Page 130 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

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identified some causes for this. Firstly, sculpture is more technically difficult and
laborious than painting, particularly the process of die making and casting. Secondly,
the narrative subjects depicted in painting in those times were very difficult to
represent three dimensionally in sculpture. Thirdly, there was not enough, social,
economical or aesthetic inspiration for taking interest in sculpture. The painting
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oriented revolution of the Bengal School did not really create much interest in
sculpture. It may be contextual to state that modernism came later into sculpture than
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in painting in the west, and that too in the hands of painters. The root of modernism
was first expressed in painting. Only with the Constructivists did experimentation in
sculpture return to sculptors from painters. We do not find anyone comparable to
Cezanne, Van Gogh or Gauguin in the field of sculpture in the nineteenth century.
Even Rodin, who was the greatest sculptor in the shift to modernism, was actually
much more connected to the established art world, the world that the Fauvists had
rejected. Modernism was primarily elitist which is in contradiction to the place of
sculpture in society which makes it approachable for the common people. In the past,
sculpture was used for religious, commemorative functions as memorials to national
unity or memorable incidents or conjoined to architecture as decoration. With
modernism sculpture lost this function to fulfill the need of the common people. When
sculpture was created for the common people, nNeoclassical qualities were generally
sought. Painting could easily become elitist in modernism but for sculpture it was
much more difficult because of its characteristics. 83
Similarly, there were no revolutionary changes transforming sculpture alongside the
Bengal School in painting. Hironmoy Roychaudhuri and Asit Haldar arrived on the
Kolkata art scene in 1909-1910. Hironmoy Roychaudhuri’s (1884-1962) ideal was
European academic sculpture. He was born in Dakshindihi village in Jessore. He
enrolled in Calcutta Art School during Havell’s period (1905). He learnt painting and
modeling until 1910. In 1907 he worked as an assistant to Leonard Jennings, the
official architect and sculptor who arrived in Kolkata, and traveled to London in 1910
to study at the Royal College of Art on his advice. He became an Associate of the Royal
College in 1914. He learnt modeling under the supervision of Edward Lantery and
became the first Indian Associate of the Royal College. After returning to India he
became famous for this sculptures and portraits in the European classical style.
Debiprasad Roychowdhury, Sudhirranjan Khastagir and Prodosh Dasgupta learnt
sculpture under his supervision. The majority of his works are portraits and his few
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compositions are based on models and the observation of the visual world. However,
no foreign patrons ever had their portraits done by any Indian sculptors because they
thought them to be inferior. It was in a way true because it had not been possible for
any Indian artist of those times to assimilate the living current of a foreign tradition.
The influential artists, art lovers, critics and specialists spoke against this attitude of the
colonial patrons and in 1937 after the death of King George the Fifth the government
commissioned three portraits of him by three Indian sculptors. Hironmoy
Roychaudhuri’s portrait of King George in marble was installed in Lucknow. 85