The dominant narrative of the modern and contemporary Indian art has largely been partial to art scenes unfolding in the cities located in north India like Delhi, Mumbai, Baroda, Bhopal and Kolkata, among others.
There is another trajectory of modernism that played itself out with Madras as its epicenter, the very city which had housed one of four art schools under the aegis of colonial art patronage. Positing an are of allinity between the two moments- one that belonged to the late 19th century when Madras School of Arts and Crafts thrived and the other - Madras Art Movement that broke new grounds in the history of modernism in India during the 1960s, Ashrali Bhagat offers a more contextual account of the south Indian modern.
Drawing our attention to another geography of modern Indian art, Bhagat evolves a narrative in which Madras Art Movement has a centrality, as this region with its history of the colonial art school, had served the needs of other states in South India like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
In the historiography of modern Indian art, the narrative of the national modern has asserted its dominance by distancing itself between the Euro-American modernism on grounds of non-derivativeness. In these dialectics, the history of the south Indian modern has received a short shrift treatment and the protest against which has resulted in the ascendency of the "Regional Modern"; the assertion that modernisms that emerged outside the north Indian axis are equally valid, if not more, on the very grounds that the national modern had stood upon and derived its authenticity from: i.e. of cultural specificity, originality and of course, non-derivativeness. If the embrace of the figurative marked an important postcolonial move in 1980s in the history of the national modern, the regional modern in the South, has been less divided along the figurative/abstraction register, often the same artist may pass through them as different stages in her or his career.
More crucially, the regional modern makes a more compelling claim about being able to distinguish itself on stylistic grounds on the one hand, and on its content on the other. If inclination towards the decorative characterizes its formal language, traditional myths and local knowledge inform its content. Far from being insular, the modernism that evolved emerged out of conversations with the western modern: K. C. S. Paniker's move, as for example towards nativism and his adoption of signs and symbols from local context was, to a large extent, governed by critical response he received from an art critic in London.
"At the root of modern art lay an infinitely creative relationship with the past. Complex processes drive radical innovations in art and looking with fresh artistic eyes into the past is a vital component of a leap into the future". Robert Rosenblum.
The Madras Art Movement was a regional phenomenon, which began forming its special characteristic from mid 1950s in initiating search for authenticity in modernism rooted in its region's cultural heritage.
The Madras School of Arts and Crafts la colonial period established art institution became the locus for the emergence of this movement in the South in the 1960s. The configuration of the art movement had been initiated under the tenure of D.P. Roy Chowdhury the first Indian artist principal [1930-1957] who had laid emphasis on the development of fine arts curriculum, put forth an empirical and perceptual approach to art making and axed the colonial pedantry of human form study based on regurgitated classical statuary. These were considered sweeping innovations, since the school's curriculum had privileged craft teaching until the date of Roy Chowdhary's appointment as administrative head in 1930. Roy Chowdhury charting a trajectory that would lead to the development and growth of potential artists was critical for the school. These ideas in the 1950s were extended by K.C.S. Paniker who as the next administrative head brought in a study of modernist expression of European masters. The pedagogy subscribed to by Paniker opened avenues for technical and expressive creative explorations that became the hallmark of the school contributing towards the progressive development of the art movement in Madras.
The forces gathering momentum for the development of modern art movement in South, particularly post-Independence, could be related/ascribed to certain contingent factors prevailing within the country. This was the demand for 'authenticity' in its visual language leading to 'construction' of an Indian identity. The thrust towards this could largely be directed at hegemonic internationalism necessitating the change in adopting a posture of difference by Indian artists to reduce similarities with post painterly abstraction practiced by majority of them in late 1950s. Paniker who cleverly melded western modernist stylistic innovations with the cultural traditions of Indian arts and crafts largely met the exigency of the moment. A cultural agenda during the 1950s and 1960s was thus predicated on the notion of authenticity, a move to revalidate the pre-colonial artistic traditions that British imperialism had disrupted and made invisible. This validation of tradition had earlier manifested in the nationalist agenda when politics and culture had sought one another to disrupt imperialist hegemony. Again, post Independent in the 1960s, traditions had to be renegotiated as a response to Internationalism of the 1950s and a growing concern over the question of Indian identity.
Initially the avowed internationalism practiced by the artists of the 1950s had become problematic and gradually a consciousness had developed amongst them and the intelligentsia, consequent to the consolidation of Third World realities. The consciousness encouraged an artistic response to read tradition to make claims of authenticity - cultural, regional and national via the modernist notions of subjectivity as in creative freedom. In this respect indigenism or going back to tradition and one's roots was seen as emerging against a broader backdrop, when the question of identity assumed importance in the 1960s. Tradition assumed a new meaning and the regional/local sources were mined for creative expressions. In exploring vernacular art forms, it was considered the artist's prerogative to understand an inheritance that offered inspiration for expressions and styles. Thus, modern Indian art as it developed from its nationalist phase into the post-independent stage went through dynamic and radical changes.
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist