Society of Oriental Art
The Calcutta organization known as the Indian Society of Oriental Art grew out of
successive exhibitions of the works of the Tagore School of art which began to be
held at the Government School of Art, Calcutta, from the early part of this century.
The Society was sponsored by a group of European connoisseurs living in Calcutta
who began to take keen interest in the works of Abanindranath Tagore,
Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Base and Surendranath Gangoly-the last two
being the earliest disciples of Abanindranath Tagore. The name of the Calcutta
society had to be distinguished from an art society which existed in Paris under the
name of The Society of Oriental Art.
The career of the Indian Society, as we said, began with a series of annual
exhibitions, at which were shown the latest works of the artists of the new
movement in Indian painting initiated by Abanindranath Tagore-at first under the
guidance of E. B. Havell.
The Society was born about the year 1907, led by a group of Europeans in Calcutta
who began to admire the merits of this new school of painting based on the outlook
and traditions of the mediaeval schools of Indian painting in its Buddhist phases at
Ajanta and Bagh caves and in its secular phase represented by the Moghul School
patronized by Akbar and Jahangir. Among the European members of the Calcutta
Society at the beginning was the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener. He was
supported by two eminent judges of the Calcutta High Court, Mr. Justice
Woodroffe and Mr. Justice Rampini; with them were Mr. Justice Holmwood, and
Mr. Justice Ashutosh Chaudhuri. The most active members of the Society at its
earliest stage were three merchants of Calcutta-two Swedish businessmen in
Calcutta, Mr. Rueboson and Mr. Muller, and an English jute broker Mr. Norman
Blount, the senior partner of the firm of Messrs. Sinclair Murray & Co. With this
group of European connoisseurs of Indian painting were associated several
cultured Indians and artists, of whom the names of Maharaja Jagadindranath Roy
of Nature, Maharajadhiraja Bijny Chand Mahtab of Burdwan, Mr. J. Chaudhuri,
Bar-at-Law, and Mr. Surendranath Tagore, associated with The Hindusthan
Insurance Co. and a writer of distinction, deserve special mention. The first
President of the Society was Lord Kitchener, and the first Secretaries were Mr.
Norman Blount and Mr. Abanindranath Tagore. Later Presidents were "Mr. Justice
Woodroffe, Lord Carmichael, sometime Governor of Bengal, the Maharajadhiraja
of Burdwan, Sir Rajendranath Mukherjee and Sir Charles Kesteven. The business
meetings of the Society, generally arranged at intervals of a month, were held in
the rooms of the Government School of Art and sometimes in the rooms of the
Asiatic Society. The Society used to subscribe to a number of journals of art, which
were circulated among members. The Society first came into prominence by
associating with the project of the London India Society to have new copies made
of the frescoes of the Ajanta caves. The Indian Society deputed two eminent artists,
Nandalal Bose and Asitkumar Haldar to go to the caves and work for several
months under the leadership of an English artist, Lady Herringham, who was an
expert copyist of Italian frescoes. The copies made by the group of artists were
subsequently published by the India Society, London and were very much admired
by the press in Europe.
Art Practice and Development of Bangladesh after Independence:
The history of art in Bengal dates back a thousand years. ‘Institutional art’ in
Bangladesh is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first fine arts institution the
Government Institute of Arts, was established in Dhaka in 1948 by the doyen of
Bangladesh Art, Zainul Abedin.
In the 1950s, our fine arts practice was dominated by representational style. During
the 60s, realism was supplemented by new experimental constructions. Many of
these artists realized that they could not create a new language unless they were
able to free themselves from the pervasive stagnation in Bengali fine arts. The
domination of figures was replaced by figurative abstraction and pure abstraction.
Many of the artists came up with a new language by blending forms from Bengali
folk art and Western canonical art. The formation of independent state of
Bangladesh gave rise to new dreams and aspirations. Practicing art freely that was
more of an act of defiance prior to independence, became more widespread. The
aim of the first artist group of the country, Dhaka Art Group was to “paint and
paint, paint without any allegiance to any person or any institution.”
By the 1960s, the visual arts arrived in the cultural scene. As the art scene
continued to grow, the artists consciously shaped a distinctive Bangladeshi
modernistic ‘referentiality’. A broad stream of urban sensibility and folk
imagination i.e. urban folkism took roots and opened the way for more meaningful
interactions with culture, history and myths. In a profound ‘local journey’, many
young artists maintain their allegiance to ‘modern sensibility’ and yet expand their
range of vision by going to the center of our mythical and cultural existence.
In grooming and supporting the works of the artists, the first Asian Art Biennale
was organized in 1980 in Dhaka, supported by the government. Although the
Biennale began with only eight countries participating, by now, it has grown to
gets over fifty countries from around the world. With the exposure to the artistic
trends from across the world, art scene in Bangladesh started to experience shifts.
Some artists united in the 1990s with the aim of making art affordable for middle
class Bangladeshis. The “Dhaka Printmakers”, for instance, came up with the
belief that with relatively low price, prints could make art accessible to a wider
audience.
During the 2000s, art patronage began to shift away from governmental
organizations. A myriad of private organizations stepped forward to patronize art.
A number of (private) art galleries came up e.g. Shilpangan Art Gallery, Bengal
Gallery of Fine Arts, Society for Promotion of Bangladesh Art, Cosmos Gallery of
Fine Arts, etc. Art workshops, symposiums and publications on visual arts became
a regular feature across Dhaka, round the year. Since 2014, Dhaka Art Summit, for
instance, is regarded as a key event in international art calendar.
Quietly, Bangladesh art keeps moving to art capitals of the world. Paintings from
Bangladesh are now regularly featured in international events e.g. Venice Biennale,
Fukuoka Biennale, Tokyo Biennale, Beijing Biennale, Tate Modern, Guggenheim
Museum. Even though it is difficult to engage with the ever-changing trends in
contemporary global art, the young Bangladeshi artists are aware of the global
aesthetic discourse. It is debatable if Bangladeshi art had the burden of “catching
up” with contemporary art from the developed world i.e. Euro-American art. The
Bangladeshi artists believe that they have to be modern yet remain grounded in
heritage, traditions.
Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin
Modern art in Bangladesh is believed to have had its beginning with Zainul
Abedin. Zainul Abedin spent his childhood in remote area of Mymensingh and he
took inspiration from lush greenery, riverine beauty of the Brahmaputra and its
rustic surroundings. He exercised mastery over a wide range of subjects. He held
opinions on topics such as the environment, patriotism and non-communalism. His
canvas was a perfect reflection of the Bengali way of life. With his touch of artistry
these objects came to life in varied manifestations of ecstasy, hilarity, joy,
adoration, anguish, liveliness, conscience and courage.
Quamrul Hassan
Quamrul Hassan was recognized for recuperating our folk and traditional elements
through his art. Hassan was a powerful artist working in almost all media like oil,
gouache, watercolors, pastel, etching, woodcut, linocut, pen and pencil. His works
delineated the rural Bengal and its people. He portrayed figures, natural objects,
trees, snakes, owls, jackals, birds, fish, animals as well as landscape where we can
see his passion about portraying rustic scenic beauty and its untainted beauty. His
paintings are recognised for their bold, flowing brushstrokes and brilliant colours.
He mingles romanticism with realism, focusing on strong curved lines, contours,
and contrasted use of colour. Pastoral women and their dilemma is a recurrent
theme in his works. He mingles romanticism with realism, focusing on strong
curved lines, contours, and contrasted use of colour. Rural women and their
dilemmas is another topic Hassan has repeatedly produced. His handling of women
highlight the relationship between them, most of his paintings of women are of a
group of women, hardly ever a solo painting can be found.
Murtaja Baseer:
Murtaja Baseer was a politically and socially conscious painter. In his student life,
he involved in left leaning politics. He was sent to jail several times in the '50s for
his political ideology. From the very beginning of his career, the artist was greatly
influenced by the paintings of Byzantine and Early-Renaissance period. He had
received high praise for true depiction of Bengali woman--her pathos, inner agony,
magnificence and uniqueness. He zoomed the portrait of the women of ultra
modern society where artificiality and vulgarity cautiously focused in his paintings.
He was known as a resourceful genius. Throughout his illustrious career, Baseer
gradually transformed his working style into abstract realism.
Qayyum Chowdhury:
Qayyum Chowdhury is possibly well known for his book cover design. His works
delve deep into folk, pastoral life and traditions; the recurring motifs are birds,
greenery, flowers, fish, rural women carrying pitchers, peasants, freedom fighters,
lush foliage and bulls. His realistic and semi-realistic works on the Bangladeshi
countryside were marked by his lucid and personal technique. His excessive use of
space provides grace to all his work that belongs to this sensuous grade. Tactile,
sharp and stirring colours give that depth and shape to his drawings and paintings.
The colours he generally used -- green, red, yellow and azure -- flow and merge
with passion.
Hashem Khan
Hashem Khan likes to experiment with colour, space and form. Over the years, his
pictorial space has been filled up with newer configurations of forms, figures and
objects that give new interpretations of experience. His predominantly figurative
canvas sometimes gives way to non-objective or semi-abstract compositions
where, with thick brush strokes and bold colour arrangements, Hashem Khan gives
unique interpretations of reality, nature or the life of things. Then he returns to a
realistic presentation or figurative portrayal leading to the same or similar
emotions. He moves with ease between different modes and disciplines of his art,
yet each composition has its own unique merit. Whether it shows a preference for
geometric shapes, or familiar figures of women, or the outline of trees, or birds or
kites, the composition displays a formal simplicity while evoking in the spectator a
feeling of profundity and expansiveness.
Hashem Khan's works are never ambiguous—his use of symbols is
straightforward; his colours correspond closely to the mood he attempts to capture
and his perspectives do not blur or erase his dominant feelings; his figures are
sometimes stylized but they move to the rhythm created by his surface design.
There is an aesthetic ordering of his contents that promotes a calm introversion.
Kanak Chanpa Chakma
Since her student days she has been experimenting with a range of styles and
expressive modes—from realistic to abstract and nonrepresentational. Now she
seems to favour a combination of the two.
She has been a close observer of the life of the people of this region who were
locked in an antagonistic relationship with mainstream Bengalees who had flocked
there in search of land with support from successive governments. Kanak saw from
close quarters the dislocation and suffering of the hill people. She decided to
project the true hill tracts and the true hill people, which eventually meant
delineating their lifestyle, their culture and their deep reverence for nature. Kanak's
style then, by necessity, became realistic. But she also improvised extensively—her
realism thus veered towards the narrative-metaphorical, the evocative and, in some
cases, the romantic.
Shahabuddin Ahmed
Ahmed's painting style is iconic: it stands out from the work of all his fellow
Bangladeshi artists. He has a distinct oil on canvas style that is heavily influenced
by European artists. It is argued that Shahabuddin is greatly inspired by European
artists from the 1980s, especially that of Francis Bacon.
Ahmed's works rely on minimalism and stark realism. Despite his European style,
he would always address his subject matter as something related closer to home.
His works are often described as "…Baroque like figures turned towards space
seeking light and energy."[4] In his work, the subject is suspended in a mass of
monochrome blank space and consists of mostly earthy tones, with perhaps one
pop of color. His work is also described as "… figures [that] seem to be enthralled
in the cosmic dance at times merging with the ethereal forces."
