Page 351 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

348 ART AND CRAFTS

28. In this context Mrinal Ghosh has written, ‘With the growing domination of the British these painting
styles [local painting styles] gradually ceased to exist. The British academic method infiltrated our
country within this vacuum.’[Tranls.], Bingsha Shataker Bharater Chitrakalay Adhunikatar Bibartan,
100.
29. It was stated in the education despatch of the East India Company in the year 1884, ‘Nonecan have a
stronger claim on our attention than . . . education. It is one of our sacred duties to be the means . . .
of conferring upon the natives of India these vast moral and material blessings which flow from the
general diffusion of useful knowledge . . .’ Mrinal Ghosh, Ibid., 102.
30. ‘At that time it was not in practice in Muslim society to work as blacksmiths, potters, carpenters,
weavers, fishermen etc. He (Munshi Ibrahim Khan: 1848-1933) inspired them to achieve self-
sufficiency by learning these professions and established in Mohanganj a multipurpose technical
training center. [Trans.]. D. A. Wahab, op. cit., 159.
31. The history of why and how the court art and folk art of this region came to combine the western
naturalistic method and resulted in the origination of the Dutch-Bengal, French-Bengal, Company Art,
etc. styles the extensively discussed in Tapatiguha Thakurta’s The Making of a New Indian Art, Partha
Mitter’s Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, Asok K. Bhattacharya’s Banglar Chitrakala, Sovon
Som’s Shilpashiksha O Uponibeshik Bharat, and Mrinal Ghosh’s Bingsho Shataker Bharater
Chitrakalay Adhunikatar Bibartan, etc. books.
32. In this context artist Quamrul Hassan has said, ‘The name of Abul Kasem was known in Muslim
society before the artist Zainul Abedin. It can also be said that the artist Abul Kasem was the first
Muslim in those days involved in book illustration.’ [Trans.]. S. A. Huq, Quamrul Hassan: Jiban O
Karma, (Dhaka 1998), 179. It can be learnt from the memoirs written by artist Kazi Abul Kasem that,
when Zainul Abedin was a student of the First Year of Art School, Abul Kasem regularly drew pictures
for Alokmala, Alokmanjari etc. text books. Zainul Smriti, op. cit., 57.
33. D. A. Wahab, op. cit., 3, 171, 461, 556.
34. S. A. Huq, op. cit., 14. Zainul’s own admission on this matter can be found in the article entitled
‘Shilpacharya Zainul Abediner Shange Ekti Shakshatkar,’ by N. Islam in Zainul’s Smriti, op. cit., 103.
35. Nisar Hossain, ‘Chitrakala Bibhager Sekal Ekal,’ in the publication entitled Drawing and Painting
Bibhag, published on the occasion of the 50 anniversary of the Art Institute, (Dhaka 1998).
th
36. P. K. Bose, op. cit., 67-68.
37. In this context Zainul has said, ‘I liked the paintings of the Impressionists best and they influenced me
to a certain extent. I received the gold medal in the Nikhil Bharat [All-India] Painting Exhibition held
in Delhi in the year 1938 for some paintings of the Brahmaputra River, those paintings were in the
Impressionist method.’ [Trans.], N. Islam, op. cit., 29.
38. Sovon Som, op. cit., 92.
39. S. A. Huq, op. cit., 14.
40. Sovon Som, op. cit., 95.
41. Arun Ghose, Art of Bengal 1850-1950, (Calcuta 1997), 31.
42. Gautam Das, Banglay Shilpa Charchar Uttaradhikar, (Kolkata 2000), 93.
43. Loc.cit.
44. M. Ghosh, op. cit., 255.
45. S. Som, op. cit., 95.
46. Ibid., 168.
47. Sunil Kumar Pal, Kichhu Smritikatha Kichhu Shilpabhabna, (Calcutta 1998), 64. The scholarship of
Manindrabhushan Gupta is evidenced in his book entitled Shilpe Bharat O Bahirbharat, (Calcutta 1975).
48. Author’s interview of artist Safiuddin Ahmed, 15 July 2005.
49. In this context Nandalal Bose has said, ‘Previously we painted pictures by reading the satras and the
Puranas. Abanibabu taught as by employing pundits. We got the ideas from books. However, here the
mentor was the natural beauty of the Padma and its interpretation was that of the Visva Kabi [Universal
Poet Rabindranath Tagore] himself.’ [Trans.] Panchanan Mandal, Bharat Shilpi Nandalal, 1st Volume,
(Bolpur 1982), 385.
50. In the years 1921-22 Stella Kramrisch lectured at Santiniketan on Gothic art to Cubism, Mr. Ghosh,
op. cit., 116.
51. Ibid., 229 and Prabir Kumar Debnath, Rabitirthey Bideshi, (Kolkata 2000), 33.