Page 301 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

298 ART AND CRAFTS

that time Ramendranath was also painting the well-watered, fertile fields of the Bengal
village with the spontaneous use of oil colors. Zainul’s teacher in the 4th and 6th
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years, Basanta Kumar Ganguly, was also a man returned from Paris with a very
modern outlook whose technique of water color attracted Zainul most of all. 55
Therefore, it does not need to be mentioned that the tendency in Zainul to move out
of the circle of academic values that is evidenced from his student days had behind it
the special inspiration of these teachers. However, during the ’30s and the ’40s the
enthusiasm about the artists considered as the pioneering exponents of the academic
style began to decrease considerably among art lovers and connoisseurs. It was due
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to this reason that although the water color Bamboo Bridge, which had earned the
acclaim ‘Highly Commended’ in the annual exhibition during his second year as a
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student was executed in the pure transparent method of the British yet, in the six
pictures of the series of water colors entitled On and Over the Brahmaputra painted
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as a student of the final year and awarded the gold medal at the all-India level (in
1938), an Impressionist manner appeared. Another notable fact is that both the media
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of water color and brush-and-ink had started to become the main media of Zainul’s
painting right from his student life. His interest in painting in oil colors was decreasing
(be it because it was more expensive or due to it being unsuitable to his temperament
because of the slowness of its method) (figs. 8.2, 8.3). This tendency to make brush-
and-ink and water colors the main media instead of oil colors was seen previously only
among the artists of the Bengal School.
The changes that distinguished the works of some of the Bengal School artists due to
fig. 8.2 Banani Dumka, the influence of the Chinese-Japanese style (the use of the brush following the
watercolor, 1934 characteristics of the object sometimes softly, sometimes in a rough and dry manner,
using the difference in the thickness of colors to
simultaneously hint at light-and-shade and three-
dimensionality, making the objective entity imperishable by
preserving the completeness of form through binding lines,
utilizing the natural surface of the paper in creating the
illusion of endless horizons, etc.) seems to have made Zainul
quite enthusiastic, as well. On the other hand, the
Impressionists’ efforts to be free of the limitations of the
naturalistic method of western painting and studio centered
practice was of special interest to Zainul. However, he could
not accept their elimination of the outline of the object in the
one-sidedness of their apparently scientific analysis related to
light-shade-color; or he did not arrive at the very question of
acceptance as he never considered the picture to be solely the
expression of experiences dependent on the sense of vision.
Thus, as he had no particular curiosity about the relation of
light and color or between various colors, likewise the