Folk in Modern Art

The Folk in Modern Art
Author(s): SUNEET CHOPRA

Source: India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Monsoon 1990), pp. 63-81
Published by: India International Centre
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Kumar
Sharat
credit:
Photo
The Tree of Knowledge:
by Meera Mukherjee
The Ear Cleaner:
by Nandalal
Bose
SUNEET
CHOPRA
The Folk
in Modern
Art
we witnessed a motley collection of tradi

tional
bards,
mountebanks,
bear-trainers
and
eunuchs
as "Indian cul
hand-clapping
parading
and other
ture" in Washington,
Paris
Moscow,
When
the "festive"
years
capitals of the world during
of Mr Rajiv Gandhi, we had come a long way from the days of that
and cajoled
artists like
He who had coaxed
other Mr Gandhi.
and
connoisseurs
architects
like
Mharte
and
Nandalal
Bose,
Gulati,
to come together, and direct their
the
creative energy towards serving
village people, and accelerating
had
movement.
Whereas
the Mahatma
the success
of the national
of the folk arts like Mukul
Dey
creative people of his time to seek

tried to inspire the most advanced
in the national
out their roots in rural India, and to find inspiration
has
the country, the latter-day
movement
that gripped
approach
world
to
the
of
the
for
rural
India
to
people
gape
brought
pavements
of modernisation"
at the "wonders
open-mouthed
of coca-cola
culture.
faded consumers
Mahatma
Gandhi's
vision
to titillate the world's
and to amuse
the
quite the reverse. He did not wish

India from
He wanted to modernize
was
glitterati.
and he sought the raw material for this
the grass-roots
upwards,
an
In March 1936, when he proposed
from our vast rural land-mass.
with
Lucknow
Con
be
held
the
on rural crafts to
exhibition
along
gress session,
he wrote:
We must see that we don't turn an exhibition into a museum.
Muse
from our economic life

ums of ancient things which have disappeared
have their use and place, but not in our programme which concen
trates on industries and crafts which are capable
The first exhibition
the Lucknow
session
of being revived.1
at
of folk art and rural industry was mounted
and
the
with
Nandalal
Bose
the
of
Congress,
Bose
Nandalal
by
Chaitanya:
of
Birth
SUNEET CHOPRA
architect
/ 67
Mharte
who
taking on the main burden of work. Gandhi,
the
scenes
at
this
took
a
behind
largely
Congress,
special
in the exhibition
and inaugurated
it on 28 March.
He
remained
interest
the artists for:
congratulated
The simply but exquisitely decorated walls done by Nandalal

Bose,
the eminent artist from Santiniketan and his co-workers, who have
tried to represent all the villagers and crafts in simple artistic symbols.
And when you go inside the art gallery, on which Babu Nandalal Bose
his labours for several weeks, you will feel, as I did, like
hours there together.2
has lavished
spending
A few days
to visit the
later, on April 12, he again called on people
that it is "not a spectacular
exhibition, commenting
show, but a kind
that the miracles
of fairyland. But our tastes have been so debased
before our eyes appear
happening
trifles coming from abroad become
like so much
dust
or clay and
of art."3
exquisite
pieces
Gandhi
During the winter of the Faizpur session of the Congress
wanted the exhibition of folk arts and crafts to be the chief attraction.
Nandalal
When
and I know
Gandhi
Bose
was
"I am merely a painter

and, therefore, am not competent,"4
hesitant,
little of architecture
saying,
his objections.
When we examine his instructions
venue
of the Faizpur,
and later, the
the
constructing
he states that while the stress was on what was
Congress,
overruled
for those
Haripura
available
in the rural areas, it was not to be an excuse
for reproducing
for the .electrification
of
In fact, he specifically
called
even though he knew that the villagers would not be able
He appealed
for
for quite some time afterwards.
to get electrification
an innovative approach
to our folk tradition; and in this his choice of
backwardness.
the venue,
Nandalal
This
worked
most appropriate.
out by a student of his, Bon Behari
mills of Ambalal
as chief artist in the Calico
Bose
Ahmedabad
helped
was
is borne
of the Faizpur
with the exhibition
at the time
Nandalal
Bose
Congress,
there.
Ghosh,
who
in
Sarabhai
and
who
had
started with works in the pat (Bengal folk) idiom but after
that he emerged from its influence. He broke with its conventions and
Nandalal
retained only its structure. In this he was very different from Jamini
Roy. Take his masterpiece, The Birth of Chaitanya: the treatment of the
house, the simplified trees, the contrasts, the use of dabs of colour
they are all reminiscent
tions.5
of pat, but it is pat with his own
innova
The Vegetable
Cutter: by Nandalal
Bose
SUNEET CHOPRA
/ 69
Here then, we have the synthesis of folk and modern are that was
to develop
over the decades.
The treatment of the hut and the trees
is that of the Bengal pat, while the general architectural
scheme, of
the walled courtyard and a balcony-like
window
remind one of the
schools
of
miniature
The
Rajasthani
painting.
rough and ready
pointilliste treatment of the sky and other spaces, on the ground, on
the walls,
and even
drapes worn by female

and Orissa.
pat styles of Kalighat
Bon Behari Ghosh describes
the process:
return us to the
figures
The Japanese artist Okakura used to explain our approach by taking

three match-sticks and putting them together as a triangle. Its three
corners represented tradition, the perception of nature and original
ity. They were all together and none could be stressed any more than
the
others.6
Nandalal
takes
each
up
stress
and
explains
its effect on
the
on tradition,
"Art, solely and wholly dependent
process:
stiff." Here we see a break from the past, where both
creative
becomes
tradition
and
patronage
tive and original.

anatomical
Then,
had
prevented
he recommends
construction,
art from becoming

innova
"a thorough knowledge
of
... but not in

form and bodily proportions
of
way." He calls for the comprehension
the European
'academic'
"the totality by way of a detailed analysis,"
stating that "the mind is
It is not an
the artist and not the eye" and that "art is creation.
drained art of its purpose and

as
an
end in itself, he thought of it
As regards originality
meaning.
of the
without its links with tradition and perception
as superficial
around
one.
reality
imitation
of nature."7
He felt imitation
Ghosh, his student, puts it forcefully, "With origi

and
the
as
only aim of art, it tends to lose its seriousness
nality
or a form of lunacy. Originality
is only
becomes
either gimmickry
we
see
that
relative to tradition and perceived
early on
reality."8 So
As Bon Behari
in the development
of modern Indian art, the folk element is essen
it is not the only element nor even the
tial as a part of tradition;
dominant
one.
Certainly
not envisaged.
it is to his
However,
the revival
of folk art as it existed
before
was
training
successful
and
in folk-art
that
Nandalal
Bose
innovative
workthe
his most
Haripura
as
the
In
terms
of
the
use
of
these
wall-decorations,
images
posters.
restriction of material used, including
colour, to locally available
ascribes
70 / India
International
Centre
Quarterly
ochre and chalk, and the use of bold

like lamp-black,
to highlight forms and figures he makes a radical departure
and colleges of his time. He remarks:
from the practice in art-studios
raw materials
strokes
I had once done some practice in Kalighat Patait was after all not a
waste of time. I reaped its fruits at Haripura Congress. What I drew
there was just a playful extension of the Kalighat
Pata.9
If one looks at the panel entitled

being modest.
in
it already a blend of the Kalighat
Cutting the Vegetables, one can see
face
tradition with that of Jain manuscripts
(like the three-quarters
He
is, however,
that gives
the linear
it its three dimensionality).

This becomes
a precursor
of
art of later artists like Bendre, as well as the choice of a
rural figure as the subject-matter

of art. Today, when
are
over
these things might
old,
fifty years
"posters"
But half a century ago, they were definitely
not appear to be unusual.
a radical break with the pastnot
of their technical and
only because
commonplace
the Haripura
formal
were
joined
qualities,
even more
Nandalal
Bengal
Lucknow
but also
that
they led to developments
in artists like Ram Kinkar Baij. He
because
far-reaching
Bose at Santiniketan
from the exhibition
which
and sold his first work outside

his teacher
of the Congress.
Baij's entry into the art world
had
organised
at the
session
Ram Kinkar
adds
a new dimension
in the relationship
of folk-art to modern Indian art. So far it had been
and
middle-class
Indians
who had turned to folk
educated
upper
of changing tastes in the west, or of the stress
move
that gripped
the national
on village crafts and self-reliance
ment from the Swadeshi
period onwards.
art, either as a reflection
School
of the Government
of Mukul Dey, the Principal
Speaking
of Art at Calcutta and the critic Ajit Ghose, Mildred Archer recounts
how
Bengalis
were
among
the first to appreciate
the fact that:
painters such as Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Leger had

reacted against delicacy and refinement. They had ignored perspec
tive, used colour for its own sake or for symbolic purposes and had
freely distorted and modified the human form. They had aimed at
Modern
intense simplifications and had abandoned the natural in favour of the

abstract or the geometric. Their work was seen to carry with it great
prestige and to have created a revolution in European artistic circles.
At the same time it was clear that these artists had been deeply
influenced and fortified by the example of primitive artin particu
lar by that of Negro sculpture.
Primitive and popular
art were at last
SUNEET CHOPRA
/ 71
interest for they appeared to possess many of the qualities admired in

the work of modern painters. Popular painting in Bengal seemed in
this respect no different from Negro sculpture and it was in a mood of

excited patriotism that certain Bengali writers, critics and painters
began to re-appraise Kalighat painting and at the same time to seek
out
and
scrolls
collect
made
another
by
the
and
patuas
distinctive
of rural
form
of village
paintingthe
Bengal.10
it may be true that this shift of interest in the West

devel
may have lent a certain credibility to a movement
it is
the
for
a
number
of
reasons
inside
country,
oping
While
in India was the same as that

difficult to agree that the act movement
in the West. The essential
difference lies in the fact that here were
artists in search
For one
figurative
of their own
there was
thing
in India as there
had
roots, which
never
was
elite. Also,
So they did not

of a narrow English
alive.
except in the case

as we saw in the case of Nandalal
forms were only one element

sort relied,
of the modern
on which
from
of the
for, photographic
art. Folk forms, though
to be rediscovered,
educated
up.
rejection
any
in the West,
was a relative rarity in Indian

representation
had
lost
much
of their vigour, were much
they
need
not dried
wholesale
the developing
a whole
Bose,
Indian
folk
artist
of "tradition"
gamut
of Ellora
the paintings of Ajanta and Bagh, the sculptures
including
of miniature
Mukul
and the many schools
painting.
Finally,
Dey
in 1923, when the Gandhian
returned
to India
movement
was
already in full swing, with its stress on self-reliance
of the village by the urban middle classes.
In fact, an account
came
to Santiniketan
1931)
is illustrative
and rediscovery
by Bon Behari Ghosh of how Ram Kinkar Baij

he was from 1928 to
(and whose room-mate
of this trend:
in 1925. He was of a barber (Nai) family and

his parents served the local Bhadralok in Bankura. Ram Kinkar spent
his childhood among the craftsfolk and was attracted to the potters,
He came to Santiniketan
one of whom let him paint toys, and later even images, for him. Then
came the 1921 movement, and Ram Kinkar was active in it. The
Principal of a local college, Anil Baran Ray, was its leader. His
supporters had got Ram Kinkar to make posters for the movement.
Their quality and sharpness brought him to Baran Ray's notice and he
him to Ramananda
recommended
Chatterjee, editor of the Pravasi,
Santhal Family: Drawing by Nandalal
Bose
SUNSET CHOPRA
who then sent him on to Shantiniketan

We find here, then, a far broader
folk and
modern
with a letter of introduction.
of the
for the intermingling
of
art than any elite process
basis
in Indian
elements
/ 73
With the emergence

of Ram Kinkar
provide.
artist in the mid-thirties, we begin to perceive
of a child of craftsmen into the mainstream
development
could
enlightenment
Baij as a full-fledged
the organic
of modern
between
the folk and
this, the relationship
in India
a
which
could
occur
change
only
undergoes
in this mannera
change that is very different from the metamor
modern
art. With
idiom
in Europe
phosis that modernism
Ram Kinkar's teacher, Nandalal
left us artistic evidence
Ram
entitled
concrete,
Kinkar's
Santhal
has experienced.
Bose, recognized
this, and he has
of it. There is a sketch of his, dated 4 July 1944,
in rough
his masterpiece
Statue, showing
Ram
which
Family,
Kinkar
made
in
1938
at
is art in its natural

aspect that Bose highlights
Santhal family passes by the statue, with the husband
environmenta
carrying the children in baskets, his wife carrying the household
Santiniketan.
The
sketched it
and a dog at their feet. Nandalal
with the Santhals
environment,
walking
by. The
effects on her shoulder,

in his
natural
out of
the ritual deities fashioned
by Santhals
figures resemble
but there the
their contours,
branches
of trees, often following
a people
ends. The figures are monumental,
resemblance
celebrating
not
future. They are modern,
to a larger-than-life
forging ahead
forms vibrate
icons in static poses, but a group whose interrelated
with life like ripples in a pool of water. And the medium
too, direct
concrete, belongs to the modern world. The figures reflect a powerful
zest for life, which
by a number of critics, who

see in it "a style and a body of work that
has been
and
stress its spontaneity
is essentially individualistic,
described
based
and rooted
in his own personality
is a superficial
This, however,
analysis.
Benode
Bihari or of Ram
The joy of life in the work of Nandalal,
Kinkar is not joy in the abstract, like the mask of a Greek drama,
and environment."
without
meaningless
the actor
behind
joy of
In the case
it. It is the concrete
of a people.
in a movement
of self-liberation
participating
the
of
this
of Ram Kinkar, we see
by one of the
depth
joy expressed
of
that the participation
In fact, the failure to understand
oppressed.
was
and Ram Kinkar in the national movement
artists like Nandalal
the social
ous
and historical
creations
emerge
context
in which
is probably
one
their joyous and spontane

of the major reasons
why
Kumar
Sharat
credit:
Photo
He who Saw: Bronze by Meera Mukherjee
SUNEET CHOPRA
/ 75
monumental
works of such intensity are rare, now for joy in the

or from self-gratification
can never be compared
with the
joy of a huge country in the process of liberating itself.
abstract
intense
the artistic expression

of post-independence
could
never again achieve the holism of the artist expression
of
the national
a
number
of
trends
movement,
emerge.
While
These
return to folk idiom
for a far more specific and limited purpose

which may lack the heady days of the late thirties and early forties,
but they are imbued
with different qualities
that give them rele
vance.
Take
the work
of Meera
Who Saw. In terms of size
Kinkar but the similarity is super

has
to
sculptor
integrate herself with her subject
the ancient technique
of the tribal artisans, in this case the
reminds
one of the work
ficial. The
using
Gharuas
Mukherjee,
starting with the bronze He
this monumental
figure of a tribal youth
of Ram
urban
of Bastar.
But that in itself does
not make
it from the craftsmen.

thy or even distinguish
with
arm
behind the head,
one
giant youth,
tradition
her work notewor
It is the attitude
of the
that links him with a
going back to the Mohenjodaro

dancing
girl. Here, just as
Bose's Birth of Chaitanya, there is a blend of the folk and
that places
in a far broader
framework
of
this sculpture
in Nandalal
classical
than the average work of the Gharua craftsmen. In

when she cast her statue of the tribal figure, Meera Mukher
the same path as Ram Kinkarbut
from the
treading
artistic tradition
1965-66,
jee
was
side, as it were.
opposite
This process, begun in the sixties,
(struggle) whose originality reminds
culminated
in a work
one of Ram Kinkar's
Andolan
creations
of the late thirties and early forties.12 The visual image which domi
nates the sculpture
is a tree, sacred to the tribals whose techniques
in herself, a proper symbol for a hallowed
institu
she has ingrained
another
sacred
of fire,
tion. And the students,
element,
tongues
and
devour it. Here we see a reflection of how institutions, hallowed
are devoured
stage of social development,
by the
forces of the future. Such concepts
of the transitory nature of our
them are unhear
institutions and the forces of change transforming
sacred,
at one
dof in the world

of timeless
of craftsman.
images,
then indeed,
they began to inhabit the world

new art is born. If in Ram Kinkar Baij
When
76 / India
International
of five decades
artisan
youth,
Centre
Quarterly
ago we see the awakening

then in Meera
Mukherjee
of modernity
in a rural
see the sharing of a
we
common
reminds
me of
grievance
against society. This sculpture
the
Faiz
Ahmed
Faiz
told
me
about
the
nature
of his
something
poet
verse: that it was to give voice to those without a voice. So, Meera
the language
of the oppressed
and
sculpture
speaks
but what she says is something
the traditional
down-trodden;
craftsman cannot say, and there lies its originality. Folk art serves as
Mukherjee's
in her work; while for Ram Kinkar Baij it was a figure of

a language
We
have come a long way from the thirties, forties and fifties.
speech.
In the Indian context today, the variations
however
have vastly
the field of the possible relation
in the canvases
art. We find, for example,
increased
at us from works
folk symbols starings

of the context of folk art. Take
between
folk and modern
of Francis
Newton
Souza,
that are a profound

negation
of 1984, Tivo Men and
his canvas
modelled
on
Pregnant Women. The figure of the woman is obviously
the clay figurines of the mother-goddess
used as ritual objects in the
prehistoric past and in village India today. Indeed, if one compares
the figure of the pregnant
the same year, one realises
woman
with that of Prakriti/Yoni,
that the folk figurines
also
of
were the prototype
for both of these.

In Souza's
highlight
enshrined
function. They
work, however,
they serve another
the values he stresses and those
the disjunction
between
in our traditional art. The female figure with two residual
but strike one as a powerful antithesis of the traditional

it is
of Vishnu with his two consorts. Consequently,
representation
men cannot
to the doctrine of male supremacy

so deeply ingrained
a challenge
in the traditional
hindu life-style. This view point is brought out
even more forcefully in his reply, in 1985, to the question of Jamshed
mean something
to you?" Obviously
"Does Christianity
to
burden
his
to
many portrayals of Christ
trying
negate any attempt
is prejudice
and
with a religious
aura, he firmly states: "Religion
induced
malice
and
As
is
a
by
ignorance."13
misjudgement
prejudice
J. Bhabha:
between
the
tries to create a disjunction
and
the
ritual
in
their
existence
day-to-day
worshippers
Souza
uses the symbols and structures
and
its
sacred
context,
object
of the sacred to highlight the profane. Here, the forms of folk art
distinct
from ritual, which
human
life. They are,

as the very antithesis of their role in traditional
modern. In fact,
in the work of Souza, distinctly and self-consciously
serve
SUNEET CHOPRA
Souza's
iconoclasm
has
a rare force which
few have
been
/ 77
able
to
equal.
A similar
is
and less self-conscious,
trend, only far more evasive
in the work of another Bombay artist, Bhupen Khakhar,
work was described
to me by the poet Asad Zaidi as "urban
discernible
whose
folk". The raw material
of his paintings are the images of small town

in India. For example,
in his canvas The Deity, the figure of the god
is recognizably
that of the Nathdwara
as is the colour
paintings,
scheme.
The curtain in front of the deity reminds
one of those in
Persian
or Mughal
and the figures seem to have walked

But it would be a great mistake to reduce
miniatures,
out of Kalighat paintings.

the totality of the effect to disparate
origins of each of these images.
Here, folk forms function in relation to contemporary
trends, as a
contrast
and
a starting point for a journey

that folk art never
Khakhar
himself describes
the myriad possibilities
that
envisaged.
he can realise at any one time, a range no folk artist can possibly boast
of.
In the room, there's the curtain. The curtain moves because of the
wind. There are folds in the curtain, and where the folds come forth
clearly, they are of 'life colour'. How can one paint the curtain? If the
curtain were painted with great care and precision it would look like
a Persian or Mughal miniature. If painted with spontaneity it would
remind one of Matisse. .. If the colour of the curtain is dark I would
paint it in a dark light, and the inside left-out white portion would look
like a Kalighat painting. But if it is painted like a stone then it would
remind one of Leger... I see the pattern of the cloth, one is reminded
of Grandma
Mase or Henri Rousseau.
The curtain moves like a cloud.
It reminds me of Gericault's
painting 'Rafts in the Ocean' or a Renoir

with
her
clothes
like a fish in the ocean. In my
running
the
one-tenth
of the whole...14
curtain
painting,
occupies only
woman
Other artists, like K.G. Subramanyan

have taken up the narrative
of the pats; but here too, the resemblance
is purely formal.
The pats deal with epics having a ritual content, with origin myths
tradition
and
with
rites of passage.
On
mocks
the other
the rituals
hand,
in his "narrative"
of middle
class life, as in
paintings, Subramanyan
his Reverie of an Army Officer's Wife. Here, the folk narrative is but one
aspect of a complex
language
incorporating
the talk of the street, the village wag's dialogue with its puns and turns
of phrase, the story-teller's narrative, the folk song and ballad, to the
Spaceman:
Acrylic by Narinder Pal Singh
SUNEET CHOPRA
of a sophisticated
compositions
poet with its areas
mystery and the loaded enunciations of a philosopher;
and
richness
expression,
a mere
on
depends
a simultaneous
of clarity and
its life content
of various
presence
/ 79
levels
of
their continual intersection saving the higher levels from
linguistic
virtuosity
and
the
lower
from
crassness.15
the linguistic metaphor

used by Subramanyan
reflects the
same situation described
by Bhupen Khakhar. The folk is merely one
level of a multi-layered
discourse
that covers a modern canvas.
Here,
All these approaches

but go
the folk images, use them as points

to more sophisticated
levels
beyond
of the place of a particular
in the
discourse
explore
of reference,
them
a knowledge
involving
of
art, a comprehension
history
of society, philosophy,
and a famili
concerns
of modern
art. Obviously,
such a
to achieve;
all too often, forays into the folk
arity with
the global
is
not easy
synthesis
idiom result in unimaginative
works
are distinct
and repetitive
"airport art". Such
from those with a genuinely
modern perspective,
is from The West Side Story'.
as street language
Of course,
changing
selective
synthesis
movement
national
times
too
have
of the folk element

and
contributed
in modern
its institutions
have
to this new,
Indian
art. The
much
of their
lost
but equally engrossing

social movements
glitter, and less pervasive
of
have taken their place. There is woman's
art, using the language
the nursery as in the work of Madhavi
Parekh. Or equally feminine
concerns
of Arpita
women.
Modern
respecter
Nawada
in the manner of a chamba rumal as in the work

presented
that was traditionally
used by
Singh, both using a language
art, however,
with its iconoclasm
and
irreverence,
We find a young artist, Narendra

in Bihar, who uses the language
traditionally
of tradition.
is no
Pal Singh
restricted
of
to
women's
and applique
work. Not only is his perspec
wall-paintings
tive very differentbut
his choice of themes too has no parallel in
the annals of folk art. He is not given to georgics
like the earlier
He depicts women cooped

up in
or
a
man
and
woman
darkness,
grinding corn;
young
reaching out
to each other across the colourful but well-defined
divisions
of rural
artists, Bendre,
Rawal
or Chavda.
society; or a rural youth, not herding cattle or resting under a tree,

but breaking out of the strait-jacket of patriarchal
authoritarianism.
Narendra
Pal Singh's most powerful
is that
however,
metaphor,
in a field. His
of the Spaceman: ironically, in this case, a scare-crow
80 / India
International
Centre
Quarterly
in the works of
irony reminds one of the same emotion
expressed
other artists who have integrated the folk tradition in their paintings,
this
and Jogen Chaudhuri.
He integrates
like K.G. Subramanyan
with the metaphor of the space-flight so much a part of the twenty
first century scenario
that was being touted by trendy political ad
vertisersbut
he deflates it quitely by giving us the image of a scare
The image reflects both the urge of the
crow flying in an air-balloon.
rural young to free themselves
the same time, their physical
of an oppressive
environment,
to
do
so.
incapacity
and at
It is the full-throated
Here we find folk art serving a new purpose.
which
cry of our rural masses to be liberated from the fake-paradise
the
had
thrust
on
them.
Their
is
the artists of
aggression
past
reflected
nature,
in bright colours
be it in male birds
in breaking
or poisonous
the age-old barriers which insult the art of the oppressed
it the vehicle of general discontent
and the desire for a
by making
better world.
against
the warning systems of

plants; and their ingenuity
that characterize
social
Yet,
while
limitations,
he
his
discontent
and
anger
and backwardness,
he also
oppression
for
able to transmit concepts unthinkable
expresses
his joy in being

expresses
the traditional folk. It is this joy that brings an irrepressible
to his work.
buoyance
or so of modern
Today, when we look back at the last five decades
that
Indian art, it is evident that the broadbased
liberating passion
is no longer there; but many different
a whole
gripped
people
streams
have taken
struggles
to voice these concerns
of emancipatory
It is in
its place.
that our multiple
role, and found
a proper language
a powerful
folk-traditions
have played
regional
culture. In a sense,
themselves
a new lease of life in our present-day
suited to this purpose, being so varied that each
they are admirably
finding
artist can find his own
while liberating
of expression,
restraints. So, while the folk-idiom
mode
from their local
these
pro
artist with plenty of raw material for originality,
in its
which it never possessed
he in turn gives it a universality
traditional
confines.
languages
vides our modern
References
1.
Tendulkar,
D.G.
2.
Tendulkar,
op. cit., pp.
Mahatma,
Vol.
IV, 1952,
p. 68.
82-83.
SUNEET CHOPRA
3.
Tendulkar,
4.
Tendulkar,
5.
Interview
6.
Interview.
7.
Bose,
8.
Interview.
9.
Bose,
/ 81
op. cit., p. 84.

op. cit., p. 133 seg.
with
Nandalal,
Nandalal,
the artist.
Catalogue
to the Exhibition.
Catalogue
to the Exhibition.
10. Archer, Mildred, Indian Popular Painting in the India Office Library, 1978, p. 2.
11.
Interview.
12.
Sen, Geeti,
"The
p. 78.
13.
Image
and
Interview
in East-West
14.
Interview
in op. cit., p. 115.
15.
Subramanyan,
K.G.,
p. 69.
the Imagination",
Visual
The Living
Arts Encounter,
Tradition:
IIC
Quarterly,
Marg
Perspectives
Vol.
13, No.
Publications,
on Modern
1987,
Indian
1,1986,
p. 32.
Art, 1987,
Illustrations
1.
Nandalal
Bose
(Catalogue),
2.
Nandalal
Bose
(Catalogue),
3.
Nandalal
Bose
(Catalogue),
4.
Nandalal
Bose
(Catalogue),
He who saw.
5.
Meera
6.
Narendra
Mukherjee
Pal Singh
Ear Cleaner,
Haripura
Birth of Chaitanya.
Panel.
Cutter, Haripura
Vegetable
Raw Kinkar's
Statue
Spaceman
Panel

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The Folk in Modern Art

Author(s): SUNEET CHOPRA

The Tree of Knowledge:

The Ear Cleaner:

we witnessed a motley collection of tradi

creative people of his time to seek

to titillate the world's

quite the reverse. He did not wish

We must see that we don't turn an exhibition into a museum.

from our economic life

the artists for:

The simply but exquisitely decorated walls done by Nandalal

"I am merely a painter

in the rural areas, it was not to be an excuse

of pat, but it is pat with his own

drapes worn by female

The Japanese artist Okakura used to explain our approach by taking

tive and original.

art from becoming

... but not in

drained art of its purpose and

Ghosh, his student, puts it forcefully, "With origi

of folk art as it existed

ochre and chalk, and the use of bold

If one looks at the panel entitled

it its three dimensionality).

rural figure as the subject-matter

from the exhibition

and sold his first work outside

the first to appreciate

the fact that:

painters such as Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Leger had

intense simplifications and had abandoned the natural in favour of the

Primitive and popular

art were at last

interest for they appeared to possess many of the qualities admired in

this respect no different from Negro sculpture and it was in a mood of

it may be true that this shift of interest in the West

in India was the same as that

So they did not

except in the case

forms were only one element

was a relative rarity in Indian

by Bon Behari Ghosh of how Ram Kinkar Baij

in 1925. He was of a barber (Nai) family and

Santhal Family: Drawing by Nandalal

who then sent him on to Shantiniketan

with a letter of introduction.

With the emergence

is art in its natural

effects on her shoulder,

by a number of critics, who

in his own personality

it. It is the concrete

their joyous and spontane

He who Saw: Bronze by Meera Mukherjee

works of such intensity are rare, now for joy in the

the artistic expression

return to folk idiom

for a far more specific and limited purpose

Who Saw. In terms of size

Kinkar but the similarity is super

one of the work