Art and Nation Building in Colonial India
ART and NATION BUILDING in COLONIAL INDIA
Introduction In nineteenth century India, national art had the same status as national demands: it seemed condemned to be a deceived aspiration. The colonial encounter had indeed this effect that it submitted Indian culture to the judgment of Western colonizers; and the result was a strong depreciation of Indian past and present art. To the eyes of the colonizer, the artistic tradition in India was indeed a tradition of repetition, lacking creativity and individual expression. The first step of nationalism was hence the recovery of a cultural integrity and the valorization of Indian art. Reestablishing the link between past, present and desired future was necessary. “The past, writes Tapati Guha-Thakurta in Monuments, Objects, Histories, Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India, as a symbol of the nation’s autonomous history and civilizational lineage, had to prepare the way for a present where tradition and modernized knowledge would together frame a new national self.” This essay will focus on the role of art in nation building during the colonial period in India. The point that will be developed here is that art was used, first to recover a national self, and then to differentiate this national self from the colonial culture. It will be divided according to the plan displayed on the following page.
I) The development of art as a national pride: 1850-1900s.
A. Rehabilitating Indian art: a national art history.
* The museum as a celebration of Indian ancient culture. * The first Bengali art history.
B. Regenerating high art through westernization.
* Artistic education and western standards. * A new high art and the example of Raja Ravi Varma.
C. Painting for the nation.
* History paintings. * Popular paintings.
II) The reconstitution of a national aesthetics: the Bengal school
Introduction In nineteenth century India, national art had the same status as national demands: it seemed condemned to be a deceived aspiration. The colonial encounter had indeed this effect that it submitted Indian culture to the judgment of Western colonizers; and the result was a strong depreciation of Indian past and present art. To the eyes of the colonizer, the artistic tradition in India was indeed a tradition of repetition, lacking creativity and individual expression. The first step of nationalism was hence the recovery of a cultural integrity and the valorization of Indian art. Reestablishing the link between past, present and desired future was necessary. “The past, writes Tapati Guha-Thakurta in Monuments, Objects, Histories, Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India, as a symbol of the nation’s autonomous history and civilizational lineage, had to prepare the way for a present where tradition and modernized knowledge would together frame a new national self.” This essay will focus on the role of art in nation building during the colonial period in India. The point that will be developed here is that art was used, first to recover a national self, and then to differentiate this national self from the colonial culture. It will be divided according to the plan displayed on the following page.
I) The development of art as a national pride: 1850-1900s.
A. Rehabilitating Indian art: a national art history.
* The museum as a celebration of Indian ancient culture. * The first Bengali art history.
B. Regenerating high art through westernization.
* Artistic education and western standards. * A new high art and the example of Raja Ravi Varma.
C. Painting for the nation.
* History paintings. * Popular paintings.
II) The reconstitution of a national aesthetics: the Bengal school
References: Main sources: GUHA-THAKURTA Tapati, Monuments, Objects, Histories, Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India, Permanent Black, 2004. MITTER Partha, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922, Occidental orientations, CUP, 2004. Additional sources: BANERJI Debashish, The alternate nation of Abanindranath Tagore, Sage Publicaitons, 2010. GUHA-THAKURTA Tapati, “Nationalism and Modernism in Indian Art: Cameos of an early regional history”, series of lectures, January 2009. SUBRAMANYAN K. G., “Benode Behari Mukherjee and his More than Oriental Splendor”, Take on Art Magazine, Issue 03, July-October 2010.