Page 299 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

296 ART AND CRAFTS

above), had all acquired skills in this western method of producing naturalistic art
(painting portraits, depicting landscapes or narratives or showing proficiency in book
design). Besides financial success and fame, some got the opportunity of obtaining
scholarships to go abroad, others were awarded gold medals or employment as court
artists of local royalty earning unthinkably high salaries. On the other hand, Zainul
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did not seem to have any special interest (even after getting admission to the art
school) in the artists of the Bengal School who had a completely new attitude and
awareness and were much discussed and acclaimed in India and the outside world.
For, after being promoted to the third year when the time arrived for department
selection, Zainul disregarded the advise of his well-wisher and teacher, Principal
Mukul Dey and instead of getting admission into the ‘Indian Art’ department he got
admitted to the ‘Fine Art’ department to learn to paint in oil colors in the Western
manner. (It is to be mentioned that the ‘Fine Art’ department later became known as
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‘Drawing and Painting Department.’ Even now the classical technique of oil color is
taught only in this department.) Besides getting admission to this department, he also
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maintained contact with Atul Bose, the artist famed for his skill in portrait painting.
Zainul went to his studio regularly and at one stage himself rented a studio near Atul
Bose’s and began to live there. The surprising thing is that, even after he acquired
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skills in portrait painting and was successful and earning money by doing illustrations,
in the end he did not try to become established as an illustrator or portrait painter.
Rather, right from his student days, like a true artist, he began to advance towards a
different goal. Therefore, based on the information given above, it may perhaps not
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be unjustified to put forward an opinion that, at the beginning when he got admission
to the art school, Zainul’s aim was mainly to make himself fit for earning a livelihood
by properly mastering the skills of the western academic style; but even during his
student life he made an effort to free himself from that ambition to go forth with a
different kind of awareness. Therefore, in works right from his early student life we
observe side by side with perfect skill in the academic style, an incisively sensitive
power of observation. Actually, that he was prone to observing life and nature right
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from his childhood can be ascertained from the memoirs he wrote of his childhood
entitled, Ami Jokhon Chhoto Chhilam. The intensely focused observation of nature
and popular life of rural Bengal described in this childhood memoir seems to have
been composed as a restatement in pictures as Shambhuganj (pen and ink, 1933),
(water color, 1933), Village Scene (1934), Harvest (oil painting, 1934), Labourer
(Pencil, 1935), etc. done during his student life. Generally, the pioneer artists of the
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western academic style in that age painted female nudes and commissioned portraits
or landscapes filled with romantic sentiments such as – the worshipper saying his
prayers in the field at the onset of evening, village bride concealed by the forest,
cowherd with a herd of cows at the end of grazing etc., dominated as subjects. The
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paintings were done mainly with the local royalty, zamindars, merchants or the
handful of wealthy buyers in mind. On the other hand, Zainul’s scenes of rural Bengal
and his pictures based on life, expressed the feel of the perceptible world and
faithfulness to its nature, behind which there was a deep worldly understanding