Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

With the strengthening of the British control in India, creative Indian art suffered a setback. The English engaged Indian artists to paint landscapes in water and oil colour, resulting in loss of originality. Soon the political wave hit the country and what came about was the famous Bengal (revivalist) School. The pioneers of this school were ace painters like Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Nandlal Bose. They contributed a lot in re-shaping the Indian art and motivating others for the same. Abanindranath specialised in portraiture, Gaganendranath in cartoonist-critic of social and political mishappenings of that time and Nandlal was an expert in painting epic themes and later graduated to explore Asian art. However, nationalism witnessed some of the painters move towards folklore. Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize winner) gave a charter for free variations on naturalism, abstraction and expressionism. Today, India has a host of world famous painters like Jamini Roy (discovered the virility of the folk tradition and modulated it in many ways), Amrita Sher-Gill (integrated the pictorial idiom of the west and an Indian vision), Binod Mukherjee and Ram Kinkar. New genres of painters who have invaded the old space are M.F Hussain, Krishnan Khanna and Satish Gujral.

Source : India Portal