshid Quli provided the model behaviour to which the lvlughal court artists were accustomed.

Yet Murshid Quli’s chiefcredit in the eyes of the artists lay in his increasing the buying power of the regional elite. He also provided through his own acts the continued Mughal custom of exchanging luxuries in state functions. “In the Punayah festival he distributed lthilats with clothes, horses and arms to the deserving aamindars, every year"," so that the artisans producing clothes and arms were kept employed. On the other hand he sent presents to Delhi after each succession which contained ivory objects and silks from lvlurshidabad." The amount that he forced out of the aamindars was kept in the province, and except for the nominal tax, the majority of the ‘one -crore and ninety lacs of rupees were distributed between the Nawab's treasury and that of the regional nobility, considerably enhancing their buying power." The combination of the two offices of the Subedar and Dcwan continued to be joined in the post of the Nawab Naaim, so that the pattern set by lvlurshid Quli was followed smoothly till Sirajuddaulah. Sujaudtlin, the next ruler, though a more pleasure-loving man than

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Mcrshidcitoti : The alrrlsr and the Korititonrt

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Murshid Quli was able to raise the amount to be spent solely for the

Nieamat [the Iagiri Sarkar-i-a1a—Its. 10,70,465] and also for Mattedi-mosir grants (tax-free lands to Islamic scholars and divincs were assessed to be Rs. 25, 665). The rest of the amount went to maintain a reduced army, revenue officials and the huge household, which included the itorirhorros (for luxury items which must have included painting, ivory and jewels)!’ From the period of Murshid Quli, the prosperity of Bengal is really to be seen reflected in the growth of Murshidabad. It became a flourishing centre of international trade, and a number of artisan products (which lay outside the strict confines of the nobleman or the Nawab‘s household iroricitonos) also acquired a specialised quality. Thus silk, of different varieties like to_fl'eto.r and bontiono, silk goods like romtris, i.e. handkerchiefs), ivory, and metal works alongside a number of cottage industries which developed to sustain this brisk commercial exchanges, bore the identifiable stamp of lvlurshidabad." As described by the Jain poet Nihal in his ‘Bengal Desh Ki Gaza?" lvlurshitlabad at the end of Sujauddin's reign attracted both indigenous and foreign merchants in large numbers so that the bazaar presented a colourful mosaic of different costumes. The lvlarhatta raids, causing a setback in Alivardi‘s reign still allowed Murshidabad to maintain its general prosperity,“ and the main flow of its products were to the houses of the Hawab and his omroitr. The officers in the

Nawabs‘ army, the landed gentry and rich banking houses like that of Jagat Seths combined to form that powerful regional elite group who resisted any encroachments on their rights." These men continued the traditions of maintaining artists in their household itorlchonos as a mark of respectability and honour, thereby providing the patronage necessary for a flourishing artistic activity. The price of the miniatures were on an equal par with other luxury items. A miniature portrait of Mir Kasim gives the price of Rs. 22 for which it was pur-

chased-—The translation stands—Purchased for rupees twentytwo through Mia Fiaa dated 20 Ram can in the 5th year of the reign of Alamgir ll)"." IV

In luxury crafts like ivory and silk, the lives of the partrons were

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From the Karirhano to the Stu-tiio

depicted as the major motifs!" In painting the portrayal of the ‘patron as the central figure (carried over from the lylughal court} gained new dimensions as new attributes were added to the existent stereotypes. In the rogomaio paintings belonging to the collection of Mrs. Darcy

I-lart, a variation to the theme was attempted by introducing Siraj as the hero or noyoiw." Whereas the previous paintings emphasised the historicity of the work by introducing historical persons into the narrative, in these paintings the schema is reversed. The heroic attributes of the real-life individual, usually intensified by placing the model in a magnificent but historical locale [like the court or battlefield), are here discarded and the romance engulfs the actual person—Siraj—into its narrative schema. Siraj‘s amorous propensities were justified by the courtly notions of the romantic and are here given an artistic sanction by using his ‘person’ as the model in the illustrations of an aesthetic text.

The formalised conceptualisation of love into moods created a new genre in Rajasthani painting known as the ‘Noyoico-Noyiko Bits-dtt‘. These were extended to the illustration of the texts on music. As a rogarihyano (conjuring up the image of the rogo) often meant the creation of a romantic mood, its depiction meant that of portraying an amorous scene. The induction of Siraj into such a composition as the central figure engaged in love-play enlarged the given attributes of the patron—stereotype by projecting him as the ideal in male beauty. A number of stray paintings repeating the composition of these rcgorrtoio illustrations, point to the different conventions which came to be formed in Murshidabad painting. Continued from the mythic narrative pattern, which Mughal painting had inherited both from the Persian and pre-Islamic Indian tradition, these paintings came to form a special genre.“ The visual schema of mythic narration was perfected in the Akbornomo paintings, where each incident was transformed through a serialised motion, from single incidents to reach its culminating point in the court scene. It formed a glorious saga which remained in the memory of the later lvlughal artists. They now tried to portray all rulers with an Akbar-like personality which was “the absolute light which would carry conviction as an image of absolute pnwer."“ This was possible in the conventional scenes like “Alivardi hunting a

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Hnrrhidcbdd : The Jrrisr and the Enrinlrnnn

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'roebuck."" Here the central figure on a lively horse lifting his lance, 1 holds the viewer's attention by the vigour of his movement. The stilled energy depicted in the pose brings into mind, the dramatic moments of previous battles. Thus, to the artist and his audience, the life style of the later members of ruling class were constant reminders of the older form of behaviour in whose continuation lay the artist's security. This was formalised into a convention in the illustrations of texts like the Akbnrnnmo, which remained as a constant point of reference to ,the provincial Mughal artists. In the illustration of the Akbcrnamo, the central figure of Akbar moves from battles to hunts, from the court to the harem, always retaining his self-control and dignity.“ This semi-divine characteristic, which was rooted in the physical person of the patron turned all lvlughal, and later provincial Mughal, portraits into quasi-historical studies. A constant movement from the mythic to the historical spheres characterised the dominant visual ideology, even as the Bengal Nawabs continued to be depicted as historical persons retaining the attributes of the heroes of medieval romances!" V

Right up to the period of Mir Kasim, we see artists signing their names as being in the service of nobles." The Murshidahad Courtartist, whose identity was established only through his being in the service of a noble man, clung to this dominant visual ideology. Yet in the doldrums of eighteenth-century politics, the well-defined identity oi‘ the patron was sometimes blurred, and the artists fitted into their neat schema anyone who was willing to play out the social role. {An interesting case study is ofi'ered by Fullerton, a British surgeon employed by the East India Company. A number of Mursbidabad miniatures found from his collection signed by Dipchand proves that Fullerton was an appreciative patron." In a portrait by Dipchand, [Fullerton is shown sitting smoking a hookah. In this portrait, though Fullerton sits a little awkwardly due to his European clothes, the similarity with the portrait studies of the lvlursbidabad Nawahs is striking. The same stance, with the sarne landscape background of open space signifies leisure. In the given description of this portrait of “Fullerton gone

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Native" can be noticed the European critics‘ non-comprehension of the ideological control which eighteenth century patrons exercised over artistic production in India." In a portrait of Fullerton painted by the British artist Seaton,“ the expressed attitudes of Fullerton’: European contemporaries are seen. In the British portrait Fullerton and his friend are pushed to the background, while in the dark picture the high lights illuminate the bottles on the table allowing the viewer‘s first gaze to rest on these objects. The light is then reflected from the glasses on to the faces of the models. The portrait harshly passes the verdict of dismissal on the drunken white man, who can stoop to be the friends of natives, and who conspired with their help to bring ruin to his own countrymen. To the Europeans, particularly the British, Fullerton was that man who alone escaped in the gruesome murder of white men at Patna. To the Indian he fitted into the stereotype of the patron, by providing that model on whom they could hang their metaphors—“He is a paragon of all eitcellencies. He is superior to all praise that can be eonceivedffle is enlightened. sees through things aught like old sages! But he has the fortune, the age and the rank of manhood"." In spite of the eulogies of the ofizicial historians, the patron in the eighteenth century did not sit with gold dinars in his pocket for the "poor and the talented". The gloomy descriptions of Paelsaert and Bemier of the artisan (in the seventeenth century) in the grip of a rapacious nobility are perhaps nearer the truth." Yet if these stereo-

typed portraits of the lvlnrshidabad school are accepted as depositories of certain social relationships then it has to be recognised that men like Dipchand, Hunhar and Purannath" could retain their identity as artists only if the patron agreed, or was able to play out his given social role. VI

A transformation in the perception schema occurred clearly after U65 when the East India Company really assumed the blawabi of Bengal, and therefore became the major patron to all the artists working in the periphery of the lvlurshidabad Court. A court scene showing Nawah Mubarak-ud-daula of Murshidabad (I770-93)“ receiving the resident Sir John D'oyle Bart in Durhar shows a completely

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Hurshidnbnd .' Tire Arrisr and tire Knrlrhann

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different use of the picture space and the placing of human figures. The composition is horizontal, in contrast to the pyramidal structures of the lvlnghal Court scenes. The seated king in the middle holding the hand of the British Resident is attended on two sides by the court oihcials, servants and Muslim divincs. The Hawab and the Resident, are the two central figures and though placed in the midst of the painting, they are dwarfed by the surrounding men. The placing of the Hawab on the same plane as that of the officials, not only reverses the perception schema of the Mnghal Court artists, it fails to highlight the

heirarchy which dominated the visual ideology of the Mughal and the provincial lvlughal courts. lt is assumed by Mildred Archer that this painting among a few

others was based on the lost originals by a British artist named George Farrington." The evidence of a completely different perception schema followed in this court scene, makes Mildred Archer's suggestion

plausible. The composition of this court scene is in agreement with a group of paintings all painted on a horizontal format. These are stu-

dies of a number of court scenes, festivals and processions. Farrington, who was a painter of History in England, is known to have been en-

couraged by the British Residents at the Ivlurshidabad Court, Doyly and Pott, and worked in Murshidabad due to their enthusiasm for about three years. He had mainly concentrated on the Indian festivals, and the paintings (in gouache in contrast to the European oils} suppos-

ed to be based on his works show an interest in densely populated scenes, where the individuals forming a part of the mass of surging men have different costumes and ornaments. Painted in a sombre

pallette (compared to the earlier lvlurshidahad paintings), the copies of Farrington’s works are individual pieces trying to capture the special mood of the festive moment. Here the emphasis is placed equally upon the animals as well as on the human beings, who, to the artist together form the moving elements of the drama. For the Murshidahad artist (asked to copy this) the schema must have appeared alien as Farrington used to the ‘History painting‘ convention of Europe tried to recreate the atmosphere by using human figures and animals, as a mass in motion, wholly differently from the Indian schema where the emphasis was always on the central figure. Moreover, the British painting being in oil, the testure of clothes,

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ornaments even the light due to the medium had a ‘tactile reality’ created through heavy tonal contrasts impossible for the Murshidabad artists to adopt (used as they were to the medium of gouache on paper). The sombre colours, trying to catch the atmosphere of a dimly lit dawn or evening was only partially known to the Murshidabad artists, who had previously used the darkness of the night mainly as a contrast to the bright lights of an Indian sun. This alien pictoral schema foisted on the Murshidabad artists points to the conflict that was taking place in the ‘visual ideology’, as well as in the broader political and social relations of the artists. The East India Company"s emergence as the real political power in Bengal after W65 severely curtailed the notion of protection which

had co-existed with the blawab l"~lazim‘s judicial powers as one of the major ideological element of patronage. The second qualifying factor. the consumption pattern of the Nawabs, was disrupted by the constrictions placed on their income. The historical moment depicted in the painting of ‘Nawab Muharakuddaula receiving the British Resident’, therefore, affected the two groups of artists, the British who first thought up the schema and the anonymous Murshidabad painters who copied it, in two difierent ways. To Farrington the installation of the Resident at the Murshidabad was a glorious moment of British history. To the Indian artist well-versed in the court politics, it was a moment of scheme. The ‘exercise of authority’ which was ritualised in the coronation cere-

mony when the Nawab Nazim was established in his throne by the orders of the Mnghal emperor at Delhi, was now taken over by the British Resident, which totally dislocated the Indian artist's perception schema. This painting should, therefore, be read as significant in marking the beginning of the conflict in the visual ideologies of the Indian and the British.

Sir John Doylee, one of the most important persons in the lvlurshidabad Court, was Resident at lvlurshidabad from 1780-B5. As mentioned by humorous contemporaries like Hicky" and supported by the official records of the Company, this post was coveted by all of the Company"s officials as the most lucrative. The allowance made to the Nawab passed through the hands of the Resident and in the course of

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Murrhldcbnd : The drrlsr and the Kerk-linen

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the transfer ‘a considerable portion always stuck to his (i.e. the Resident's) fingers.’

After the grant of the Dewany to the Company the first ‘pnnynhn ceremony‘ at the Motijhil Palace was held on 29th April 1766. On that occasion blajim-ud-daulah sat on the throne in his capacity of blazirn of the Subah and Clive took his place on behalf of the Company. To the Indians as well as the British then present in lvlurshidabad, the incident became the main reference point for the description of all such later event was marked by the death of blajim-ud-daulah on 8th May only a few days after his accession to the throne. While the British records point to the blawab's gross lack of control which led to his death," the curses hurled at the supposed author of this murder reveal the attitudes of the common people to the altered situation." Najim-ud-daulah died without any issue and he was succeeded by his sixteen year old brother who died in I710, leaving the throne to Mubarak-ud-daulah who ascended the throne on 2lst March I770. {This was the incident which is commemorated in the supposed copy of Farrington‘s original in oil.) The only importance which were now accorded to the routine ritual was the opportunity granted to the British to reduce the allowance of the Nawahs. Najim-ud-daulah was given Rs. 4l,3fi,l3l.9D, 12 lacks less than what was settled on his elder brother, while in the case of Mubarak-ud-daulah it was reduced to Rs. 3l,Bl,9'9l.9tl. The logic put forward by the Company olficials in India which pleased the Directors, being that the reduction only affected the ‘Sepoys of the Nawab‘, who were now useless, as the protection of the Province and the hlawab‘s person depended on the British. This measure would in no way affect the ‘Nawab's dignity‘? In the olficial correspondence between the Company oficials and the Board of Directors, the word ‘dignity of the native princes‘ increasingly came to mean the concessions that had to be accorded to them. To the Indian princes this "loss of dignity" marked the process of social ruin, which now loomed large as steady encroachments were made on their political and personal authority. The bitterness of the Nawab-Hazims of Bengal, Bihar and Drissa is summed up in the correspondence with Sir Charles Wood in I862 {the Queen of England's Secretary of State for India in Council). The theme of these letters was the "loss of dignity" which the noble family

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Front the Knrkhoan to the Studio

of the Nawab-Nazims of lvflurshidabad had to sulfer due to the imposition of British rule over their person and property."

In enumerating his rights, the blawab took his righteous stand on the treaty concluded in 1770 between the East India Company and Mubarak-ud-daulah which had ended with the words—“This agree-

ment by the blessing of God shall be inviolably observed for ever." The Nawab put forward this treaty as the “only existing charter of the House of lvlursaidabad" which was ratified by “the Queen's proclammation to the Princess, Chiefs and the People of lndia."“

In spite of the stand taken by the Nawab on the treaty of llltl, the actual diminishing of the powers of the Nawab Nazims had begun with the treaty concluded between the Company and Mir Jafar in 1765." The Company then agreed not only to make lvlir Jafar the Subedar of the Provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Drissa, but also to hand over to the hlawab “all the elfects, treasure and jewels belonging to Mahomed Kasim Khan, which shall fall into the hands of the Company.“" In this agreement, Mir Jafar agreed to maintain the Company's

troops in Burdwan, lvlidnapore and Chittagong, to demolish all competitions, which the Company might face from other European traders, he also agreed to the severe cnrtailments of his own authority-—"I will maintain twelve thousand horse and twelve thousand foot in the three Provinces. If there should be occasion for any more, the number shall be increased by consent of the Governor and Council, ,proportionately to the emergency; besides these the Force of the English Company shall always attend me when they are wanted.“"' Also "whenever I shall fix my court, either (Article 6} at lvloorshedabad or elsewhere, I will advise the Governor and Council; and what number of English Force I may have occasion for in the management of my affairs, I will demand them, and they shall be allowed me and an English Gentleman shall also reside with me to transact all affairs between me and the Company, and a person shall also reside on my part at Calcutta to negotiate with the Governor and Council.""" as evidenced in this agreement, Mir Iafar agreed for himself and all future Nawab-Nazims of Bengal to become puppets in the hands of the

British. For all practical purposes Calcutta was allowed to usurp the

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powers of Delhi, and the ‘Company Bahadnr' adopted the imperial authority. with their own mint, and a Resident in the Murshidabad

Court, controlling both the revenue and judicial power of the hlawab. Mir Jafar signed away his own freedom and that of his successors,

adding a sum of 5,0i]I,tl~[l[l rupees as compensation to the Company for the wars which they had been compelled to fight." Mubarak-ud-daulah merely confirmed all the rights alienated to British by Mir Iafar. He further agreed to the sum of Rs. l7,'i'8,B5l. IO

for all his household expenses and the maintenance of such horses, sepoys, peons, burkundauzes as may be thought "necessary for my dignity only, should such an expense hereafter be found necessary to be kept up, but on no account to exceed that amount.""' " Within five years the allowance was diminished by twentytwo

Iakhs, and when lvlubark-ud-daulah came of age (Hastings not having kept his promise), the Nawab was in great financial distress. With continued obligations and an increasing family, his personal expenses kept‘ increasing. The only solution was borrowing, and the debts of the Nawabs acquired immense proportions by I793." These matters of “embarrassment” cropping up constantly in the British records hid the personal tragedies of individuals whose livelihood bad depended upon the personal bounties of the Nawabs. Several hundred members of the old nobility (which must have included scholars and artists} were excluded from all employment, both

civil and military, by the company‘s government. Dnly a part of this is revealed in the household accounts of the Nizamat. After 1773, the oehlo expenses which included the fees of the Nawab's tutors, preceptors and slaves were reduced from Rs. 4,746 to 1,621. It brought down the number of the employed persons from 78 to 2'?.'"'

_

ln 1737, Lord Cornwallis, in reply to an appeal from the Nawab Nazim, declared that since many of the blawab's debts were fictitious, an enquiry should be made into the actual conditions. As a result the Nawab was forced to deposit the savings efi'ected every month into the Company’s treasury, so that his creditors could be paid instalments regularly three times a year." (In 1775 Tilak Chand, a jeweller appealed to Calcutta Sudar Adalat for recovery of a debt from the Nawab. However, there is no evidence to show how debts were paid

during the eight years 1773-81, if any were repaid at all. By 1784 it is

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Front the Iiurldtorro to the Studio

known that Mubarak-ud-daulah could no longer secure loans from bankers, merchants and tradesmen of Murshidabad.}" By the end of l'.~"l3 the great bull: of the debts which the Nawabs accumulated were paid back by their own eflbrts. Mubarak-ud-daulah secured this impossible task by curtailing expenses on diet, clothes, libraries, and festivals. He began selling personal properties like jewels and gold plates. In 1802 when the then Hawab Nazim-ul-Mull: returned the visit of the European dignitary Viscount Valentin in his residence at Murshidabad, the Nswab was decked in emeralds and

diamonds which amused the admiration of the ‘Viscount. He discovered later to his dismay, that none of these jewels now belonged to the Nawab as they had been pawned, and the persons who held them in pledge were waiting to claim them in the It-lawab‘s palace.“ By 1786, the appeal of Nawab Mubarak-ud-daulah to exercise his administrative authority over his mpital city of lvlurshidabad was denied. The criminal administration being the sole sphere of the Hazitn, it was a definite act of usurpation. Hastings admitted this-—“to avoid a great evil, and that justice might have a footing by hoolt or by croolt in Bengal, we chose the lesser evil and took her under our pro-

tection?“ Hastings however, failed to take into consideration the faith of a people in an age-old system of government, which even when pauperisetl still retained (for them) the myth of security." The image of the Nawab remained as the central motif in the arts (as in some of the luxury crafts like ivory) even when his power of patronage was completely negated. VII While the Nawabs ceased to play the dominant role in artistic production, a new group ot‘ artists moved in to replace the Court artists of Murshidabad. lvlen like Farrington paid a deposit to the East India Company's oflice in London before being granted permission to enter India. They converged to those centres like Madras and

(jalnuttn) where the Company servants built the main centres of European culture. With the neo-classical style dominating architecture and townships modelled on London or Bath, the country seats of these European ‘I*-Iabobs‘ resembled those of the British gentry to its last detail.

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The European artists who came to seek their fortunes in India, were asked to record in their paintings, the increasing political authority of the Company, as well as the private fortunes of its officials. Farrington recorded the Company's rule in Bengal. Yet looking at the paintings executed in England by well known British artists commemorating the same political events, we find Farrington dismissed like the Indian artist to the place of an itnitator.

On 3-rd February 1Tl'3, the Court ordered that Edward Penny be allowed the sum of £ l5ll out of the Contingent Military Fund for painting a picture on the subject of "Lord Clive's receiving from the Nabab of Bengal the grant of the sum of money which was applied to establish the Fund for Disabled Clflicers and Soldiers in the Company‘: service." The picture was to ornament the military fund ofice in the East India House in Leaden Hall Street." In this painting Clive is shown holding a paper, obviously the deed. He points with his left hand to the dejected stooping figures of the soldiers and widows with their children. He explains to the Nawab the generous impulses which had made him accept the money (known later as Clive’s Fund). The Nawab attended by his courtiers, striking the pap-er with his left hand, is shown agreeing to the treaty. He seems struck by the misery that confronts him. The composition of the painting and Clive‘s gestures make him the centre of the viewer‘s attention. Though the viewer's attention is drawn to the figure of the Nawab [placed beside Clive) in his flowing dress of the Mughal Dmrah, surrounded by the fan bearers and courtiers, he remains subservient to Clive, willing to follow the latter‘s lead. Clive on the other hand remains dignified in his gestures and is painted as the fountainhead of charity.""I Another painting by Benjamin West was of ‘Lord Clive receiving from the Moghul the grant of the Dewanyf" It was commissioned by Clive for ‘Clarernont’ (his residence in England}. Here Clive is shown taking from the Mughal emperor the charter which marked a turning point in the history of British presence in India. While the seated Emperor bends slightly to Clive, handing him the paper, a number of European and Indian nobles stand on the two sides as witnesses to the act. Through the large openings of the arches one sees the palaces of Delhi arranged in a row unreal in their orderliness. This paintin5 ‘"3-5

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Front the Korkftnno ro the Studio

exhibited in the Royal Academy and the British critic noted—“the event is rather stately than interesting but it strongly engages the

attention, as the scene is Asiatic, we think the buildings in the background are not sufficiently in costume for the main structure bears too strong a resemblance to our venerable dome of St. Paul."" These coupled with other paintings on the same theme, point to the need of the new ‘nobles’ of the Company, to publicise their achievements in the Colony before their own countrymen. The painting of Robert Clive meeting Mir Jafar, Nawab oflvlurshidabad, after the battle of Plassey by an unknown artist (London, circa I795-1800) can be seen as the corrected version of an earlier work where the - Nawab bowed low to an arrogantly standing Clive who remained erect. The servants carrying gold vessels on their heads in this work look more Egyptian than Indian." This was dismissed as unreal by the critics. The later version. where Clive exchanges bows with the Nawab, was presented to the public when Clive‘s career in India was no longer looked upon as that of a brutal plunderer, but of one who was the founding father

of British rule in India. Yet Clive was not the sole hero of the British painters of ‘Indian History‘. William Watts, an ofiicer of the Company who negotiated the treaty with Mir Jafar and his son Miran, was painted by Benjamin

Wilson (London, circa IT63)." These paintings by eminent British artists formed a series where the exploits of the British in India came to be depicted in the “History painting" convention. The Royal academy artists never having been to India had no first-hand knowledge of the costume or the locale. They depended on the works of Fermington, Davis, Watson and other minor artists who did visit India. They heard the descriptions from their patrons and studied the costumes from Indian miniatures. Their themes usually focussed on

the British hero while the Indian princes, like their palaces and elephants, merely provided the background. These recreated fantasies transformed the actual incident into a continuous moment of victory for the British and defeat for the Indian. Even as India came to figure largely in the British experience as the chief provider of raw materials and finished luxury goods, these paintings recording the British connections with India came to form a new genre in the established “History Painting" conventions. The Royal Academy exhibits became

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-Mursfridubnd : The .-lrrisr and the Korftfrono

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the model schema for later British artists coming to India to paint the

portraits of the “Company Dfiieials". The Company men on the other hand began to shed their earlier ridiculous appearance, cut down on the extravagant shows and generally conducted themselves as dignified men of authority." As the position of the native princes dwindled to that of paupers -the “l\lababs" of the Company, emerged as the new patrons." But the latter's patronage was reserved for Europeans only. The portraits continued to be in the approved neo-classical style, to which the artists training in the “History Painting" conventions added certain heroic qualities. To the conventional portraits of military commanders (standing with their arms, and the bright colours of their uniforms contrasted with the dark background) were now added seated elephants "waiting for the officer to mount, or a patient Indian Klrorrsrrrno holding on to the bridle of a lively horse. The Indian element of the painting was always highlighted by the presence of the Indian in servi-

tude. The elephants and horses, once the accepted properties of the Indian noblemen, now came to be associated with the British, marking their heightened social status. These paintings came to be regarded as authentic records of the growing British empire by the proud contemporaries in the late eighteenth century, and with nostalgia by the later generation of British administrators. Viewed in the context of artistic significance, these British portraits, lifeless in their echoing of a static formula, provide the “visual ideology" “of the dominant class. In the

eighteenth century the

Company initially emerged as a political force to protect its commercial interests, which they found difficult to explain to their countrymen. The popular opinion in Britain regarded with horror the picture of the brutal invader which the impeachment of Warren Hastings brought before them. To a large majority {of the British) the Company's wars for political power were both unnecessary as well as immoral." The commissioned portraits by Clive and Watts served to answer some of the accusations that were slowly formulating. at the same time, being painted by Royal Academy artists, the social prestige attached to these works granted them a degree of permanence. They reached out to the future generation with their appeal for a different assessment of the historical incidents. The events were interpreted by the dominant

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Front the Kutkhunu to the Studto

class to translate Clive into a charitable man of honour and Watts intoa military hero. Here a body of illusory beliefs hid the actual truth, and, like the background consisting of ‘oriental buildings’ and ‘Indian noblemen‘, completely unreal. When worked out by the minor British artists in India, this unreal element was corrected by the insertion of the real palaces and actual men. The schema remaining the same, the portraits, however. never revealed the attitude of the conquered people, and its visual schema uph_eld the romantic notions of the Company servants, who continued to look upon their own exploits as glorious achievements. To the Indian artists this visual ideology olfered a challenge. Measured against the European, the skills of the Murshidabad court artists were considered as those of craftsmen. Their meticulous attention to details, the small formats of the paintings and the jewel-like

colours ofi‘-cred the same novelty found by Europeans in an "tlriental" ornament. These were to be used not to record, or eulogies a patron‘s power (as they had done previously) but as more brie-a-brac, to decorate only a very small corner of a palatial mansion. Thus men like Dipchand found no place in the galleries of the

‘Hazar Dusty’; even though it was his, Purannath‘s and Hunhar’s paintings which had with their photographic accuracy recorded the life of the earlier Nawabs. The Indian miniatures continued to he used as small records serving the purpose of reference for the portrait painter in oil. The portraits of the Indian Nawabs now came to be painted according to the new visual schema of the British masters. Thus the Hazar Duary palace built in neo-classical European mode stood as a testimony to the new standards of artistic assessment. The Nawab “Syud lvlansoor Alice" shouted his protest to a deaf British authority--“I appeal to your sense of justice. Right Honourable Sir...Perhaps the grossest case in which funds were appropriated by the Regent without due consultation with the Ninamat, was in furnitshing money for the palace at lvlurshidabad. That Palace costupward of seventeen lacks of Rupees. Being built wholly in the European style is totally unsuited for the residence of a native prince. Privacy for native ladies cannot be obtained, nor are there any means by which they may, without exposure enjoy the fresh air and take exercise.""‘

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This palace surrounded by the crumbling Muslim architecture of the ‘Kella Hiaan1at' stood as the symbol of British authority in Bengal.

The authority which forced the scions of the Nawab Naaims of Murshidahad to learn English instead of Persian, to push aside their own cultural norms, amuse themselves with new toys, also modelled them to be good recipients of European consumer goods. Hence while the artisans from Murshidabnd fled to Calcutta, the Nawab came to be surrounded with Buhl cabinets, Venetian glass and British paintings." It is perhaps in the fitness of the situation that the Residents‘ portraits in the royal gallery of the palace continue to dwarf those of the Nawab Naaims. VIII Murshidabad was deserted by the artisans leaving for Calcutta between ITE9-?0, long before the Haaar Duary Palace was built. The great famine (lT?‘l)} actually accelerated the process of desertion which has begun with the transfer to Calcutta of the Khalsa and Sadat adalats (i.e. the judiciary, and the provincial council of revenue). The famine made it clear that Murshidabad could never be able to forge links with the hinterland, as long as Calcutta required its supplies.

Calcutta now developed as a seat of British colonial power according to the demands of a metropolitan economy exterior to India. Thus the Murshidabad-Cossimbaaar complex lilte other urban complexes which had their roots in pre-British days passed into decline, hit as they were on all four 1evels—political, administrative, financial and social. The court artist of lvlurshidabad with a large number of other ‘skilled natives‘ came to the new metropolis in search of fresh patronage.“

The new aristocrats oi‘ this British-built city were the officials of the East India Company. These men maintained a standard of living which was beyond the reach of an average European in his own-

country. Even as early as in 1730, the Directors complained about their extravagant way of life particularly in “equipage and show"," This new community of Europeans in India now became the patrons of Indian art. They clung to those cultural norms which were fashionable in eighteenth century England. This they considered to be their own “artistic norms" and it was according to the rules of this art that

they assessed the arts of Asia."

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Front the iiiorkftono to the .'.i‘trrtft'o

The two dominant ideas that helped to formulate the norms of painting in eighteenth century. Britain were the “cult of the picturesque" and an "accurately representational mode of painting’ ’. The latter became particularly necessary to record topography to study archaeological monuments and finally to make sttrvey maps. Paintings were the only means of recording in a pre-photograph age. It is quite clear from the numerous memoirs that the Company's government would have preferred European artists to execute their works. Evidently, this was too expensive; so they turned to the average European amateur who had dabbled in water colour drawings and was only fit to illustrate his letters home to copy the landscape, mark out routes and sketch ancient Indian monuments. The need for these records is proved by the decision of the Director to set up an art school in England at the expense of the East India Company. Trainings in art would be imparted to the officials so that they would be proficient in the rudiments of drawing and painting before they came to India." A study of the ‘Company school of paintings‘ in Bengal shows that the Indian artists were employed by particular British officials to execute certain drawings. Sir Elijah Itnpey and Dr. Rocksburg com-

missioned sets of botanical drawings. The surveyors of the Company also employed Indian artists to copy out road maps and make accurate drawings of ancient buildings and archaeological monuments." Yet the numerous occupation sets and the portraits of the Indian servants of British masters form an important part of the collection of Company drawings housed in difierent museums of all over the world. These portraits of anonymous men were interesting to the British patrons as records of a strange people in a new country. The works were executed according to their directions. The requirements of these -changed demands is best seen in the words of Muhammad Amie of Karaya. He is said to have toured Calcutta for individual commissions. When engaged, he would paint a set of pictures for the patrons including his house, carriage, horses and servants. According to some eritics, “of all the Calcutta painters specialising in works for the British he was by far the most talented and original."" Among his many paintings. the ‘Pony Riding‘ shows the main characteristics of this new genre. Accompanied by the khonsomnh and a .st:tt'.s, protected from the sun by a large bonnet which completely

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Murshidohfld : The Jrtfst and the .fi'.'tIrHItI-I'll!

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covers her face, and with her back to the viewer, a European child goes riding in a garden. The painting depicting the dog, the horse, the khonsnmnh and the European child almost hidden by all the para-'

phernalia to protect her from the Indian sun, is rendered with the precision of a coloured photograph." The court portraits of Murshidabad presenting the same accuracy, were alive by their associatiori with a specific person, place and time. The painting by Sheikh Mohammed Amin show spacious buildings in European style, dogs and green field which can be placed anywhere. It is only when the viewer’: attention rests on the umbrella bearer. attending the European child that we relate the picture to India. It is "the impersonal character of the paintings that makes the occupational portraits of the milkman or the barber by the Company painters so lifeless." Here we see the creation of another stereotype by the Indian artists, that of the domes-' tic servanl.

'

But this pictorial schema was not created by the Indian artist out of his own visual experiences. It was copied from European artists, either professionals like Hodges or amateurs like Fanny Parks. ‘ In the “Wanderings of a Pilgrim in search ofthe Picturesque" Fanny Parks records the reactions of the average British, dominated by a strong Protestant ethics, when confronted with this new social institution of the domestic servant. “The number of servants necessary to an establishment in India is most surprising to a person fresh from Europe. Their wages are not high and they find themselves in food," nevertheless from their number, the expense is very great.“" She relates an anecdote about her sfrcor, the man most important in her household, which illustrates the complete lack of communication existing between the average Indian and their European masters." The artists now caught in this strange world of changing rela-

tions expressed their sentiments in the words of Ghulam Hussein“The English have at all times and still are aliens Not one of the English gentlemen shows any inclination or any relish for the Company of the gentlemen of this country, or from listening to the conversation, or to the stories of the natives. Although nothing but conversation is likely to put it in the power of some virtuous well disposed man to learn what aches these poor natives and what might give them reliet'.”"

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Front the Inrfrfreno to the Stuulfe

The social attitude of the Company olficials towards their ‘native servants‘ is best recorded in the group of family portraits, which borrowed its schema from the current fashion in late eighteenth century British portraiture. In England most of the portrait painters (except

leading artists like Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough) had moved the provinces hoping to gain the patronage of the country squires. The portraits they painted were usually of the patron, his wife, and his dog with his lands behind him. The same form of composition was generally transported to India. Even important artists like Zotfanny painted in the same fashion, when in India. Warren Hastings and his wife were painted against the green lawn and white mansion of the Governor's house in Calcutta. Here the Indian connection is emphasised by the presence of the dark Indian girl, the maid servant." Clearly the servants were required as particular details in the general pictorial schema, only when recording the wealth of the patron. These portraits (even when painted by minor European artists unable to aspire to Zoffanny’s standard} were still regarded as important acquisitions, to be handed over to the next generation by the British in India. The Indian artists watched these oil paintings with a mixed feeling. They recognized the stereotype of the servant, but since in their own works, they were asked to single out the servant only ad keep their relations with the patron in the artists memory, their productions were like still life studies, in which the artists‘ attentions were never properly engaged. Used to the patron stereotypes of the Murshidabad Court, developed within the institution of the knrkftonn, the Indian artists now faced a strange situation, when pushed out of their accepted relations of exchange. Working for the British patrons, they faced a social situation, where a transition was taking place from the relations exist-

zing in a regular institution like the korkhono (the Court Studio) to the social relations of conscious exchange expressed through occasional commissions. ' They now painted models who belonged to their own class, while the patron who commissioned it belonged to a higher order. They painted according to the dictates of this dominant group, and these

did not agree with either their training or visual experience. Their alientation reached its optimum point when in these ‘occupational

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groups‘ both the artist and the model became totally anonymous. This is clear from the large number of portraits where the artist has not signed either his or the model‘s name. The significance of the enforced preception schema assumes a definite proportion when we see how the emergent ‘visual ideology‘ destroys the residual ‘visual ideology‘ of the erstwhile court painters. The Indian artist loses his traditional skill and, as must have tnppened, his traditional occupation. So towards the end ofthe eighteenth century, alienated from _the stereotyped model (most often his kin), displaced from his class, like Sheikh Muhammad Arnin of Karaya the sons of the Court artists of Mursbidabad went hawking their wares

from door to door, to pass into oblivion with the coming of the camera. a.

NDTES AND REFERENCES 1. W. Foster (ed.}, The Embassy o_,fStr Themes Roe in fnrftn, Landon, I916, p. Ell.

2. That lvluglsal Painters mainly illustrated. the royal biographies is evident from the illustrations of the Akbnrnnmn, lflbnratrtssts and the -Shflfljoftolnotnn

scattered in various museums, vide : Percy Brown, tadriaa Pointing under the Magnets, Oxford, l93l; Abul Fatal Allami,: The .-tin-t’-.-Iftbnrt, vol. I (trans. Blockman). Detailed description given on the regulations far admission to Court and etiquette observed, pp. 165-63.

3. T.W. Arnold and Laurence Binyon : The Court Pointers ofthe Grand Hughnfs, London, ISIII; Laurence Binyon: Enspcrors and Princes ofthe House of Timur, London, I930; Abul Faxal, rlin-i-tlfrbnrf, p. 52. 4. R. Shelton ; 'h'lurshidabad Painting‘ in Mnrg, vol. I, Ho. l, I956, p. I0;

The Nnfn-Dctnnyontf in the India Difice Library is dated AH 1210 ittttd .it..D.]-. The squat figures and 11;; faces painted in brown wash in the India Dfiice Library mas contrast sharply with the unpublished Not-out-Dtnssln of

the ‘ltictoria Memorial, Calcutta, The latter retains most of the characteristics of the Imperial Ivlughal paintings.

5. Athar Ali : ‘The Eighteenth Century—An Interpretation‘, The Indian Ht!tortrnt ttertew, July I971, January I979, vol. ‘ll’. pp. tilt-5; C.A. Bnyly; Rulers, Townstrsrn nan‘ Horrors; North ftsdtntl Society in the Age of Irtttrh expansion UFO-fdffl, Caslhridgn, IQBS, pp. l-lfl.

6. Gholam Hosain Khan, Ster-at-Mutagtterta (trans. by lltl. Raymond), Calcutta. I926, p. It?-I. Gltolam Hossin explains that the Hsxias is the Governor of the

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From the Koriritonrr so the Studio province, a military man who ootnmanda the troops and distributes justioe. While the Dewan is the superintendent of finances quite independent of the ‘blaziin. When a governor combines both these offices in his person, be is called Sttbedar or Viocrory. Salim Allah: Torikiri-i-Boogie, London, 1788, pp. 42-5?.

Both Clhelam Hosain and Salim Ali mention that the Bengali Amila sent measurers (Amine) and collectors shiqdars to every village to measure all

cultivable lands and make a settlement village by village, plot by plot and ryot by ryot —Abrlul Karim, Hurshid Quit and his times, Decca, l963i lJP- B1-E9. Ghulam Hussein Salim : Hiya:-at-Soiorin, Delhi, 1903, pp. 180-Ill.

G.l-I. Salim : ibiri., pp. 151-258. ibid. No!-ivo-Damon, author:Shailth Faizi. The tvell-lrnotvn story of It-ilala and Dansayanti, translated into Persian at the command of Emperor Akbar. This unpublished manuscript vvas presented to the ‘Victoria Memorial by the Havrab Bahadur of Murshidabsd. 19414. It originally belonged to the imperial lvlughal Library at Delhi ltestified by seals in the fronts-picoe

and the back] from where it was transferred to the lvturshidahsd Court, and may have been illustrated there. The illustrations in the undoubtedly later lvlughal style are pasted on separate pages and then again bound. The fly-leaf has a note in the donor's hand-tvriting that the mas has 31 illustrations and was added to the Library of the blavrab Bahadur of Murshidabad by the order of Syed Akbar Rena, lJarogha~i-ltutubhhans-Sarkar-i-Ali on Tuesday

the ltith April 139! l"'V.M.C. 325. Foil. IE4. Size : 15.3 at 24.2 cm.). No!-we-Damon, Victoria Memorial (325, Foll. IS4, Illustration l5) showing it camp being attacked by elephant. lvlen in European costumes using cannons

included. R. Shelton, op. cit. lvlost of the portraits of the Bengal Hasvabs shots the same schema Plate l (p. it)-lvlurshid Quli Khan holding duroor by the Bhagirathi river (I710 Collection of the Countess Povris}, Plate 3, p. 13; also Jtlivardi Khan with nephews and grandsons {I750-55, Victoria and Albert

lvlusenml. Jadunath Sarkar [translated It edited]: Bengal‘ Noivob, Calcutta, 1985, p. 2.

The author relates an anecdote about the strict justice observed by Mir lumla Alamgiri who was in residence at Kherirpur in Daoca. The description at onoe brings to mind the portaits of lvlurshid Quli and Alivardi granting audience to their subjects. Hui-Iva-Dsunne. \'.M. C325; Fol. I84, Illustration I. It shows the three-ting arrangement of the Court. Ivbere the King sits on throne above the tavo tiers

of men and animals. The outside panel shows soldiers in Euopean costume. The schema is reminiscent of the lvlughal Dnrb-as paintings. Abttl Fazal, op. cit. '

Akbar was supposed to have stated in defiance of religious instructions that

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Hurshidobad: Ute Artist trod‘ rite Korirhnrttt

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he thought the painter had his ovtn means of recognising God. R. Shelton, op. ctt.. p. ll, Plate I.

C't.l-I. Salim. tln'd., p. IEO. t'lttd’., pp. 179-230. iltr'd‘., pt ISD. “Every week he had the price —current reports of foodgrains

prepared, and compared them with the prices actually by the poor people. If these latter were changed one dam over the prices stated in price current reports, he had the dealers mahaldars and weigh-men punished in various forms, and had them patrolled through the city. planed upon asses". Ghularn Hussein Tabatabi (trans. Haji lvlustaphal. op. cit., pp. 472-458. Salim,op. cr'r., p. I80.

Bloclrman (trans): Tarikh-i-Nausuri in Jourttol of the .-trtette Society oflettgal, I867, Part I, Ho, 2, pp. 471-433. Gholam Hussin Tabatabi. op. cit. ILK. Datta: .tll't'vot-alt‘ and His Tinses, Calcutta, I963, pp. 192-I93.

C..tl.. Bayly: op. t.-it.. pp. to-st. The author suggests a study of the consumption pattern of the nobility, when studying patterns of demands. Abul Fatal, op. olt., pp. 101-l I3. _ tent, The description given by Abul Fazal in the ttitr-i-tflrbori, vol. I includes a variety of productslihe the ‘setting of precious stones‘, ‘The mint’, ‘The

method of Refining Gold‘, ‘The recipes of dishes including making bread, wardrdrobes, mattresses and perfumes, within this list were included writing and painting, pp. ll-I I3. Chit. Bayly, op. rt't., p. lit. Describes “Mughal rule as a huge system of household governmeats reinforced by overwhelming military power“. ibi.-:l., p. H4. “Daswanth. He is the son of a palltee bearer. He devoted his whole life to the art, and used from the love of his profession to draw and

paint figures even on walls. fine dny the eye of His Majesty fell on him, his talent was discovered, and he himself handed over to the Khwaja. In a short

time he surpassed all painters, and became the first master ofthe age. Raymond Williams: Culture, Glasgow. I983, p. 39. "There is one early form

of patronage which is in eifcct a modulation of the earlier situation of the instituted artist in altered social conditions. The change is marked for example in Welsh literature by the transition from the instituted Court poets {the poets

cl‘ the princes] to the poets of the nobility ‘who were now, though still highly regarded, more occasionally dependent. ll. poet might be attached to a household or increasingly be dependent on travelling between households performing his work and looking for hospitality and support. This is the beginning of a transition front the social relations of a regular institution {its exchange factors fully integrated and in that sense coherent} to the social relations of conscious ettchange though of course not yet of full eachangc. Yedde Galard: Les Merges do thfuroklro Gulrhon Athsi-e-Iran, tome I, fasc I

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Front the Korlrltotto to the Studio Haarlem, I936, pp. ll-I3. The album is now in the Gulistan Library,

Teherao. The followlnginscription on the paintiagillustratcsthe artist's needs to enlogise his appreciative royal patron—Jahangir who commissioned fhe single illustration as an addition to a lihamsa of blisami illustrated for Akbar is described thus—‘lt.ing of tings, the Shadow of God, the lighter of the lamps of the Universe‘, " . . . such a msn was also like the true jeweller, containing

the ability to assess the artists ability". M. Athar Ali: The Hugh-tsl nobility under 4-tut-ottgselt, Bombay, I956

“The ideas of the nobles concerning industry never went beyond ltarkhanas or establishments employing artisans at low rates for satisfying their needs for luxuries". (p. toot. Adyanath Mukhopadhyay: .4 difursltidobod Miniature Pointing in lite Victoria Memorial, Bulletin of the Fictorin

Memorial, vol. Jill], I979, pp. 20-2|. "The blasvab was a patron of painting as evidenced from 2 portraits painted between 1760-‘dJ." This painting according to the accompanying seals should be dated between l7l9-'48 when he was mainly an otllcer in Mir Jafar‘s army. Salim, op. cit., pl. 2l5l.

Salim, lbid., p. 2Sl. Selim, p. 272. He had a ‘minaret raised bearing the heads of those slain‘ [as a punishment for rebels] on the highway so that it might serve as a warning to others.

ttta, |:tp..'1b'l, ass, 275.

iltio'. Sub-odh Knmar Multhopadhayay: Bottgolor .-trtltic ltoosthyo, Calcutta, I985, pp. Ill-l l, quotes ‘J. Grants Fifth Report‘. Khan Mohammad Mohsin: rt Bettgol District in Transition: Murshidobud

l?d'.i-I793, Daeca, I973, pp. 39, 73. iltio'., p. 39. Suhurtsar Sen: Jungle Sltltyer ltlltuslt. Calcutta, 1975 {Ilrd edition}, p, 36$, "Hassle log Bangalik l . . . S-abhi Hagarhe‘ Sir Mor;'Dekha lihub lasltar

Dhorilaisa Dilli kn Baaar,lTaisa Chowk hat gulaar". W. Perminger {Edited}: The Letter Copy Books of tlte Resident or the Drtrltor of Httrrltiolofsod, ll?-ti9-.l7'?t7, Calcutta, I919", Appendis V, pp. iti-ttii.

In s letter to the President and Governor of the Select Committee, Richard Beclser appointed Resident at the Murshidabad Durbar, 7th May 1769, analysed the camel of the popular distress at the Company accession of Dewany. He made it clear that even the lvlaratha raids had not caused such distress . . . "It must give pain to an Englishman to have reason to think that since the accession of the Company to the Dewany, the condition of people of this country has been worse than it was before . . . In llilivardy Crown's

time the amount of the revenues paid into the treasury was much less than

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Huratuitabel : The tlrtt-It led the Karkharta

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what cotuel in at present but then the Iatttitlders, Shrotfs, merchants and Co. were rich and would at any time when an emergency required it supply the Hawah with a large sum . . . particularly when he was at war with the

htarhatthas in so much that even under such circumstances the country was in I flourishing state." -ll. LI. Calkins: ‘The Formation of Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal’ in Journal of rlriurt Smdtrr, vol. XXIX, was-to. 42. rt. hlukhopadhyay: op. etr., p. 20. 421. Even today the ivory covers of Merehidabed spell: of the Haweb'e workshops where their ancestors were provided with the ivoriee. The ivory objects still depict the 'Hawab in his pleasure boat‘, and the ‘Hawaii on an elephant‘.

These have become ‘the traditional motifs’,—Interview of talren at Bahrentpur, May I985. -13 R. Shelton, op. eit., p. ll, plate 5. 44 Hihat llanjan Ray, Htrghal Court Painting, Calcutta, 1975, Plate IIVIII. ‘A young prince receiving his beloved‘ "on a typical Mughai terrace is

laid out the scene of an oft-repeated stereotyped theme otlove". The date given is c. 1150. The painting, depending on the landscape and terrace could

very well belong to the Murshidabad School. The male tigure also bears a rescmblenee to Sirsj depicted as the hero in the Diercy Regamalas. " 45. .|.F. Richards: Madison, 1978 ‘The Formulation of lmperiel Authority Under Akbar and Jahangir‘ in LF. Richards {ed.l Kingshtp and’ Authority tr: Semi

data, pp. 253-254, 261-262.

-

I5. R. Shelton, op. etc, Pl. 2. 47. Ahul Faeal, op. ctt., p. H52. The success of the three branches of the government, and the fulfilment of the wishes of the subjects whether great or small depend upon the manner in which a king spends hie time. The care with

which His Majesty guards over his tnotivee. 47a. So that the illustration of the Nat‘-we-Damon or the Raganrolua leaving out

certain supernsturelineidents could very well be used as illustration at‘ the 48

'Hawabi' rule in Bengal. A. lvlukhopadhyay: op. ctt., p. 2D. The inscription on the painting reads:

'htusswwer-i-lvtajlis lttir Qasim Khan‘ meaning painter in the assembly of Mir Qasint. The author concludes that this portraits of Mir Qltslm was painted when he was only e noble men. 49. ht. Archer and R. Shelton: Company Dre-wings tn the India tlflire Library, London, 1922, pp. 59-ED. Op. ct‘t., Mttrslridaltad Fainting its Marg, vol. Y;

pp. Ill-22.

"

50. 5.8. Welsh: ‘lilo-om for Wonder‘, Indian Fainting during the British Prrtodf I160-1889, Americin Federation of Arte -l97l, Pl. I Cl, p. 22. ' Sl. H. Archer: India and British Portraiture, pp. Ill)-l 1, Pl. 64. ‘William Feller-_ ton of Carstairs and Captain Lowis‘ by John Thomas Seaton (11.3 q|:|_ 1;;

61.5 elm), Nation Gallery ol‘ Scotland‘ Edinburgh.

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Frans the Iarirhana to the Studio Salim. op. eit., p. 2. The author whose title was Salim Zadpuri in this way

eutogises his British patron Mr. George Udny It is known that Salem held the post of Dal: lvtunshi under this British oflllcer, and wrote his history at his request. Almost similar sentiments were esprcssed by Seid Gholatn Hussein Tabatabi in Sujan-ul-lvlutahharrlot, vol. Ill, p. T about William Fullerton. F. Pelsaert: .Iahangir*.t Inetia The Rensanstratie of Francisco Peisaert, Cambr-

idge, H325, pp. 54-56. F. Bernier (tn) A Constable: Traueis in the iliughal Empire I656-58,

p. 212. ll. Shelton, p. lti. " M. Archer: India and British Portraiture, London, 1919, Pl. TI Inf inch by 221- inch [4l.5 cm. by 56.5 cml. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. M. Archer, op. cii., pp. 122-I29.

Mildred Archer, op. ci-L, p. I24 (quotes from W. Hicl:y'a Diary, vol. 3, pp. 236-T, 273}. hi. lvtajumdar, Justice arui.Foiiee in Bengal (I765-1793], Calcutta, 1960, p. 62.

‘quotes from LG. Records, Bengal Despatches, vol. 4‘. G. Hussein Tabatabi, Seer, vol. III, p. 13.

n. Majumdar, ap., cit., pit. es-64. ‘Letter from Court, tout April. mt. Fort

William India Clflioe Correspondence. vol. 6, pp. St-63. Letter to Sir Charles Wood, Her ll-Iajesty’a Secretary oi‘ State for India in Council in ‘A Sellectiott of Papers connected with hlieamat Affairs. Documentary Evidence on the Rights of His Highness, The Nawab Na:r.im of Bengal, Bihar and Drissa, Calcutta. I363‘ lFrintcd for Private circulation only}. ihid'., pp. 5, Tl, Append]: D, Article ll. S.l"~l. Prasad (ed.l, Calendar of Persian Correspondence, blew Delhi, l9l59', p. I5, no. 76. it is quite clear that almost from after Plaseey I757, Mir Jaiar was being

forced by the Company to yield as much money as he could. The letter dated March 3. H59. from Mir .lal'ar tn the Governor in Fort tlliilliam specifically

mentions that the Hawab is pleased at the probability of meeting the Governor soon. Intends to advance the lath of rupees required. op. eit., ‘A Selection ot‘ papers connected with the Hizamat Aifaira‘, p. 77.

Treaty and Agreement concluded between the Governor and Council. Fort William and tvtir lldahomed Jafar Khan in trss. ihid., p. Tl‘, Articles 3, 4,4. thin‘ , pp. ‘I6-Ti.

tet.r., Appendil. D, to-rt. Article ll.

I-than lvlobammed tvlohsin, op. eit., A Bengal District in Transition, pp. 156-I62.

t'hid., p. lhtl. ihid., p. 135.

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aiurshidahad : The ..-trttrt and the Karithano ii.-iti., p. I84.

ibid., p. lS'i. ibid.. p. I89. bl. Ivlajumdar, Justice and Faiice in Bangui, pp. 2El-2.82.

Go the occasion of the abolition oi lvtubaralt-ud-dsulah's Faujdari jurisdiction. the following incident clarifies the attitudes oi both the British and the Indians —“In response to the Councils wishes he applied the Hiaamat to Fort William. But since this Seal bore his name, back with the request to have the following words inscribed on Adallt of the Subah of Bengal‘. M. Archer: India and British Portraiture, pp. St]-fill; P. Spear:

the Seal oi it was sent it: ‘Mohr-iThe Nahahs,

London, I963, p. 32. ihid., pp. 4l5-416, Pl. 33!. Lord Clive receiving from Hajim-ud-dsulab. Hawah of llrlurshidabad, a legacy for the East India Contpany‘s Military Fund

by Edward Penny. ihtd., p. 4l6. Plate 331. ihid., pp. 4l'i-418, Plate 332. Shah Alam, the Iltiughal Emperor, conveying the grant of Dewany of Bengal to Lord Clive by Benjamin West, London I818 [after an earlier painting by West C. I795]. Copy preserved in the Haaarduary Palace.

ihtd., p. 414, Plate 330. Williatn Watts negotiating the treaty of I159 with Ivlir .lal'ar and his son lvtiran by Benjamin Wilson, London, C. I163. PJ. Marshall: East India Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, Cltltford, I926, p. ll.

Bernard S. Coho. Representing Authority in Victorian India in The invention of Tradition, ed. by Eric I-lobsbaom and Trence Ranger. Cambridge I933, pp. I71-I72. M. Archer: ibid., p. Il-9. ‘The returning I'~Iabobs—satirical|y so called from

their fancied resemblance to blawabs or local Indian rulers . . . In a play by Samuel Foote—The Asiatic Plunderer—he was described as one —-‘Rich in

everything but sense. Display their haughty dull magnificence‘. P. Spear: op. cit., The hlabohs —‘From the Indian gentry with their wealth and ostentation, their retainers their, despotic temper and their luaury, they acquired the tastes and habits which marked the Nahob oi‘ late eighteenth century

England . . . The Nabobs first appeared in England after Plassey. They entered Parliament in force at the election oi I168, and they were first publicly exposed by Foote in his play ‘The Habob in It'll‘, p. 32. ihid., p. 38.

op. err., Papers connected with hiieamat a.fl'airs, Appendis B, p. 41, Para 3|. ‘liide: Appendix I. A list of Paintings reserved in the Hasarduary Palace. Gautans Bhsdra: Some Sarto-eronarnie rlspecis of the To-on of aiurshtdahad I 7tl'.l'-I I93 [unpublished ht. Phil Thesis submitted at I.I~l.U., I9?!-T2). PJ. Marshall, op. cit., p. ll.

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Prom the Iarkhena to the Studio Hermann Goets: ‘The Great Crisis from Traditional to Modern Indian Art‘, Laiirhaia Contemporary, vol. I, p. ID.

"As long as they were in India they would vigorously avoid anything that might efl'ace their identity, keeping their houses as ‘English as the social rituals which at bouts were a matter of convenience and comfort, hero a distinction of caste. When they really needed art, they ordered it from home

or employed artists who had coats thence. To them Indian art was a bazaar bargain for the moment ot‘ returning home, no more.“ M. Archer: British Drawings in the India Ojicc Library, London, I959, pp. Ill-I5. Ill. Archer: Company Drawings in the India Dflice Library, London, 1911, p. ‘I6.

Studart Cary Welsh: op. eir., Room iot ‘Wonder, p. ‘I6, No. 6|. ‘Ivlany sets of servants and occupations were made between tssa-en. rt certain E.C. Dal signed many during the tsaor. Mildred Archer: op. etr., Company Drawings tn the India flflice Library, pp. ‘I-S, ‘I6.

Stuard Cary Watch: ibid., Pi. 22-. A Tandem Hanessed to a High Wheeled Fig. Pl. 2|. Two Dog--Reserved in the India Oihce Library along with tho Pony Riding [PL 23} are a set of paintings signed by Sheik Muhammad Amin of .li.erya, Painted C. H45. Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History, Calcutta. l9?S, p. 38, Appendix ‘iii.

The Dharmatala Street—starting from which through the rear of the European town, there is a high degree oi concentration of Muslim occupational groupe—lthanssmas or table servants, ostagars or tailors, with a sprinkling ofttakils tlawyers] or munsis [learned scribes}-Se tors to the European Community. Fanny Parks, Wanderings ofo Piigrirn in search of the Picturesque, During Four and Twenty Pears in the East with Ilfleoiationr of Life in the Zsttana

[illustrated with shatehas from nature}, London, tsso. vol. I, Chapter III. pp. 21-22. rent. p. 22. Clhulasn Hussaiu Tabatabi. op. cit., Slur, Vol. lll, pp. Itl2-I63. H. Archer: op. eit., India and British Portroirto-e, PI. ST, pp. Ill-I41.

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Kalighat : Painting and Experience "in Outcast Calcutta SDLVYNS. putting down in paint and words his impressions

of the natives of Calcutta {Les Hindeus, I803), described the professional Bengali art workers as porichs. "Yet their products sold well for the poroccs {as they were called) are never in want of employment. Their varnishes are much superior to ours and very well suited to their climates)" Solvyns further noticed that though the porous formed a particular caste, they were graded according to their specialist-ttion—“’l'here are also persons who make only pictures and

drawings but always upon the same subjects.” This lack oi‘ innovation on the part of the Indian artisans disgusted Solvyns, who mainly held the Brahmin priests responsible for this

—"Tl1c images which they (Forces) created are consecrated forms not to he altered without profanation, also that the Brahtrrans watch with great severity over their preservation . . . . They have some good copiers, but that is the extent of their art. If some original painters are to he found in Hindoostan, they are Mohatntnedana“.'

Hidehcund, repeating themselves endlessly in producing iconic for-roe, yet cast out by the society for whom their art provided the ritulsistic pivot, these Bengali artiste appeared as s strange anachronisnt to the vifiting European artists sodconnoisaeurs. Even those who

(lite Fanny Parka} were more generous than flolvyns never estimated the India's skill to be more than that ct‘ the artisen's. "The native!

form images in clay; their eottotenances are excellent, the eyes, eyelids and tips nseve remarkably well, they are very brittle, they represent servants, fakirs and natives of all castes, the best perhaps are to he

procured in and around Calcutta . . . . They are altered according to

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Front the Knrkhann to the Studio

the fashion of the country and cost from eight annas to one rupee each."' But even to Fanny Parks, the ‘natives’ were generally an inferior people, and their arts rated only as the products of a strange people of curious habits and manners. The art products of the Indian artists were, therefore, never set at par with European art-wares; and cvcn as artisans, the Indian was assumed from the very beginning to be uneducated and without any talent for innovation. The porous in their turn after migrating to Calcutta soon realised that their art had a very limited market. The demands that originated from the British were for survey maps, Botanical drawings, and records of different ethnic professions (vidc the first chapter of this book). Such recordings required accurate observation coupled with proficiency over a representational technique which had been prevalent among the Mughal -Court artists. This restricted sphere of European patronage in the early nineteenth century, therefore, only included the erstwhile lvlurshidabad Court artists and their descendants, who became the chief recorders for the British trying to penetrate further into an unknown country. Till the setting up of an art training course of Britain for the Company's oflicers, the Indian artists were the only choice left to the British.‘ The Company oflicers however only employed the Indian artists after a rigorous scrutiny and upon definite assurance that they {i.e. the Indian artists) would follow the British orders to the last detail.‘ The Bengali village artist’s perception schema was totally unacceptable to the British as the former produced through sweeping lines and bold bright colours a visual world far removed from that known to the Europeans. European visitors to Bengal {on the increase after I764) generally looked with horror upon religious rituals like the hook-swinging (a part of the Choral: festivals}, the sexual orgies of the Hoff, and the opulent processions of the lvlubarram. Yet these alien practices were

recorded in detail, as the British in particular assumed their responsibilities as the new landlord_s from the late eighteenth century.‘ They felt particularly bound to acquaint themselves with the Indian religious practices, considering these to be the main motivating forces behind the general actions of the ‘natives’. In the works of the porous, the lines and the colours coalesced

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Keilgfrctt Fainting and Experience in flarccrr Calcutta

47

in the form which depicted the emotional intensity of the religious festival rather than its minute ritualistic details. To the European's Christian perception, these paintings appeared as ‘vulgar’. The British rulers, therefore, in their reformist zeal first attempted to alter to tastes of both the producers and consumers of such paintings. Thepotuus watched the government attempt at artistic reform in defensive anger. Their resentment grew as their erstwhile patrons,

the village Zamindar was transformed through English education to become the brrbn in the city. These brtbns now refused to continue in the older social roles of patrons, upholding the Hindu social order of

the ‘Varnasrama DItarma'. Alien to the partrns, the European scheits and the Bengali babes now shared a common world. Dstracised from this world, and facing sure extinction, the paturus looked upon the patron's world as Ghnr Keir‘ (The Day of Doom}. Hegating the observations of Solvysns and other European observers, they now created through their innovative satires, the image of the fallen hero in their Boot: Poms, thus venting their grievances against their erstwhile patrons is the only way open to them. I

Though the ‘Kalighat Paintings‘, considered as the major visual expression of Calcutta’s nineteenth century popular culture, no longer persist in their thematic formula, their makers, the prrttrur, continue to work both at Kalighat (in Calcutta) and in some of the districts of Bengal. In Birhhum and Medinipur, they form a sizeable proportion of the artisan community even today.

Neither Dalton’s ‘Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal‘ (I872), nor W.W. Hunter‘s ‘Annals of Rural Bengal‘ and ‘Statistical Account of Bengal‘ {I876} ‘mention the porous either as citirrolrnrns included among the ‘Nabasakh Caste groups‘ or as ‘painters’ and ‘image makers‘. According to Benoy Bhattacharya {who made a study of porno culture as existent in Bengal in 1930), the panics should be found under the titles of Bediya and Mai in the works mentioned.’ This points to the major characteristics of their profession. Like the village bards of Rajasthan, the Bengali foil: painters used to can-y their painted scrolls and move from village to village singing the narration which was made visually significant through the serialised move-

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48

From the In-rirltcna re rile Studio

meat depicted in the Paintinfiits as the scroll was slowly unfolded. The

narrative forms of their art underwent a change; when setting up at Kalighat they mainly churned out single paintings (or drawings) on square paper. According to W.G. Archer the production of thin and cheap papers from Kalighat transformed the usual type of souvenirs taken

home by the Bengali villagers on their visits to the temples.‘ The parnas who still paint on clay plates (ltnown as sore) the images of the gods and goddesses for particular festivals, probably found it convenient and cheaper to paint on paperThe obvious popularity of these Kalighat paintings is discerned even in the works of European artists. In I813 Charles Doyly published his book of Indian drawings in which an Indian villager is shown two jockeys on horses. It was executed very much in the lid., pp. 235, 24!, 367-69. I22. ioid. I23. iitid., pp. 233, 241, 368-69. I24. ibid, pp. 2-t6, 369. 320. 12$. Abanindranath Tagore. ‘Shadanga: Sir: Limbs of Painting‘, in Ahanindranatlt Tagore, The Golden Jubilee Not-niler of the indion Society of Orientai .-trt lCalcutta. I941}, pp. I2-29. I26. A.li.. Cootnaratwsmy, ‘The Modern School of Indian Painting‘ in .-trt and .5-iwodesiti, p. l3l. ‘I27. See A.K- Coomaraswamy, Myths of tire Hindus and Buddhists. I23. Aloltendranath Tagore, op. cit.. p. 3?. I29. Sister Nivedita, ‘Function of Art in Shaping Nationality‘ in The Modern Review I (January-June I907), p. I23. I3-ll. tats, p. 492. I3l. A.l£. Coomaraswamy, ‘The Present State of Indian Art‘ in Modern iteyieio (1

July-December, I902), pp. I06-‘i. I32. t'nt'd., p. It'll. I33. The Indian Society of Oriental Art, in Englishman, 30 July, I90? {From cuttings in Havell File Ho. 2, ‘fol. 2, Rabindra Bhattan. Sautinilcetan}.

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Nationalism and Form

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I34. ihid. I35. Letters to the Bditot. Times, 21 February, I910 (Havell File bio. 2, Vol. 2}. 136. Ratan Parimoo, The Paintings of the Three Tagorer, rlhanindranath, t'.'iaganendranoth and Rabindranath. Chronologyjand Comparative Study (Baroda, 1923}, pp. I00-I 02. I37. Frodosh Oasgupta, ‘The Calcutta Oroup-Its Aims and Achievements‘ in Loiit Kala Contemporary, No. 3i, p. 3.

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The Artist in the Studio = Jamini Roy and Consumer Society IN July I985 the West Bengal Govcmment proudly announced the completion of forroaliticslending to the opening of a permanent gallery of Jamini Roy's paintings in Calcutta. The dead artist's studio, along with all available paintings, was bought by the Government in I980. The studio, a part of his house, was being looked after by the artist's son. A committee consisting of a number of distinguished artists from Calcutta was formed to formulate a plan for viewing the new gallery. The paintings were insured, and a law passed that Jamini Roy be included in the list of those artists (like Abanindranath) whose works were not to he taken out of the country without the State's permission. The artist‘s creations were granted the status of national treasures. This assessment, on a formal level, is a political act. It judges, by its peculiar process of evaluation, which works of art can be equated with archaeological finds and with scientific discoveries, i.e., all that a nation citprcsses as its achievements. The sanction of ‘great art‘ necessarily involves the transfer of the art object from the home to the museum. It is not for private consumption unless the owner proves his immense buying power by his ablility to reach higher social

rank, that of the collector. This whole criterion of a ‘great art work‘ depends upon its ‘unique‘ quality. It hinges upon the fact that a particular work of art cannot be reproduced. Both in traditional and contemporary art, the most important phenomenon in the assessment of a work lies in its originality. An original worlt has an aura of religiosity round it transforming the museum or art gallery where it is housed into a sacred

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The Artist ht the Studio :J"o.Irsini‘ Roy

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temple or church. The mystique that is generally formed round a masterpiece necessarily includes the artist-creator who has the epithet ‘genius’ thrust on him, whether dead or alive. ‘Fakes’ develop only in contrast to ‘Originals’. What were regarded as good copies and perfectly valid pieces oi‘ art in an earlier period acquire the stigma of bad merchandise in a capitalist society. The whole process cl‘ identification in a museum continues mainly to retain the value (price) of a painting, but only after it has been dubbed as a priceless ‘original’. In pre-capitalist societies, all works of art were bound up in an organisation which involved collective labour. In the mediaeval period these institutions were known as guilds

(in Europe) or

lcorklton-as (in India]. The men working within the confines of this organisation of artistic production were included in the general term

artisans or korigor. The relations of production demanded a particular form of patronage. The works were executed on the basis oi‘ specific commissions or under direct supervision. This is borne out by the numerous accounts of the workings of artists’ guilds in Europe or of the workings of the royal korkhonos of the lvlughals. In assessing the value ofa work of art the emphasis fell more on the ingredients used than on the skills oi‘ execution. Often colours, brushes and special ingredients

were provided by the patrons to ensure the price of the paintings (so that ultramarine blue and gold came to be regarded as identifying characteristics oi‘ European painting in the fifteenth centtIt'y).‘

The emergence of an open art-market in Europe resulted in the disruption of the guild system. It coincided with technological innovations in the ingredients of the artist's materials. The result was to be seen in the shift in the demands of the patrons. New the artist's skill rather than a combination of particularly costly ingredients (like gold or silver) was thought to set the price of the painting. Moreover.

the artist was released from the restrictions of the guild, and personal bondage to the patron, free to sell his labour. He now dropped his aufiis ‘painter’ which had previously secured his place in society. He

now faced the market only with his skill, symbolised in his signature.‘ It was from this period (Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century) that historically the artist came to be regarded as a superior

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From the Iorkhono to the Studio

individual engaged in some ‘supra human special task."

With the emergence of industrial capitalism and the breaking down of the previous relations of artistic production, appeared a new set of patrons who controlled public trusts and institutions. They also controlled the art-market. The artist now faced a precarious economic situation often hostile to his creative power. Paradosically the myth of the artist's genius developed when he was feeling most insecure. Concepts of great orr developed, contrasted with minor or leases art,

and, dependent upon this, was the evaluation process which invested the original with its mystiques.‘ The process of evaluating an art object was modified in two ways. The new technological innovations invaded all branches of production {i.e. pigments, brushes, binding media, canvas and paper} and artists began to be produced on a mass scale. This rendered devices like ‘chemical analysis’ of paintings (used to determine the date of the ancient art objects) inadequate to assess the original quality of subscquent art products. Secondly, the capitalist ethos transforming art into commodity constructed a system of decoding art, which dominated art galleries, museums and all institutions of public instruction. Every art object selected for display depended upon conscious choice to determine which aspect of past and present art can be deemed suitable to acquire the significance of heritage. ‘When the modern Bengali artist suddenly found himself catapult-H ed into the world market as a producer, he had only two options open to him: either to aclmowledge the entire Western tradition of ‘great art’ as his own, or to identify with nationalist art. The former was given to him through a colonial art-education scheme. To accept it was to concede to the idea of the ‘artist genius’ with special position. He would then remain alone, an outsider to the social norms of his country still dominated by a surviving precapitalist ethos. His other choice lay in his immediate tradition, that of a nationalist art, which in the given historical moment of the Swadeshi movement had erected from the court tradition an art heritage. By the

mid-twenties this was transformed into a mechanized formula, emphasising a spiritual essence in pictorial term. Jamini Roy’s contemporaries regarded the formula as a particular phase in academic training, largely irrelevant to the construction of any reality.

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It was in order to formulate for himself another option that Jamini Roy tried to create an alternative tradition, {in his words) that of the ‘kort'gor'. By this, he not only indulged in a nostalgic act, but he

also denied the realities of his social relations. He became a problem. l

.

The obituary notice in The Stotestrton (24 April, 1912) began: "Mr. Jamini Roy, the legendary artist of Bengal and creator of a new style of Indian painting, died at his residence on Monday.” This ‘legendary’ Jamini Roy was the creation of the Bengali bkodrotok of Roy’s time, seeking its own identity. Caught between a colonial hangover and a feeling of nationalism bordering on chauvinism, the middle-class intelligentsia were oscillating between two extremes. The new style created by Jamini Roy suddenly offered three possibilities of release. It was reminiscent of the folk forms, the survival of a past tradition which was unmistakably Indian or rather Bengali, thus

providing a cultural root. Secondly, the strong lines were comparable to those used by contemporary European artists like Leger. A link was forged with the international world of art, so necessary to the progressive Indian in the late 1930s. Thirdly, to the younger artists the elforts of a single man offered a rescue route from the stylistic conventions of the Bengal school, which acted as a constraint on the

depiction of contemporary events—the war and the famine. Jamini Roy offered after a long time a backbone of drawing and an anatomical framework to Indian Art. His success was therefore phenomenal. Jamini Roy lived for a number of years at Beliatore, a village in the district of Bankura, where his father worked as a ‘gentleman farmer’. To Jamini Roy's biographers (Bishnu Dey and John Irwin) Beliatore was an isolated island amidst a general scene of economic and social disintegration. “Special circumstances had enabled Beliatore to preserve its local culture, long after village life in other parts of Bengal had succumbed to a slow process of social and economic decline . . . Wtien Jamini Roy was horn, the village Beliatore still retained its self-sulficient mediaeval economy.“ In this idyllic setting a middle-class Bengali, instead of moving to the growing city of Calcutta, as most absentee landlords were prone to do, remained and continued with ‘delving’ and ‘spinning’. Iamini Roy (following his

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parents) tried to become a korigor, and was hailed as a porno by his critics.

Like most of his contemporaries, Jamini Roy had come to the Government ArtCol1ege in Calcutta, undergone extensive tutoring in the European mode of art-—+instructions which E.B. Havell and Abanindranath Tagore had so earnestly tried to dispense with. It is not that he was without an alternative. He was called to the school run by the Oriental Society of Art. He often visited Abanindranath and his brothers at Iorasanko and the obvious influence of their work

is to be found in some of his earlier works like ‘lvlother and Child’ (National Gallery, Exhibit No. 3246) and the works published in Prohostri. These are readily reminiscent of the mature l‘~landalal.' The story of Jamini Roy's return to his lcorigor tradition is the story of a heroic struggle. In spite of the extreme hardship of his early years, Jamini Roy had gained a reputation as one of the best portrait painters of his time. But he became dissatisfied with all that his formal training had imparted to him. This was quite consistent

with the problem that confronts all major Indian artists, even today. The problem was of tradition and innovation. Tradition in Indian Art in the late 1930s had become synonymous with the nationalism of the Bengal School. Debates had continued, and even Rabindranath had warned Abanindranath about the chauvinistic aspects of his new aesthetic movement.‘

Yet

‘revivalism’, even while becoming a ‘bogey’, was paradoxically attractive as an escape from the ‘ofllcial’ dead art of the government schools. To Jamini Roy the problem of the-Bengal School was more apparent than to most. The lack of strong lines and colour, which had come to

characterise ‘Indian art’ within quotes, comes under sharp criticism, when Jamini Roy praises Rabindranath’s paintings. Among very few views on art verbalised by the artist, this piece of criticism reveals his masterly conception of the painter’s task. “Rabindranath’s paintings created for him a human being with a backbone, who would not be bowed down by a gust of wind. This is the artist’s rhythm. For over two hundred years, from Rajput painting

till the contemporary

fashionable renditions in Indian art, this is what is lacking. Rabindranath’s paintings are a protest against this.“ Jamini Roy tried to

carry this protest to a logical conclusion in his own works.

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The artist’s success-story revolves round two comparisons-—the Kalighat porno and contemporary European artists like Leger or Picasso, indicating the atlernative swings of nostalgia and progressiveness in his critics. The first involves the novel process of artistic production that he built up. His family (as in the case of a rural craftsman) became his

unit. They were occupied with grinding earth colours, making glue from tamarind seeds, and even putting in details. The necessity for this changed mode of production is clear from Jamini Roy's own words—"What ways would I follows? I find I can not take the path of Europe, China or Tibet. I cannot follow Persian or Mughal paint-

ing because I do not live in those circumstances, so I tried to find my way within myself. I do not care whether my paintings are good or bad. I want its appearance to be difl'erent."' I-Iis search for new forms included endless experiments. To his viewers the most obvious debt was to the potuos. Jamini Roy gives an account of what he

considers to he the conceptual basis of the form adopted by these village craftsmen. "Bengal folk art was originally a question of

conscious choice and in view of the coeitistence of a technically mature and classical school of art in India, Bengal folk painting cannot quite be compared to ‘Negro art’ or to early cave painting. At the same time, however, the minds which work in these mediums have certain traits in common." Further, “The simplicity as well as the symbolic

quality and purity of form, common to most primitive art as well as to folk painting, derive precisely from this urge to communicate in a world of universals—a world where, for instance, all trees are reduced to all the single conceptual image of one, the universal tree, stripped of an individual identity.""‘

In his earliest attempts at evolving a new style, he was turning away from his earlier training and from European paintings, mainly

of the high Renaissance, which had. been the main models of instruction. "The reason why I want to discard European painting is not because I wish to be 'Swadeshi’ or Indian but because even the best European artists, including Raphael, drew forms like Mary carrying infant Jesus standing among clouds in the slty, but with the use oi‘ light and shade made to appear like a full human being—how is this possible?"" I-lere Jamini Roy was discarding the basis on which

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Fhlru the Kerklrrtno to the Studio

classical European pictorial form had developed (specially since 1500); its potentials of creating an illusion of nature. II Jamini Roy's experiments with his new style were ceaselessly

varied. Schematically grouped the paintings can be placed under four different categories {even here the variations were being worked out simultaneously. The first consisted of a number of thick dark-lined drawings, either in dark gray or deep brown on a background of gray wash. These paintings directly follow from his interest in some Chinese paintings where the gray wash wiped out the essentials of a hackground landscape incorporating the drawing into a harmonious design. Interesting variations are attempted in these designs, as in ‘Women’ (brush lines, Laiit Kala Series).

The second experiments with an interplay of line and colour, where bright colours are juxtaposed against each other. In a single flat coloured ground the motif is etched out in thick unbroken lines. The Baul, the Christ Series, the Romoyono are the results. But this flat colour scheme, created a monotony for him which he tried to abandon, in using coloured daubs or stipplings in heavy tempera. In quite a few paintings, the visual effect that he tried to

create was of an uneven pictorial surface, an interesting contrast to the central motif in flat colour. He used this same treatment of the background in his portraits, in an effort at retaining his academic training. Two of the most interesting examples are his studies of “Maharshi and Mahatma" painted between 1935 and 1940'. Another variation attempted by the artist to create the effects of an uneven surface is to he noticed in his paintings on woven mats (chalet). The square designs of the woven mats created a pattern in the background on which were drawn figures in bright colours framed in thiclt dark lines. Dften this would create a coloured mosaic eliect more fully developed in his attempts to integrate into his pictorial formula, the schema of Byzantine icons.

The ‘Krishna Leela’ series and ‘Gopini‘ like most of his works

are again impossible to group under the rubric of a single formal experiment. Yet, that the basic inspiration came from the terracotta

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temple panels of Bishnupur is quite evident. The icon types [as seen in the ‘Krishna Balaram‘ painting, Pl. VI, 1932)" are derived directly from the terracotta panel, and the sweep of the single continued line (which Bishnu Dcy aptly compares tothe border of a Sari) accentuates the distortions of a broadened shoulder and narrow waist. The round curves of legs, thighs, arms and the sweep of hair wound into an omamental design, builds up the total image.

In an interview with Bishnu Dey, the artist tried to articulate the logic of his formal experiments. The entire endeavour was to move from a pictorial schema which appeared to him visually “unreal”. The representational form adoped in European painting from the Italian Renaissance onwards and perfected through the medium of oil painting, appeared to Jamini Roy (as it had to

Abanindranath and Gaganendranth before him} the visual expression of a non-spiritualist world-view-that of the settled capitalist system of Western Europe,

To discard this. Jamini Roy explored pre-

Renaissance European art—-the Byzantine icons. I-Iis child-like pleasure at receiving a book of illustrated Byzantine icons, witnessed by Bishnu Dey, proves that his search for an alternative model in

European art had gone on for a long time." In Pranati Dey‘s collection is to be seen as an extremely interesting experiment attempted by the artist. It is an enlarged re-working of a Russian icon ‘The Pieta‘. I-lere the artist has accurately reproduced the essential mood of the icon, with its heavy flat colours covering the picture surface, figures etched out in strong dark lines, bowed down with grief. Unfortunately, though framed in glass, the colours are losing their earlier brightness which make it diflicult to perceive the clarity of the design.

Pranati Dey narrated how the artist had

been requested by a friend to make a copy of the icon; listening to her, it become clear that Jamini Roy had grasped the logic of the visual schema adopted by the pre-Renaissance European artist.

The main element to be discarded was a play of strong light and the creation of an illusion of ‘tactile sensation‘. Colours were not to he blended, to be diffused in the general visual pattern; they were to have a separate identity to create an independent visual eifect.

His involvement with strong unbroken lines and his indebtedness to Kalighat pom is clearly visible in another painting belonging

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to Pranati Dey. Upon request she related how Jamini Roy had picked up a Kalighat Peta {a seated woman, the usual Kalighat stereotype). The original work was drawn only in lines. Jamini Roy studied the drawing and reworked by coloured tones, the face was filled out with flesh colours and shaded in deeper flesh tones. The human form, the central motif, was worked out in light and shade to create volume. The result was a rounded pliant form of a woman,

fleshy, sensuous but strangely lifeless. It was actually an exercise in retrogressive motion, withdrawing the lines from the main schema of designs, illustrating to himself the power of the form which was only effective when the general design depended upon drawing and unbroken continuous lines to support its pictorial structure. If we study Jamini Roy‘s experiments in form chronologically we find that while studying Rembrandt, painting portraits in oil, he

had also studied ‘Van Gough and attempted water colour sketches." Between 1910 and 1923 he had also made the first break in his ‘Santhal mother and child‘ (in oil). Then followed the ‘women series‘, studied in gray. Between 1935 and I940 can be grouped the major works in landscape and the two best known of his portrait studies‘Maharshi and Mahatma‘, ‘Rabindranath and Gandhi.‘ Between 1929 and 1942, he had worked out the decorative figures of ‘Cat and Lobster‘, ‘Cow and Calf‘, ‘Queen on Elephant‘, ‘King on Tiger‘, etc. Also the ‘Kirtan’, the ‘Baul‘, the ‘Santhal drummers‘ and the korigor. Between 1932 and 1942 he had completed the Krishna and Gopini series and begun the Christ series. So by 1940 Jamini Roy

had developed a perfection in form. Yet in pursuing his works we find an artist who has no cohesive vision. If he discovered what he calls ‘reality’ in form, he still needed to give a complete expression to

it by discovering a theme. (It is here that any comparison with Picasso

or Leger appears improbable.) The reasons which led Jamini Roy to turn to the porous are given quite clearly in what he considered to be the difference between Bengali folk art and primitive cave paintings. “Where the Bengali folk artist differs from the Altamire cave paintings is not here but in the full grown myths which crystaliaed and supported the popular art of Bengal and provided the only focus point around which a whole culture could cohere . . . . Bengal had the myths, and therefore, the

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The Artist in the Studio : Jorrttrti Roy

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culture. The universals of nature with which the cave painter had been occupied now, gained a new significance as symbols. Take for instance, Jatayu the immortal chivalrons bird of Ramayana : he is no ornithological specimen but the nevertheless has something of the character of all birds. Cir talte Hanuman who in the Indiatt myth world, is a monkey God, he is not the type of he monkey one would expect to find at zoo, and yet every zoo monkey is related in some way to Hanuman. There is cohesion in this world of Jatayu, Hanuman and the litaltshas—-a cohesion which is lacking in the cave paintings at iltltamire."" Interestingly Jamini Roy here touches on a very important problem of aesthetics-—-as the raw materials of art.

Myths become the basis of art in traditional societies, bacause the natural and social and social phenomena are already assimilated by the imagination of the people in an unintentionally artistic manner. The contradictions it purports to resolve are however unreal. When the artist draws on the myth to refashion it into art, he has to

remember that he has drawn his material from a realm of perceptual knowledge and consciously drawn his viewers into a recreated world

of fantasy where they find emotional release and draw fresh strengh for the struggle in reality. Jamini Roy sought those myths; generally prevalent in the Bengali rural society and visually rendered popular by the paruos. The

ponies illustrated songs which were adapted from the various Porroitaiis and Mango! Kovyos. These were usually recited in every Bengali home and had a special association with rituals known as broros. These propitiations of certain local deities and popular cult gods, had their

origin in an agrarian society. The themes usually depicted a world-

order under attack. The resolution of the crisis that developed had to await the supernatural intervention of the deity who was being propitiated. In most of the porno songs, a tripartite arrangement is worked out. The deity at the topmost level, with the merchant or lting as intermediary, and at the lowest level the audience (i.e., the subject from whom the cult was to draw its followers. The king, i.e,, the ttamindar is usually depicted as the guradian of this social order." In the paintings of Jamini Roy, the myths undergo a change, they become private myths, divorced from the economic order which

supported them. The artist, however, made no conscious efforts to

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rework the myths, to reflect or sustain the anti-colonial struggle; the major task then confronting the Indian bourgeoisie. Thus Ram, Hanuman, Krishna and even Christ retain the forms of the village icons and remain symbols of supernatural agents to be propitiated. Yet Bengal follr art seemed to retain a dynamism, and when confronted by new problems (as by colonialism) struck at the roots of the existent order; launched out into new themes of protest, as in the

Salt-eb Para and the Soothe! Bidroho Porn. The first depicted the

oppression of European colonial masters who were now appropriating the surplus from the land. The second showed the protest launched and led by the two tribal heroes Kanhu and Sidho. Here the entire narrative schema undergoes a change. The depiction, though retaining the same arrangement of form, takes on a new arrangement in

narration. It becomes a story on a simple level describing the oppres-

sion and locating the cppressor, without any mitigating relief from supernatural agencies. The aamindar {the erstwhile guardian of the Puranic order) is either powerless or a collaborator. The protest which ends in tragedy reflects the despair of a people who were no longer

able to trust religion or the great lords. In Kalighat paintings.

the same theme taltes on new details. Here we find the absentee landlord aping the sahibs and thus squandering money which should have been spent in the patronage of the rural crafts. The displaced village craftsmen depict their alienation by portraying the landlord as a debauch in the arms of prostitutes, and the religious leader committing adultery. The nineteenth-century life around Kalighat, surrounded by prostitutes and religious frauds, finds realistic reflection in the sqtmre porn. To Jamini Roy this appears as degeneration. Commenting on pastas painting, he wrote--“The Patuas who came to Calcutta moved

from the ethics of their vocation. They were rural people, their themes were also rural. When they came to the town, they expressed the ideals of urban life and they fell from their vocation [swadharma).“" His inability to comprehend the contemporary problems (which the Patuas had grasped}, severed him from the ongoing tradition which had acted as his basic inspiration. His paintings, therefore,

became static. The form that he adopted steadily became ornamental and lost

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the dynamism thatit could assume. The cohesion of his theme and form depended upon the visual pattern set by porn. He crystalised the

narrative pattern of the pores or the terracotta temple panels into‘ single framed pictures. This break-up did not encapsulate the theme into a specified picture frame only, it broke the pattern of narration altogether. The paintings depicting crowds—‘Kirtan‘, ‘Bauls' and ‘Santhal Dance‘ which demand studies in movement, were transform-

ed into depiction of stilled moments in the drama. In the renditions of single forms of women, woman with child, gods, goddess, even animals, the motif remains still, almost immobile, incapable of_ any

movement. It is here that he differs from the visual schema of Kalighat porn, which retains dramatic movements and violent gestures,

so necessary to the satirical tone of its theme. Jamini Roy completely omits these actions. In the process he misses the humour and the power of the female forms which are created as special stereotypes of the Kalighat Porn. “There is not a single shrewish woman, not a single violent action in Jamini Roy‘s paintings"", wrote Bishnu Dey. The artist caught in the web of his prettified vision diluted the poten-

tials of his own formal schema into non-human abstract designs. This is clearly evident in the work entitled knrignr. Here the central figure etched out in strong lines, is seen raising a hammer. The movement, though stilled, reflects tremendous power. But the visual effect created by the central figure is diffused into the background which is broken by a design of pillars with the usual white decoration of white lines and dots. The artist does not leave the viewer to notice the central figure in its isolation. The viewer is drawn into the whole design, which is merely ornamental and decorative." This deliberate transformation occurs in other paintings also [lilte the Santhal_ drum-' mcrs)," belyiug the hope expressed by Sudhin Datta, “He now possesses a technique comprehensive enough to cope with almost everything and could he enlarge his sympathy, the demonstrations of organised labour should present him with fewer formal difficulties than the excesses of a Kirtan procession"? The explanation as to why Jamini Roy has not been able to progress, has been ofl'ered by his biographers as ‘being a martyr to his own mastery‘. They hasten to add however—“Despite the lack of fresh achievements in recent years, Jamini Roy's works nevertheless remain a marvel?" The question

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that arises now is for whom do Jamini Roy's paintings still work as “necessary marvels?" A related question: how long will the ‘marvel' continue to work? Ill

In April 1942, Ramananda Chatterjee presided over a largely attended public meeting analysing the destructive role of fascism and the taslts in front of writers and artists. A committee was set up to organise the Anti-Fascist Writers’ and Artists‘ Union. It included liberals (like Atul Chandra Gupta, Sajani Kanta Das, Ahu Sayid

Ayub, Tarasankar Bandopadhyay, Amiya Chaltraborty and Buddhadeva Bose] along with Marxists [like Hiren Sanyal, Bishnu Dey, and

Subhas lvlukhopadhyay). lt also included Jamini Roy, with an intro-

duction from one of the leading left intellectuals—“than whom there is none more creative among Indian painters." There were the audience, the social milieu and the patrons of the artist." From I914 to 194'? the major tasks in front of the nationalist bourgeoisie had seemed to be to wage anti-feudal and anti-colonial struggles. Yet in the forties fascism seemed to over-shadow all other problems. It loomed large as the most important, and certainly as an immediate threat. Forcihly a link was formed between well-known

liberals and Marxists. Jamini Roy figures prominently in this alliance; though his paintings did not overtly express the contemporary events, they were hailed as a major expression of artistic values in a world of destruction and death. An index to this attitude is to be found in the form that the national movement adopted duringjhis period. During I914-4?, the Indian bourgeoisie conducted their anti-colonial struggle mainly under the Ciandhian leadership. The move-

ments in the countryside were geared mostly to the interests of the small landowners and intermediaries and not to the subordinate stratum of tribal or low-caste agricultural labourers and share-cropp-era.

The Kison Sobho movement gained tremendous momentum, and the -communists working within the political constraints of a Congress

leadership, directed their main thrust against the big zamindars. The election manifesto of the Communist Party of India (CPl)made definite distinctions in class analysis by promising the small zamindar and rich peasants the prospect of remaining “reputed members in their own village?"

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The Artist in the Studio : Jernrirtl Roy

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The Bengali professional middle class living mainly in Calcutta had sprung from this group of small xamindars and landed i|:llEl.'I'I1'E'r

diaries; their connections with their rural base were never completely severed. During the war years, the exodus to the villages strengthened some of the old ties. “These men were the bullt of the liberals who became patrons of Jamini Roy during and after the war years. It was these intellectuals who brought their European friends, ‘in quest of Indian art‘ to the artist’s studio in Calcutta, and even to Beliatore. On the other hand the CPI within the arena of an anti-fascist struggle realised the need to forge a cultural alliance with the masses. They

assessed rightly that a lack of cultural contact had left the masses unaware of their common task, which the Congress leadership showed no real desire of rectifying. It was left to the communists to give the cry for complete independence, and at the same point out that opposition to fascism must be recognised as the people's war. " In the first bulletin of the Progressive Writers’ Association, the

need of the moment. to analyse critically what had been erected as the national culture, was pointed out by R.S. Firaqi and Ahmed Ali. The

discussions mainly centred round the two points of India‘s move to ‘modernization’ and the questions of ‘reality’ to be expressed in art. Modernization was equated with an open door to international culture, a point which had led to heated debates earlier. The term

‘Indianness of Indian art‘ had been coined by the British Orientalists and a section of the Indian intellectuals to foster a mystique of ‘spiritual essence’ as the only identifiable characteristic of Indian art. The Buddha figure hailed as the symbol of oriental wisdom, grace and beauty, remained the major image. All this needed to be denied and new images had to be evolved. The progressive Indian intellectuals required a material basis for their artistic expressions. The negation of physical experiences, poverty, racial discrimination and brutality had been subsumed in an art form which pointed to the superiority of spiritual experience. It was still continued in the Gandhian form of patriotic movements. The authors, therefore, stressed the fact that the earlier art, both in its form and

content, was unreal. It was aristocratic, exclusive and reserved for an upper class, who had denied the realities of the Indian situation in the twenties.

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To establish a contact with the masses, it was required that the popular art forrns he explored. These would, in their instant recognition by the people, forge that bond which then pave the way for a revolutionary theme. The emphasis fell not only on the art produced, but the process of creation. Popular art had a social basis, it was created by the whole community. The actual physical participation in building up the picture schema, the application of colour, the mounting, were done by the family and neighbours. The functional character of this art decreed its form. This popular art could never be produced by the individual artist. It was alien to the capitalist concept

of the lone genius. It is in the perspective of this new need for a ‘people's art‘ that Jamini Roy was hailed as that revolutionary genius who “has rejected all the trappings decreed by attitudes of the hour and clung to the basic varieties of painting." It was his sincerity and devotion to a particular from that found among the Marxists some of his best admirers. While the Progressive Writers’ and Artists’ Union came to be closely linked with the Indian People's Theatre Association, where

the communists gave the lead, we found the two questions ofa people‘s art and depiction of social reality being thrashed out over and over again till Monoranjan Bhattacharya clarified the stand by declaring

that whatever art form the people produced, should be considered as people’s art, but only as if united imagination with experience. Since

the social and material constraints were such that the people could not be considered free, it was impossible to dream of a free expression

of creativity. What was now required was to reach the people with a well defined message. “Let all who can, alone or all together, spread this message to every stratum of society, particularly to our workers,

by speech, song, dance and pictures. This will he art, art for the people. The real people‘s art+—-art created by the people—will come later after the revolution."“

In the 1940s Jamini Roy, already recognised as the most creative of Indian artists, was living by selling his paintings in the new style

to Indians and foreign patrons. While British oflicers like John Irwin became some of his greatest admirers, we have his Marxist friends bringing around a number of Russian visitors to his studio. The most

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popular image, for all these foreigners, was his ‘Women’ stereotype.

Interesting anecdotes abound as to how two Russians, a poet and an actor, fought over one of Jamini Roy's ‘Women’ paintings, to be pacified when the same painting was reproduced for both; how the artist responded to the demands for some other ‘Women’ paintings from American friends. His ability to churn out, with only minor

variations, a number of paintings in the same theme and schema has been repeatedly stressed by his biographers. But Jamini Roy, during

this period, came to be identified mainly as the creator of a single image--the large-eyed Bengali woman. Women as the central motif have been immensely popular in Indian art. Both in Buddhist and Brahmanical sacred art, women

.were used to signify the creative force. The flux of nature was transformed into a plastic vision, with voluptuous roundness as its special feature. The secular figures of the nnyikns and the nfnrn Icnnyus of Urissan sculpture had a physical presence, which was lyricised in the

mediaeval miniatures. Abanindranath adopted not only the technique but also the tone of the miniatures. After the Omar Khayam series, he transformed his paintings into the narration of poetry. The figures were separated from a physical world, transported through large areal of bright coloured space into mythical beings, whose tapering fingers, languid eyes and floating drapery, set them apart from the genre paint-

ings of the lvlughal School. In Jamini Roy's paintings the women were restricted within the confines of a specific experience, the life of the Bengali rural family. The oval faces with elongated eyes, the hair in a demure coil at the nape of the neck, the bodies completely covered with saris failing into graceful folds, they can at once be recognised. The roles are however

emphasised by the exposed hands and feet arranged in identifiable gestures of domestic service. The women are often depicted as holding

ritual vessels, carrying plates, holding a child or sitting in a group. The familiar gestures create a sense of continuity, so that like latayu, Hanuman mentioned earlier, the Hindu Bengali woman-image becomes universal. She becomes for the Bengali audience Yashodha, -Mary and the mother at home. In the form of the bride, she is Sita and Draupadi, but also the wife, who maintains order in the kitchen. The image by relating to the experiences of the artist and the viewer

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From the Korkhnno to the Studio

is transformed into a new icon for the Bengali middle class. The world that Jamini Roy created for his women depended for the survi-

val on a way of life which still continued in the homes of the Bengali landed gentry in the forties. Through the mystification of the institutionalised roles which restrict women into a confined space called home, Jamini Roy reinforced certain feudal notions, which the people engaged in an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggle were trying to break down. The concept of the unchangeable village society was still popular among both the Marxists and the liberals (though for different reasons). The artist and his patrons located it in Beliatore." Here developed the new iconography to feed the nostalgia of the Bengali hhndrnfok. It reinforced the notion that a woman‘s place was at home. It denied the torments and insecurities, that resulted from a women's total dependence on a male-dominated society. Yet paradoxically this was put forward as the symbol of general security shutting out war, famine and death. " It is interesting to notice how a particular motif in art combines the various trends of a society under stress. It symbolised a significant change in popular aesthetics, so that while Abanindranatlfs ‘Abhisarika' came to represent an aristocratic world-view, Jamini Roy's large-eyed Bengali woman became equated with Picasso's ‘dove‘—a symbol of peace. Buddhadeva Bose while analysing fascism wrote“lt is not only a military policy or a political method, fascism is a mental attitude. . . I realise with surprise that the man who dislikes Rahindranath's songs or Jamini Roy's paintings, expresses not only a lack of good taste. He expresses an attitude with which his political opinion is closely involved.""" IV

Jamini Roy started to evolve his new style from l92l, when he was best ltuown as a flourishing portrait-painter. His portraits in oil were comissioned at about Rs. l,llIDtl. Around 1935 he held an exhibition, in which the paintingd in his new style features prominently. During l5l35-I946 he carried out numerous experimentd, by painting with his earth colours on paper, cloth, mat, etc. These paintings usually sold at Rs. 40 to Rs. 50 each. In 1946 Jamini Roy exhibited

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in London, and in I953 in New York. The Inzlian Government honooured him with Padma Bhushan in 1955. He was elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Academy (1956) and granted an honorary D. Litt. by the Rabindra Bharati University. All through this period, his portraits in oil, were still priced at one to two thousand and his paintings in his now established style cost Rs. 100 to 300. The paintings now hung in many middle class Bengali homes, indicating the good taste of the owners. They were bought as gifts, as mementos, and most often as tokens of affection for a great artist who was also a warm and loving friend. Jamini Roy personally gave his paintings as presents to his neighbours, friends and to those institutions with which he felt aligned—[tl1e Kamala Girl's School, where Pranati Dey taught, received many paintings as gil'ts)." After his death in 1972, his paintings in earth colour were priced

at Rs. 300-500, and within five years, their price was doubled. The law guarding art treasurers, forbade taking Jamini Roy's paintings out of the country without the prior consent of the government. Uwners of Jamini Roy's paintings were sought out and asked to pay wealth taxes. The paintings were evaluated as special treasures when properties came to be divided among descendants. ‘Jamini Roy’ became a name in the consumer market of art. Questions now began

to be asked as to which particular painting was unique. “This particular design has not been repeated" came to be heard quite often. A natural point of vettation to the collectors is the dead artist‘s characteristic habit of churning out many paintings in similar theme and design. When the Government bought his entire works of 279 paintings to form a gallery, his paintings which were available were insured for four lakhs and nineteen thousand rupees. It was rented at the monthly rate of 35 thousand, and special light arrangements have

been made for 34 thousand rupees so that the paintings remain well preserved. Apart from this, the State Government has aided large number of museums and galleries to enrich their collections with the

dead artist's creation, the expressed purpose being to educate the public to recognise Jamini Roy's works as a part of their national heritage. But while the prices of Jamini Roy's paintings went up, the

new audience looked on the paintings as relics of the past. The paintings displayed in the sitting rooms signified not only the taste but the

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from the Eorkheno to the Studio

special economic status of the owner. With a different cultural ethos dominating the mass media, the new audience emerging after [W2

did not regard Jamini Roy's paintings as an antidote to any of the social ills which it considered real. Thus, the expressions of a period's nostalgia, they are merely regarded as relics to the past. The official government efibrts have only succeeded in sanctioning a new consu-

merism in the art market, and provided employment to a number of

art experts to set up an eiheient hunt for the ‘originals’. NOTES AND REFE REHCE5 1. M. Baxaudell, Pointing and Experience in Flfleentft Century truly, Oxford,

1972, pp. 5-B. ibtd-1 pp. 23-23.

P!“ Janet Wolfe, The Sorta! Production of .d't"l', London, 1982, pp. 18-2].

4. t‘htd.,p. llll. 5. 6. ‘J. B.

‘Bishnu Dey and John Irwin, Jamini Roy, Calcutta, 1944. P. 9. Bishnu Dey: Jamini Roy {Bengali}, Calcutta, I384 Bangabtla. p. 16. Rabindranath Tagore: On Art and Aesthetics, Calcutta, I961, pp. $8-64. Bishnu Dey, op. eit., pp. 72-B0.

9. tbtdl, |:t. ss.

I0. total, Jamini Roy on Patna Shilpa {transcribed by Devipraaatl Roy Choudury), p. B9. ll. teat, Interview with Bishnu Dey (a broadcast by the All India Radio), p. 69‘. I2. Bilhnu Day and John Irwin: Jamini Roy, Plate PI. 13. Bishnu Dey: Jontfnt Roy {Bengali}, p. 42. 14. Bishnu Day: Catalogue of the Exhibition oftfonttnt Roy‘: Paintings. January I5-February 3, 197$ (Copy of Rembrandt and ‘Van Gogh between I910-18).

15. Bishnu Dey and John Irwin: Jomtnt Roy, p. 17. 16. Hiteahranjan Sanyal: A Study of o Few Mongol Ktntvo Textsin Occasional

Paper No. 52. Calcutta, 1981, p. 9. 17. Bishnu Dey: op. eit., p. ET. 18. Dishau De! and John Irwin: Jamini Roft P. 30. I9. tbid., Plat II: The ‘Village Carpenter (19381.

20. tbtrfl, Plate VIII: The Santhal Couple ([934].

at. thtd., p. so.

22. tent, p. 30. lo.-rgtor Fosetst Btrodht .-tttthyyu {Published on the occasion of J‘. the 30th anniversary of Victory over Fascism in the collaboration with the 23. Iodo-GDR Friendship Society, Calcutta, p. 13.‘-t.—Reports from People's ‘Wart

15th Hovemher I042, p. I50}.

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Tire tlrtist in tile Studio : Jamini Roy

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I4. Sumit Sarkarz Popular lloleosellts and Hiddie t'.'.'ia.s.t Leadership in iote Cnioniai India: Prospect: of History -from Below, Calcutta, 1933. 25. Sudhi Pradhan: Marxist 't'.'."tt.iturai Movement in tndia:Chronieietottd Documents (19315-47] Vol. I, Calcutta, 1979, pp 190-I91. I6. Hilltntl Hey: Jtlrsitti Roy, p. #3.

27. Budtihsdev Base; Sabhyota0Fa|e:inn in Bnngtor Fnsetrt Birodiii .+ttttil|_vya,p. I09.

23- The information: were received from Smt. Pranati Dey. The price list wasmade available by the following peranna—Nirtnala Banerjee, Davalina Gholh, Suhir Roy Chaudhur-

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SELECT BI BLIOG RA PH Y ti.Books

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_

r

Abul Fa zl, din-i-Aitbori (tr. H. Blochmann and rettised by D.C.

Phillottl, Calcutta, 192?.

Akhtar, S., The Rate of Zontindars in Bangui, H0?’-t?i'.?, Asiatic Society, Bangladesh, 1982. Appasamy, 1., Abanindranath Tagore and the Art of His Times, New Delhi, 19158. Archer, H., Contpony Drawings in the India C-{flier Library, London,

i972. —-—, British Drawings in the India Ufiice Library, London, 1972. ——, India and British Portraiture !??0-I325, London, I979.

—-—, India Observed. London, l9S2. Archer, W.G., Bozar Paintings of Coicutta, London, 1953.

—-—, Kaiighat Drawings, Bombay, 1962.

Arnold,T.W., and Binyon, L., The Court Painters ofthe Grand Mughais, London, 1921. Athar Ali, It-'I., Mughoi Nobility under Aurangxeb, Bombay, 1966.

Bagal, J .C., Muktir Sandhane Bbarat (Bengoii), Calcutta, I9-'-ll .

Bannerjee, S., The Parlour and the Streets, Calcutta, 1989. =Ba:tandall, M., Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Oxford, l9?2. ;Bayly, (J.H., Raters, Townstn-en and Eozars, North Indian Society in the age of British Expansion, I??0-I890, Cambridge, 1935.

Iitelnos, Mrs, Hindu and European Manners in Bengai, Paris, 1832. ‘E-hattaehatya, Hi, Cuiturni tltseiiiation, Calcutta, I980. iflinyon L., The Flight of the Dragon, London, I911. -1, Entperors and Princes of the House of Timur, London, 1930.

GK]

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Bourdieu, P., Distinction A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (tr.) London, I936. . ' Brown, P., Indian Painting under the Mttghais, Oxford, 193i.

Chakrabarty, J., Kaiigitat Paintings in the Coiicction of Nandon Museum, Santiniketan. 1936. Chakrabarty, Mukundaram, Kari Konitan Chandi [Bengali] Calcutta, (Basumati ed.), l9'2l.

Chanda, R., Gharoa [Bengali]. Visva Bharati, i941. Chatterjee, S.K., The Origin and Dcveiopntent of the Bengali Language, Calcutta, I935. Coomaraswamy, A.I(., Essays in National ideaiistn, New Delhi, I909.

——, Art and Swadcshi, Madras, I910. —-—-, The Transformation offlaturc in Art, New York, I956. Coornaraswamy, A.lC., and Sister Hivedita, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, New York, 1967. Datta, I€..K., Aiiwtrdi and His Tirncs, Calcutta, I963. -—-—-, Siroj-ud-dotdah, Calcutta, l9?1. Davies, P., Spiendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India I660-

i94?, London, 1985.

'

Dey, B., Jamini Roy (Bengali), Calcutta, 1384 B.S.

-——, Cataiogue of the Exhibition oflantini Roy's Paintings, Calcutta, 197$.

Dey, B. and Irwin, J .C., Jamini Roy, Calcutta, 1944. Foster, W. (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe in India, London, I926. Firminger, W. (ed.), The Letter Copy Book of the Resident at the Durbar ofhtursnidabad i?t$tt-tiiti, Calcutta, I919. Gangopadhyay, lvt.L., Dairshincr Baranda (Bengali), ‘ltisva Bharati, l9B| Ganguly,D.C., Bharater Shiipafl Arnar Katha (Bengali), Calcutta, I931. Ghosh, L., Koiitatar Bubu Brittanta (tr. from the English by S. Ghosh), Calcutta. I933. i

.

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From the Karhhatta to the Studio

Goddard, Y.E., Les ildarges du Muraicko Guishon, Harlem, I936. Haldar, (3., (compiled), Bongiur Fascist Birodhi Ditihva, (Bengali) Calcutta. I975. Havell, E.B., The Basis for Artistic and industrial Revivaf in India,

Madras, 1912,

—-—, Indian Sculpture and Painting, London, I907. -—-—~, Aryan Rufe in India, New Delhi, l9lS.

Hobsbawm, H., and Ranger, T. (eds), The invention of Tradition Cambridge, 1985. "Karim, A., Mursitid Quit‘ Khan and His Times, Decca, I963. Khan, G.I-I., Seir-ui-Mutakharin (tr. M. Raymond), Calcutta, I926. Knizkova, H., The Drawings ofifiufighot Style, Prague, l9?5.

Maitreya, A., Bhorat Shiiper Katha (Bengali), Calcutta, I982. Majumdar, H., Justice and Police in Bengal H65-i?93, Calcutta, I960, Marshall, P.J., East india Fortunes: The British in Bengai in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1976. Marx, K., A Contribution to the Critique of Poiiticai Economy, Moscow

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lvlitra, h., Tribes and Castes of West Bengal Census, W. Bengal I951), Calcutta, I953. Mitts], P.D., Braja Bhusha Soititya Kc Naiyica Bbeda (Hindi), Mathura, Sambat 2005.

Mitter, P., Much Maiigncd Monsters, Oxford, 1977. Mohsin, K.M., A Bengal District in Transition: Murshidobad H65-i?93. Dacca, I993. Mukherjee, S.N., Calcutta: Myth and History, Calcutta, 197?.

tvlukhopadhyay, B.B.. Aditunik Sitiipa Shiicsha (Bengali), Visva Bharati, I972. ——, Chitra Katha (Bengali), Calcutta, 1984. -Ivl-ukhopadhyay, S.K.,' Bangiar Arthik Abastha (Bengali)., Calcutta, I985. lldulthopadhyay, U. (ed.), htanu Surnhita (Bengali tr.}, Calcutta, I336 LBS. (4th ed).

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Oltakura, K., Tile Ideals of the East witlt Special Reference to tlte Art

of Japan, Calcutta I973. . Prasatl, S.N. (cd.), Calendar of Persian Correspondence, New Delhi,

1969. Parimoo, H., The Paintings of the Tltree Tagares, Baroda, 1973.

Parks, T., Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search ofthe Picturesque, London, I350. Paul, A. (cd.), Woodcut Prints ofiliineteentlz Century Calcutta, Calcutta, 1933. Paclsacrt, P., .laltangir’s lndia : Tlte Rerrlonstratie of Francisco Pelsaert,

Cambridge, 1925. Pradhan, S. (ccl.}, Marxist Cultural Movement tn India, Chronicles and Documents (Vols. I-3) Calcutta, I979-35.

Ray, S., and Sauyal, l-I. (cd)., Indian Studies : Essays in Memory of

Profl N.R. Ray, Delhi, n.d. Bharatchandra, Ray, Annadarnangal(Bengali), Calcutta, (Basun1aticd.),

Ray, N.R., Mt-tgltai Court Paintings, Calcutta, 1975. Richards, J.F., (cd.), Kingsitio and Authority in South Asia, Madison, 1973. Said, E., Grientalisnt, New York, 1973.

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Sarkar, H., The Aesthetics of Young India, Calcutta, 1922. Sarkar, J., (Tr. cd.), Bengal Nan-abs, Calcutta, I985. Sarltar, K., Bllarater Bitaskar O Cltitrasitilpi (Bengali), Calcutta, 1984. Sarkar, S., Modern India I885-I9-fl, Delhi, 1933.

--—-, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal I903-I908, New Delhi, 1973. ——, Popular Mo rernents and il-.-fiddle Class Leaderslzip in Late Colonial India, Calcutta, 1933. Sen, S., Bangla Saltityer Itiltasl: (Bengali), 3 ‘Vols. Calcutta, l9'i5. Sinha, K., Huturn Pencitar Nalcslta (Bengali), Calcutta, 1930. (rpt. from 1862 e