Page 129 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

126 ART AND CRAFTS

recovered and preserved examples of Indian art and encouraged Indian artists to
become conscious of their own traditions. Inspired by Locke, Shyamacharan Srimani
of Bengal wrote the first short book on the history of art in 1874 entitled The Rise of
the Fine Arts and the Artistic Skills of the Aryans. This was written on the evidence
and information available at that time about the art of India. Judged from that
perspective, the book is revolutionary. Yet because the educated classes evaluated art
in the perspective of the British, it became very difficult to explain clearly what kind
of art would be truly ‘Indian’ to stand up in opposition to western art. From the very
beginning the colonial rulers had created a contradiction about the arts. There was no
clear distinction between Fine and Applied art. Moreover, though encouraged to taste
the flavor of Indian art, the education establishment taught in the western academic
method which was self-contradictory. The best example of this self-contradiction is
that of the historian Rajendra Lala Mitra. He himself had protested when James
Fergusson stated that the Indians had learnt the use of stone from the Greeks. Yet he
himself again wrote that it was as useless to compare the stone carvings of the artists
of Orissa with the great sculpture of the Greeks, as it is to compare Indian paintings
with the ‘chef d’oeuvre’ of Raphael. 78
Partha Mitter has discussed in detail how Victorian taste influenced three Bengali
intellectuals. The weakness of Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore and
Balendranath Tagore for European art found expression in their writing. Their
perspective changed with the Swadeshi movement. Balendranath’s last writing clearly
expresses his evolution of taste and understanding. 79
Thoughtful Bengalis began to apprehend that the various rules and regulations, social
and economical changes introduced during British rule primarily had imperialistic
aims and Indians became active in the Swadeshi movement and for independence.
The modernization and westernization introduced by the British was intentionally
designed to belittle the civilization and culture of India and it awakened the need in
Indians to be ‘Indians’ inspiring them to take pride in their culture and understand its
excellence and distinction. As a result of this the Bengal School of Abanindranath
came into being in the field of painting. Its ideals and concepts encountered the Pan-
Asian theory of the Japanese theorist, Okakura. E.B. Havell, Sister Nivedita,
Ordhendra Coomar Gangoly, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy and others also played
a role in expressing the greatness of Indian-ness. However, in the field of sculpture
this renaissance did not have a strong influence possibly because of the innate
qualities of the medium itself. The art institutions thought of sculpture as lower than
painting as an art form. The practice of sculpture was primarily centered on the study
of antiques and it laid stress on the skill of naturalistic depiction. When E.B. Havell
joined the Calcutta Government Art School as the Principal in 1896, he was the first
person who included sculpture in the Fine Art section of the school. This did not
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actually change the system of education. There was really no scope for creative
practice in sculpture. Students were less interested in it and Janak Jhankar Narzary has