Bengal school of art is both an art movement and a new style of painting that began to develop in the Kolkata and Shantiniketan regions of West Bengal in the first half of the 20th Century. The Avant-garde movement emerged in response to the academic and western art styles, compositions, and themes that were flourishing in India during the time of the British Colonial rule.
These ‘academic’ art styles included the western themes and styles of painting used by prominent Indian artists such as Raja Ravi Varma and those advocated by the newly-established British Art schools. The primary objective of the movement was to promote a style of painting that was characteristic of the spiritual teaching and qualities of the Indian subcontinent instead of having western values and attributes.
History
When E.B. Havell, a British art teacher at Calcutta School of Art, attempted to bring reform to the teaching methods by stimulating the students to emulate Mughal miniatures, he encountered resistance in the form of complaints and strikes by the Press and the students. The students and the Press believed that such an idea was retrogressive and backward in nature.
The reform, however, received the favor and support of Abanindranath Tagore, who supported the development of a style of painting that was characteristic of Indian spirituality and values instead of being dictated by western values and themes such as realism and materialism.
A Nationalist Movement
Bengal school at its core was an inherently nationalistic movement that put the tradition and spiritual inheritance of the Indian subcontinent at its forefront. It was a form of resistance against the British colonial rule and the western values propagating and shaping the Indian society at the time. The aim was to trace the ‘golden period’ in the tradition of Indian art culture and society to promote themes and styles of art that represented this value.
Spirituality
A culture as ancient as that of the Indian subcontinent is enveloped in an aura of spirituality. Artists of the Bengal School such as Abanindranath Tagore also used these spiritual attributes in their works to highlight the rich spiritual history and culture of India to support a distinctively Indian art style. His most popular painting, Bharat Mata, depicts these values as it mixes the symbols representing India’s national aspiration with that of its spiritual values in the image of a young woman.
