This painting is among the early works of Jamini Roy. Trained in European painting styles in the Government School of Bengal, Roy began his career with realistic oil portraits and post-impressionist landscapes. He produced several paintings in this style from 1905 to 1930s, but his later indigenous bent oeuvre overshadows them. One such painting in… Read more »
Jamini Roy was probably the first artist to depict Christ in an Indian vocabulary. He was looking to test the effectiveness of his bold line and flat colour technique on a subject which was remote from his personal life. Being an orthodox Hindu who had never read the old or new testaments, Roy saw the… Read more »
Storytelling itself has survived centuries of transformation, but Bengal Patuas or Chitrakars are bearers of an ancient storytelling tradition that is fast disappearing
Primarily located in the villages of Bengal’s Midnapore region, the chitrakar community or patuas have been creating exquisite narrative scrolls on handmade paper for generations. These scrolls (or patas) depict stories from various religious myths and local legends. This object, the Manasa pata, is a contemporary take on the traditional scrolls. It uses a largely… Read more »