Page 27 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

24 ART AND CRAFTS

As a result, patuas from the outskirts of Kolkata and from 24 Parganas, Howrah,
Midnapore etc. began to throng around the Kalighat temple in the hope of earning a
living. They started to paint watercolor pictures of gods and deities on paper and sold
them at a very cheap price which immediately gained tremendous popularity. In the
beginning the patuas painted only religious themes and used local colors and cheap
papers. But interaction with urban life prompted them to accustom themselves with
imported colors and papers of better quality and it brought about a change in their
themes as well. They added to their themes such events as the life of the Englishmen 27
–such as horse races, hunting scenes, enjoying motor rides etc. They loved to ridicule
the self-indulgent life of the Bengali ‘Babu’ and expressed in their paintings the
images and incidences from the life of the Babu society with great sarcasm. The
patuas had depicted the contradictions and hypocrisies of the contemporary urban
society with a very subtle sense of observation and humor (pl.1.2). The inspiration
of folk dolls and clay-idols of Bengal are evident in the Kalighat patachitras.
Influence of Bengali folk painting can be detected in the use of the unmixed and bright
color palette. However, the eminence and accomplishments of the Kalighat Patas were
achieved through its beauty of sweeping lines and in the competence in using the dark
and light color tones to achieve the three-dimensional quality of forms. The artist’s
senses of observation and simplification and his control over medium and technique
combined together to display an astonishing quality and character in these paintings.

2. Printmaking and Bat-tala
Printed artworks in different mediums and techniques played an important role in
colonial India. The Daniells had sold their engraving portfolio Twelve Views of
Calcutta between 1786 and ’88. The first Indian engraver Ramchand Roy printed his
illustrated Oonoodah Mongul from Calcutta in 1816. In the initial stages the owners
of the printing presses were Englishmen. Bengali enthusiasts started to establish their
own presses from the later part of the nineteenth century in and around what is now
known as Bat-tala in the vicinity of Shovabazar and Chitpur area of northern Calcutta.
fig. 1.9 Bat-tala print A great number of small booklets started to be published from Bat-tala primarily as
entertainment reading for the scarcely educated urban Bengali. They consisted of
punthis, panchalis and panjika (sort of annual almanacs), myths and tales from Hindu
and Muslim traditions, popular folktales and elementary books for children’s
education which became extremely popular among the Bengali middle class.
Gradually they started to include illustrations and the illustrations added to the books’
popularity. These literary publications came to be known as ‘Bat-tala Literature’ and
the prints here were mostly woodcut and a few metal engraving prints from here
became well known as ‘Bat-tala Prints’ (fig.1.9). These prints depicted, other than
illustrations of the stories they accompanied, mythical deities such as Krishna, Durga,
and Kali. Other themes included portraits of illustrious persons, beautiful
architectures, fairs and festivals and rituals and ceremonies of the Bengali folk. The
artists of Bat-tala created the prints by first engraving the smooth surface of the wood-