Page 328 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

FIRST GENERATION ARTIST 325

intaglio methods of etching, engraving,
etc. or by lithography. For this reason
printmaking was taught in the
Commercial Art or Applied Art
Department of the Government Art
School. After joining the Art School as
the Principal, Mukul Chandra
introduced many reforms. It was under
his initiative that printmaking began to
be taught as a subsidiary subject to
painting in the Fine Arts Department.
Mukulchandra engaged the experienced
Ramendranath Chakravorty as a teacher of printmaking as a creative art form. Inspired fig. 8.17 Homeward,
by them Safiuddin learned the techniques of printmakings along with painting. Even in wood engraving, 1944
the mid-twentieth century printmaking was not considered a mainstream medium in this
subcontinent. Even now in the Government Art College of Kolkata (which was a school
at that time) at the Bachelor’s Degree level printmaking is taught as a subsidiary to
painting. The printmaking medium was not at that time among the mainstream media
like painting and sculpture and one of Safiuddin’s greatest achievements is that he
helped raise this discipline of apparently secondary importance by adopting it as the
main medium for his creative works and assisted it to reach a status equal to that of
painting and sculpture. Without doubt he showed great courage by adopting this
discipline of apparently secondary importance as the primary medium of his creative
compositions in the middle of the previous century. Moreover, he inspired many artists
of this subcontinent to use the medium of printmaking. Somnath Hore who is one of the
foremost Indian printmakers was his student.
Ninety years ago in undivided India in 1916 Rabindranath was able to understand the
importance of printmaking and took Mukul Chandra to Japan and the United States as
his traveling companion to practice and learn this discipline, later he sent him to
England for higher education. In 1924 Rabindranath took Surendranath Kar, a teacher
at the Kala Bhavana, as his traveling companion to Europe and Surendranath studied
lithography in England. With Rabindranath’s assistance Bishwarup Bose, a student of
Kala Bhavana went to Japan in 1929 to learn colored woodcut or Japanese Ukiyo-e.
Rabindranath could comprehend the bright future of this discipline even in the early
years of the twentieth century when printmaking was used in Kolkata and in various
other centers of India only for making commercial labels, advertisements etc. He first
sent Mukul Chandra abroad to learn etching and engraving, later Surendranath to learn
lithography, and Bishwarup to learn colored woodcut. White line wood engraving was
taught in the Government Art School of Kolkata following the tradition of Thomas
Bewick of England. In this tradition light and shade was captured in the variations of
engraving the lines, and the world as it appears was shown with as much exactness as
possible. In 1923 the woodcut artist André Karpellès of the expressionist tradition of