They Taped WHAT to the Wall??
Krishya Nema
FY BSc. Economics (2024-28).
Estimated Reading Time ~ 7 minutes
Last year Justin Sun, a crypto-billionaire, bought a banana duct taped to a wall for 6.2 million dollars. Logically, his next course of action was to eat it. Modern art pieces like the Comedian spark debates on objectivity in art, prompting us to develop an understanding of the genre. What makes this art modern? What makes art like this, art? Is this art too?
One way of understanding modern art is understanding what makes it modern. Modern art is often seen in western media as unrecognisable motifs, patterns and abstract forms. In India, modern art wasn’t originally about huge canvases of reds, blacks and browns like the Seagram Murals. For the Indian artists of the 19th century, modern art came with political, social and cultural implications.
The British brought with them many things; famine, death, poverty and western ideology. The colonisers found us barbaric, backwards and inept, in many spheres if not all. Thus began their expansion of art schools around the nation to impart western wisdom. The most prominent being: Madras School of Art, the Bombay School of Art, and the Calcutta School of Art.
Naturally, Indian artists merged European and traditional techniques to make the foreign art form their own, bringing about the rise of one of the most prominent colonial-era artistic traditions, Colonial Painting. This style was largely confined to areas of heavy British influences, where artists were commissioned by British patreons to paint the sceneries around them.
Interestingly, Company paintings were made on paper or ivory because they were made to be stored in albums and portfolios. Why? Because they were largely commissioned to act as visual records of daily life. Painters used watercolour instead of traditional gouache, and brought depth to their paintings through linear perspective and tonal shading. These paintings portrayed craftsmen, villagers, men, women and children in their natural surroundings.
Besides the shift in painting technique, we notice the shift in subject matter. In this era of paintings, we see artists move away from depictions of grandeur, royalty and mythology to depictions of everyday life.
A similar pattern seen across these paints is the apparent lack of a background, or rather its simple neutrality. Professor Soumik Nandy Majumdar highlights how the dearth of a background brings objectivity to subject matter. Without a background, we cannot infer the place, time or context of these paintings, thus meaning we cannot find narratives in these paintings.
Portrait of Yellapah of Vellore
The decline of traditional paintings went hand in hand with the rising popularity of Company paintings. For the British, Company paintings presented a simple orientalist view of the Indian subcontinent devoid of cultural significance. We fit perfectly into the aesthetic boundaries of what could be considered “exotic.”
Going chronologically, this promotion of the academic art style was met with fierce resistance in Bengal, giving rise to the Bengal School of Art. With the onset of the 20th century, ideas of Nationalism and Swadeshi found themselves being discussed in hushed voices across fires, and whispered in the dimly lit corners of shops, restaurants, universities, and houses across India.
The Bengal School did not want to revert to the past, they wanted to bring it back, revive it. Revivalism was thus seen as a way of holding onto cultural significance and certain aspects of tradition. Spearheaded by artists like Abinandranath Tagore, the application of an artist’s imagination is what allowed them to put a twist on traditional Indian themes. This movement persisted for nearly three decades, shifting the perception of Indian art and creating a national identity.
UNTITLED (Omar Khayyam Series) – Asit Kumar Haldar
Inching closer to independence on our timeline we see a new movement emerge. This is where we see Indian modern art experiment in abstraction, expressionism and impressionism. The time period of the 1940s saw the rise of progressive art groups in the nation that wanted to usher in an era of global and international collaboration. They sought to experiment in western styles of modern art, breaking free of the confines of the academic style.
In 1943, six painters (Subho Tagore, Nirode Mazumdar, Rathin Maitra, Prankrishna Pal, Gopal Ghosh, Paritosh Sen) and two sculptors (Pradosh Das Gupta, Kamala Das Gupta) formed the Calcutta group. These artists practiced heterogenous styles of paintings but believed in the common ideology that art should be “international and interdependent.” They were against religion in art and supported opportunities that would modernize art in India.
Similarly the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) was set up in 1947 Bombay, composed of
F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza, M. F. Husain, K. H. Ara, H. A. Gade, and S. K. Bakre. This group went on to become one of the most vocal, assertive and successful collectives. Their objective was to break away from the revivalism and nationalism spurring in Calcutta and bring art onto the global stage. Their work was largely focused on depicting the reality around them, they were inspired by cubism, expressionism and the general rise of abstract art.
Untitled (Supper at Emmaus) – F. N. Souza
Now that our timeline finally converges back to the present, what have we understood? Our art is shaped by our history and the human condition. As time progressed we began to experiment more creatively with the manners in which we interpret life. Thus modern art saw focus shift to the form rather than subject matter. Long story short, you don’t have to like modern art. You don’t have to marvel over the banana, you don’t have to buy it and you certainly don’t have to enjoy it. Art is not created so we can “like” it and it doesn’t stop being art when we don’t. However, we can do our best to understand it, and to learn to experience it. Our art makes us human and it’s not wrong when they say “Life imitates art more than art imitates life.” So attached below are youtube videos showcasing the works of brilliant artists in India that you can explore if you want to partake in something new!
Dreaming on Canvas: Tito Stanley | BMW Artist Films | India Art Fair
By the Light : Non-Linear and Cursorama
Moving Things Around : Teja Gavankar | BMW Artist Films | India Art Fair