Part 2 — Modern Art & Folk Traditions

Modern and Contemporary Indian Art

The modern era saw a decisive break from both miniature and colonial academic traditions. Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), often called the father of modern Indian painting, pioneered a distinctive style blending European academic realism with Indian mythological and historical subject matter, and pioneered the mass reproduction of his religious images via oleograph printing, making his depictions of Hindu deities (e.g., Saraswati, Lakshmi) iconic and widely recognisable even today.

The Bengal School of Art, led by Abanindranath Tagore (nephew of Rabindranath Tagore) in the early 20th century, consciously rejected Western academic realism (and, implicitly, the Ravi Varma style) in favour of a revivalist aesthetic drawing on Mughal, Rajput, and Ajanta traditions, closely tied to the Swadeshi movement's cultural nationalism; his painting Bharat Mata (1905), depicting the nation as a goddess, became an iconic nationalist image. Nandalal Bose, a key Bengal School figure, later illustrated the original Indian Constitution's decorative panels.

Post-independence, the Progressive Artists' Group, founded in Bombay in 1947 by Francis Newton Souza, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, K.H. Ara, H.A. Gade, and S.K. Bakre, broke decisively with both academic realism and Bengal School revivalism to embrace modernist, internationally engaged styles. M.F. Husain became India's best-known modern painter internationally, noted (and controversially so, in later life) for bold figurative work depicting Indian themes including horses and mythological subjects. S.H. Raza became renowned for his geometric "Bindu" (point/seed) series exploring Indian metaphysical concepts through abstract form. Other major modern/contemporary figures include Amrita Sher-Gil (part-Hungarian pioneer, often called India's "Frida Kahlo," known for works like Bride's Toilet and Group of Three Girls), Jamini Roy (drew on Kalighat and folk idioms), Tyeb Mehta, and Anjolie Ela Menon.

Institutions and Awards

The Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Art, established 1954, New Delhi) is India's apex body for the visual arts, promoting painting, sculpture, and graphic art through exhibitions, fellowships, and awards. The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), with its main branch in New Delhi (also branches in Mumbai and Bengaluru), is India's premier modern art museum.

Ragamala Paintings

Ragamala ("garland of ragas") paintings form a distinctive genre spanning multiple miniature schools (Rajput, Pahari, Deccan, and to some extent Mughal), in which each painting visually personifies a specific musical raga as a deity, hero, or heroine, often accompanied by descriptive poetic verses — a striking example of the cross-pollination between Indian classical music and visual art. Ragamala sets typically depict 36 or 42 ragas and raginis, organised into "families," and are prized both as art-historical and musicological sources.

Painting Techniques and Materials

Traditional Indian painting employed natural pigments derived from minerals (ochre, lapis lazuli for blue), plant sources (indigo, turmeric), and occasionally ground precious stones or gold leaf for luxury manuscripts. The tempera technique, seen at Ajanta, involves pigments bound in a glue-like medium applied to a dry, prepared plaster surface (fresco-secco, technically, rather than true "wet plaster" fresco). Miniature paintings were typically executed with fine squirrel-hair brushes on hand-made paper, treated cloth, or ivory, often burnished to a glossy finish with an agate stone.

Regional Folk Art — Extended Notes

Pattachitra (Odisha) derives its name from Sanskrit/Odia "patta" (cloth) and "chitra" (picture); traditional Pattachitra artists (chitrakars) are closely linked to the Jagannath Temple at Puri, producing devotional scroll paintings depicting Krishna and Jagannath-related themes, and traditionally repaint the temple deities' images during the annual "Naba Kalebara" ritual. Kalamkari, meaning "pen-work" (from Persian "kalam" = pen, "kari" = craftsmanship), survives in two distinct regional styles: the Srikalahasti style (hand-drawn, temple/mythological themes) and the Machilipatnam style (block-printed, more commercial). Phad painting (Rajasthan) is unusual in being a functional performance prop as much as a static artwork — the Bhopa priest-singers unroll the phad scroll at night and sing/narrate the depicted folk deity's story (commonly Pabuji or Devnarayan) to village audiences, making it a rare surviving example of a painting tradition embedded within a living oral performance ritual.