Category: Essay

Sumantra Sengupta – A Journey Away From Humanism Indira Lakshmi Prasad Having recently exhibited work in New Delhi at Art Konsult, as part of the exhibition ‘Contrabanned’ Sumantra Sengupta’s latest series of works titled ‘Hahakar’ explores the loaded issue of India’s involvement in the First World War. For Sumantra Sengupta, the fascination with WWI began […]

The History of Durga Puja in Barak Valley, Assam Shanku Sharma (Translated from Dr. amalendu Bhattacharjee’s Article in Bengali) The origin of Durga Puja in Silchar may not be known but the essence of celebrating the festival remains intact. This annual Hindu or Bengali Hindu festival is one of the most important. Generally observed in […]

Durga Puja Images and Pandals of Silchar: Storyteller of Tradition, Socio-Culture and Aesthetics Dr. Meghali Goswami "Durga Puja, however, goes far beyond religious gathering of a particular religion, or community. In fact, visiting the Pandals in recent years, one can only say that Durga Puja is one of the largest outdoor art festivals. In the […]

Panpatti: ‘KumarTuli’ of Silchar, Bearing Century old idol making Tradition Dr. Ganesh Nandi "More than hundreds of years back many idol makers used to come to Panpatti from various districts of present Bangladesh to work and they supplied idols to the Silchar people. They used to return back during the off season. But after the […]

Shakti the devine power.. Satarupa Das "the Navapatrika or Kolabou is a form of Durga, which symbolizes all the aspects of nature in a complex vegetative state. Autumn or Sarad-writu was also the season for crops and the peasants worshiped the Navapatrika for a rich and bountiful harvest." Durga Puja is ten-day event, of which […]

The Durga Puja Pandal: Centre Stage of Festivities and Creative Energies Mallika Chakrawarti A week back, the rain-bearing clouds which hovered over Delhi gave way to resplendent sunshine. The haze brought on by monsoons seemed to have lifted, and my mother made a significant remark on this fresh development. “Pujo is not too far away. […]

SADANAND BAKRE: INDIA’S ELUSIVE MODERNIST PAINTER & SCULPTOR MALLIKA CHAKRAWARTI In newspaper records, Sadanand Bakre is described as a ‘reclusive’ painter who spent his last days in his quaint, Ratnagiri home, alone and friendless. ‘Elusive’ would be more befitting an adjective to describe the persona of the internationally famed, painter and sculptor. Bakre was born […]

Reclaiming The Maternal And Questioning The Norms Of Representation Of Motherhood In Contemporary Indian Art By The Women Art Practitioners Dr. Aparna Roy Baliga I would like to start with the key concepts which the paper is centredon, of experiences of embodiment of the maternal body, the representations of motherhood by the male artists and […]

Re-positioning The Notion Of The ‘regional Modern’ H.a. Anil Kumar (Reflections on the claim for ‘Regional Modern’ in contemporary times. This was initially presented in the Panel Discussion held as part of the ‘Madras Art Movement’ show at NGMA, Bengaluru, 2017, alongside Prof. Parul Dave, Dr. Ashrafi Bhagath and Kavitha Balakrishnan) "In a recent official […]

Of home and the world: A brief discussion on rani chanda (1912-1997) Dr. Aparna Roy Baliga From its very inception Kala-Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan enrolled female students. Girls from elite families found safe shelter in Santiniketan. Mr B W Tucker writes in Visva Bharati News—-‘One of the most striking aspects of Modern India is the rapidly […]

Of Standing Open and Polysemy The Works of Anandajit Ray Dr. Aparna Roy Baliga He unmasks, undoes the body as a mere accident, an accident that was construed easily and undone too. The trousers without the legs are perched on the railing, the wrist with watch bands and the bleeding socks through the absence of […]

Curator’s Perspective A Kochi Muziris Biennale Collateral Tanya Abraham I have taken back much more than I have given to the custodial work last year. The collateral projects of the Kochi Muziris Biennale by Kashi Art Gallery helped me experiment, and offered me the conviction of the power of the arts to move beyond boundaries, […]

Popularizing Phulkari Through The Indian Fashion Industry Rajinder Kaur India is a land of multiple traditional textiles which show the creativity and expression of various regional artists. The regional and cultural diversity of every place can be easily noticed in their unique style of costume and accessories.Phulkari is a traditional art form of embroidery which […]

Giotto di Bondone:The Scrovegni Chapel Padua Lina Vincent Sunish Giotto had previously worked for the Franciscan friars. The chapel was to serve as the family’s private oratory and as a funerary monument for Enrico and his wife. According to records, it was first consecrated on 25 March 1303, Giotto’s work falling into the period from […]

Journey of The Light in Art History: Mystical, Material, Spiritual, Capricious Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat Light and colour hence offered the aesthetics of beauty as radiance and clarity. For the medieval philosophers,metaphysically the notion of light was centered in the belief that God was Light; and hence the incorporeal light for the Christians was God’s […]

Sculpture is frozen music: Sushen Ghosh Sutanu Chatterjee “Sculpture is frozen music”. To comment on his works states sculptor Sushen Ghosh. Not only that through his sculptures he has embodied the music in a true sense or to say he could have said it because he has worked a lot. Those which are attractive among […]

Artistic Inheritance Dr. Seema Bhalla Art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows beauty, that has music in its soul and the colour of sunset in its handkerchief, that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance too. W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) And it is a few […]

The Black Pottery of Nizamabad Anshu Ahuja the exquisite craft of Black pottery of Nizamabad at the Museum of Indian Terracotta in Sanskriti Kala Kendra, Delhi. Thereupon, I planned a visit to this pottery cluster in Azamgarh district of Uttarpradesh. Upon visiting Nizamabad, I was mesmerized by the magic of black pottery. Also, the life […]

Heritage Conservation- The Church Of Santa Monica Goa: A Case Study Lina Vincent Sunish The Museum management, aware of the deteriorating condition of the 450 year old chapel due to climate conditions and neglect, worked on creating a project proposal to conserve the space and bring it back as close as possible to its original […]

Amina Ahmad Kar a forgotten name from international modernism in Bengal Aparna Roy Baliga When one starts research on women artists from Bengal, the name which familiarizes the work of one of the earliest woman artist, Sunayani Devi with the readers is Amina Ahmed Kar who remained unuttered in most of the discussions on the […]

Dhiraj Looking Back Dhiraj Choudhury I landed at the Mexico City airport on the day of my 80th birthday, April 1st 2016. I had left for Tampa airport from Seminole in Florida early in the morning, changing my flight from Miami, where I had to get down in the middle. I was pretty confused as […]

Najmi Sura – Remembrance of Things Past Edward Lucie-Smith In her new series of paintings, Najmi Sura evokes the court life of the Indian subcontinent that was ruled by the Mughal emperors. ‘Ruled by’ is, of course an inexact description. In the days of Mughal sway the Indian subcontinent was divided into a multitude of […]

Riten Mazumdar : Designing New Aesthetics Ushmita Sahu In the decades following Independence, India witnessed the rise of a collective consciousness of modernist agenda in design inspired by nationalist cultural and economic policies adopted by the new government. An innovative breed of post-colonial designers were engaged in changing the idiom of contemporary design based on […]

Revisiting the art of F. N. Souza: Dadaistic Perspectives in the Portrayal of Women Mandakini Sharma History of painting has numerous movements and isms, which contribute significantly in the arrival of modern art. Of all, Dadaism movement, which started in Zurich (Switzerland) in early 20th century, has carried a powerful fellowship, which is adopted by […]

Geometrical patterns as work of folk art in Haryana -a sub regional study Ranbir Singh Patterns created in geometrical forms that became part of the folklore of the village communities settled long ago in various sub-regions of modern Haryana –a north Indian State of India, survived only because they became essential to observance of rituals. […]

Interior Monologues : Surendran Nair Uma Nair It was in September 2000 that Surendran Nair hit headlines for a brilliant work entitled “An actor rehearsing the interior monologue of Icarus”. This work was part of a curated show at NGMA called `Combine’. While the government threw up a tirade and withdrew his work for having […]

Bhimbetka- A Journey From Pre-Historic Socio-Cultural Habitat To A World Heritage Entity Apurva Sinha “Like a painted wall falsely delighting the mind” – Maitri Upanishad On 24th November, Google celebrated the 41st anniversary of the discovery of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) the first hominid discovered in Ethiopia that throws light on the birth of civilisation. Not […]

Of Fibre Deities And Many Voiced Design: Mrinalini Mukherjee Aparna Roy Baliga Women as sculptors did not get the required visibility. The physical act of sculpting was mostly thought as that which belonged to the men, and the names of women sculpting were hardly found. Mrinalini Mukherjee’s journey as a sculptor started while she was […]

Vaishnava Moorings-A speculative thought rendered through the sculptures of Udayagiri Hills, Vidisa, Madhya Pradesh Apurva Sinha The ancient city of Vidisa (Vaishyanagar) or ‘Vedisgiri’’, popular for many aeons is credited for the nascence of Vaishnava edifices. Located at the confluence of river Betwa & Bes, in the ancient times it was a junction point of […]

An Unforgettable Chapter in Indian Art: Kshitindranath Majumder Anindya Kanti Biswas Abdur Rahaman Chughtai is the greatest artist till now in Pakistan. Young Kshitindranath again returned to Allahabad town after completion of art education in Govt. Art School. The highest post of Fine Arts in Allahabad University was held by him. He literally followed through […]

Tryst of Contemporary with Tradition Seema Bhalla Art,essentially, is the product of its times and surroundings, assimilating in its fold the contemporary circumstances. To this, as an unwritten rule, Indian Art is not an exception. The highly sophisticated form of paintings in the caves of Ajanta (3rd B.C. to 6th A.D.), comes across as the […]

The Enigma of THE Bhojpur Temple Open roofed sanctum or a disproportionate Temple – historical riddle Apurva Sinha The Paramara dynasty, like the other Rajput dynasties, originated from the ‘Agnikunda’, and ruled for almost four centuries over the region north of Narmada, anciently known as Avanti or the kingdom of Ujjain . The dynasty was […]

Santiniketan architecture in the context of the colonial and the national: A discussion on few ornamentations Aparna Roy Baliga Nationalism in India differed from European nationalism because the former was born out of a struggle with the latter. An external challenge and threat was thus its first defining feature. Its second defining feature being the […]

SHIFTING PARADI GM: Looking at the Anxious Indian Visual H.A. Anil Kumar One should be ‘watch’ful about seeing; and more so about how it is ‘getting’ altered, because, if it is (as and when) relocated, there must be a reason other than spontaneity, to make it seem genuine. ‘How is it’ is more politically appropriated […]