Page 298 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

FIRST GENERATION ARTIST 295

community, or making idols for them. Other than this, through the patronization of the
Nayeb-e-Nizam of Dhaka, who were of the Shi’ite sect, a faint tradition of painting
closely related to the Mughal Style had continued in Dhaka. Although its practice
25
survived till the second half of the nineteenth century in the Mukabbir family of
Dhaka it was probably because of the return to that ‘original and pure Islam’ that it
26
came to an end. Although kantha or some other ornamental handicrafts were in
currency in Muslim families too, but as there was no opportunity in those days to
convert such work into professions providing a livelihood, these were primarily a kind
of irregular amateur activity helping pregnant and old women to pass their leisure
time. These colorful, design oriented amateur art works created by women were not
equal in comparison to painting and there was no relation to these with the family
earnings, thus painting was considered to be a mere feminine hobby or feminine work
in the patriarchal society dependent on agriculture (even among the Hindu community
of Bengal the women in each family were the ones who regularly engaged in drawing
pictures through painting alpanas). 27
These traditional ideas of the people of this region about painting began to change to
a certain extent by coming under European rule. New areas of work developed for
28
the worldly needs of the European traders and rulers. However, the mentality,
knowledge and skills of the local professionals dependent on traditional hereditary
skills were not considered qualified to meet these needs. This saw the growth of
secular education. Secular education created the opportunity for the selection of a
29
person’s profession according to that person’s own choice and qualifications. Thus, the
earlier limits or boundaries of birth and caste ceased to remain insuperable. People of
all religions and castes of this region had the growing inclination to change their fate
through receiving education and adopting ways of livelihood suitable for the times. 30
Alongsides, a change in taste began to grow. It was through this process that at one
stage the art schools began to be established here and the people of this region began
to become familiar and interested in the naturalistic style of western art. 31
Different designs and pictures began to be added to the textbooks for primary
education like the introduction to the alphabets, numbers etc. composed as a part of
secular education for easier understanding. To the common people of this region this
was probably a novel form of art completely outside the artistic styles based on
religion. They were simple representations or imitations of the natural world. The
producers of these worldly art works composed to satisfy the needs of a new age were
able to draw the attention of the Bengali Muslims as earners of livelihood. Alongside
32
book designing the demand for western type realistic litho prints, portraits done in oil
paints, etc. executed by artists gradually increased and at the end of the nineteenth
century the fame, income and status of artists skilled in this style increased to an
unprecedented degree. Those few artists of Mymensingh, where Zainul spent his
boyhood and adolescence, who had gained fame in the first two to three decades of the
early twentieth century throughout India (their names have already been mentioned