Page 9 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

6 ART AND CRAFTS

In the Bengal region the habitation of Paleolithic man is to be found in
Bankura, Purulia and some places in Midnapore. Therefore, there is a
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possibility of finding the earliest specimens of pictorial art in these areas.
However, due to the dearth of hills in the landform of Bengal it is very
difficult to find specimens of cave paintings of stone age man. Yet in 1982
at the place named Laljal in Jhadgram in the Midnapore district there has
been discovered a small cave habitation of new stone age man. On the
wall at the back of this cave, evidence of some faint paintings can be
found. Painting of the bull is to be seen here in light reddish hues. They
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are like other cave paintings of the new stone age. Due to the weather and
other natural causes, these paintings have become very faint.
Ornamented pottery has been found in the rural habitation of the
Chalcolithic age discovered on the bank of the Ajay-Damodar River of
Birbhum and Burdwan districts. Here the pottery is decorated with
geometric designs of various types drawn with whitish color over a layer
of black or red. During the last stages of the Chalcolithic age a profusion
fig. 1.2 Terracotta figure, of decorated pottery was introduced in Bengal. The pottery found in Pandurajar Dhibi
Mahasthangarh, 2nd was made during this period. Geometric designs can be seen in the Chalcolithic
century BC pottery of Bengal. In these designs straight and curved lines of various types, net
patterns, triangles, the swastika and the sun or leaf patterns are noticeable. In some
pottery found in the Pandurajar Dhibi line drawings of fish or birds are also
represented as well as abstract and semiabstract designs. Though the spontaneity of
the painters is noticeable in the style of these pictures, judged comparatively, the
quality cannot be considered to be of the same standard as the ornamented pottery of
the Indus valley of the same type. The ornamentation of the pottery found in Indus is
much more well-ordered and well composed. In the pottery of Bengal of this period,
the absence of the human figure is to be especially noted. Yet in the ornamentation of
western India of the same stage, the human figure is already present.
Just as the history of Bangladesh is indistinct before the Maurya-Sunga stage, likewise
it is difficult to know about the fine arts of that age, especially about the nature and
particulars of painting. Through the terracotta plaques done in low relief discovered
from those times it is possible to get an indirect notion of the artistic skills of the
painters of those times. For instance, the small terracotta plaques from the Sunga age
found in Mahasthangarh and Chandraketugarh is mentionable in this context (fig.1.2).
Other than this there has also been found plaques dating from the last stage of the
Gupta age in Palashbari and Sharalpur of the same Mahasthan region and in some
other places also.
As these terracotta plaques of apparently two-dimensional characteristics were used
for architectural ornamentations, a kind of natural pictorial quality can be noticed in
them. Birds and animals, men and women, imaginary tales and legends, the Ramayana
and Mahabharata were depicted in these plaques. Compared to those of the Gupta