Kalighat Painting

Kalighat Painting
@Asim Deb

Kalighat Painting evolved in the 19th century at Kalighat area of Kolkata. Characterised by its bright colours and bold outlines with sweeping brush strokes and strong lines, it became a unique class of Indian painting. Initially from the depiction of Gods and other mythological character, these paintings were originally intended to be souvenirs for devotees visiting the Kali temple and featured mainly Hindu Gods & Goddess, later the art expanded over time to include other religious traditions as well as socio-political commentary.

“The drawing is made with one long bold sweep of the brush in which not the faintest suspicion of even a momentary indecision, not the slightest tremor, can be detected. Often the line takes in the whole figure in such a way that it defies you to say where the artist’s brush first touched the paper or where it finished its work…”

As the Kalighat paintings were undated, unsigned and drawn by so many individuals, the names of most artists remain unknown. The last well-known Kalighat artists, Nibaran Chandra Ghosh and Kali Charan Ghosh, passed away in 1930, but Kalighat paintings influenced subsequent generations of Indian artists, most notably Jamini Roy, and more recently the Midnapore-based contemporary artist Uttam Chitrakar. However, the artists, known as ‘Patuas’ had to produce and sale their works of art at a very cheap rate to make a living.

Origins of Kalighat Painting
From the late 17th century, when the place was a part of the city of Kolkata, it was already known as the sacred realm of Hindu Goddess Kali. By early 19th century, the temple was a popular destination for local people, pilgrims and many European visitors. Slowly Kolkata developed into a busy and thriving industrial harbour city, migrants began arriving looking for new opportunities. Artisans, craftsmen and painters from various places of India, including Patuas, an artisan community of West Bengal.

The Patuas traditionally described long narrative stories in the form of painting, and often these were over 20 feet in length. However, being influenced by the different other art forms and to present a work in quick time, the Patuas abandoned their traditional narrative style in favour of single pictures with minimum figures, and using most basic combinations of colours. They could get imported cheaper readymade paints and papers from Britain. So, the paintings were easily made on mill-paper treated with a paste of lime, on which watercolours were dabbed using a large brush or a rag. The pigments used were derived from available sources like black from lampblack, red from lead, yellow from arsenic and blue from indigo. Black outline was drawn using a pencil or a brush made from squirrel or goat hair, after which paint was reapplied to the edges that needed shading.

Some of the colours were also made of indigenous ingredients, for example yellow from turmeric root, blue was made from petals of Aparajita flower, and black was produced from common shoot by burning an oil lamp under a pot. Silvery and golden colours were also used for ornamentation. Artists used colloidal tin extensively as a substitute of silver to embellish their paintings and replicate the surface effects of jewels and pearls. Along with the colours, gum of Bel fruit or crushed tamarind seeds was used as binder.

In the beginning Kalighat paintings portrayed Hindu Gods and Goddess mostly worshipped by the Bengali community, and also the life of Krishna, Ramayana and Mahabharata. As the Kalighat style gained popularity, groups other than the Patuas took up the profession. Mid 19th century onwards, the paintings began with themes of contemporary, and satirical subjects, socio-cultural and political themes, ranging from freedom fighters Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, and Tipu Sultan, to themes as courtesan culture, domestic pets, horse racing, wrestling, among others. The rise of ‘Babu culture’ in late eighteenth century was well envisaged sarcastically by the Patuas. Also the upper class Indian husbands cowering before their wives, possibly as opportune references to Durga or Kali.

In 1873, following an affair between Nabinchandra Banerji’s young wife Elokeshi with the Chief Priest of the Shiva temple at Tarakeshwar. Nabinchandra Banerji cut Elokeshi’s throat with a fish knife (bonti). The incident became famous as Tarakeshwar murder case. Then various paintings on Tarakeswar affair were portrayed in Kalighat repertoire: the meeting of Elokeshi and the mahant at Trakeswar Shiva temple; Elokeshi offering betel and hookah to the Priest, and the Priest is offering her childbirth medicine; Elokeshi embracing Nabin and asking his forgiveness; Murder of Elokeshi by Nabin, courtroom trial of Nabin, ……. all these were portrayed by different Patuas.

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Kalighat paintings attracted many foreign travellers who visited the city in the 19th century. As examples of ‘oriental’ or ‘exotic’ souvenirs, Kalighat paintings were easily portable and concise enough to explain to friends back home.

Some scholars believe that the tradition can be traced to the 1830s or earlier when Patua artisans first moved to the city and began making paintings around the temple, while others argue that the thematic and visual characteristics that are more definitive of Kalighat painting, such as political caricatures, hairstyles and ornaments, only go as far as the 1850s. It is, however, broadly accepted that Kalighat painting reached its peak around the mid 1870s and began to decline after the late 1880s, owing to the rising popularity of photography and printing technology imported from England and Germany.

History of Kalighat Paintings: A glimpse
It is believed that the paintings have attained its pinnacle in between 1880 and 1890. A number of skilled artists moved to Kolkata from rural Bengal especially from 24 Paraganas and Midnapore and set up stalls outside the Temple. They painted long narrative stories on scrolls of handmade paper often stretched to over 20 feet in length and were known as POTOCHITRA. The POTUA artist would often travel from village to village, unrolling the scroll to show to the buyers and often would sing the stories to their audiences.

W G Archer finally concluded that the final phase of Kalighat paintings ceased to exist after about 1930. Suhashini Sinha has chronologically categorised the Kalighat painting collections into three broad phases.
1. Phase I: Dated between 1800 and 1850, which attributes the origins of the genre, and the formation of essential Kalighat Characteristics
2. Phase II: Dated between 1850 and 1890, this set depicts many variations between style, composition and colour and has attained its peak in its class
3. Phase III: Dates from 1900 to 1930, which shows the end of the tradition with the infiltration of cheap lithographs.

Characteristics of Kalighat Painting
The key characteristics styles of Kalighat painting are the rounded, tapering limbs and pointed faces with small mouths and elongated, almond-shaped eyes. The neck and limbs may be bent at sharp angles or drawn as fluid curves, allowing the figures to have dynamic poses. Only the human figures are drawn with heavy shading and outlines, giving them a three-dimensionality that was not applied to the backdrop.

Costly and difficult to carry, the interested byuers visiting the city were opting for smaller artworks, and thus, compelling the artisans to create smaller, less detailed but more portable images, which would come to be known as the Kalighat pats. The number of such visitors increased as trains began to connect more parts of the country. Partly because of the patronage of common ordinary people, and partly because the Patua community was already known for their craft, Kalighat paintings could develope a reputation for keeping up with the visual culture of the time.

Kalighat painting today
Kalighat painting began to die out during the early 20th century following the increase in demand for cheaper, commercially produced images. Many Patua families found themselves themselves facing no option but to leave the city and head back to the rural districts where their ancestors had come from, or to look for other forms of employment.

Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London

Picture: The policeman’s bribe, Anwar Chitrakar, 2010. Museum no. IS. 49-2011. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Today, the V&A holds the largest collection of Kalighat paintings in the world. The collection, which numbers about 645 watercolour drawings and paintings, also includes line drawings and hand-coloured lithographs. The majority of works are similar to standard A3 paper size though the collection also contains 295 smaller, postcard-sized paintings (roughly 13 cm x 8 cm). Created and collected over a period of 100 years from the 1830s to the 1930s, the works vary in style, quality of workmanship, colour, composition and subject matter.

From as early as 1879, the V&A acquired its Kalighat collection gradually through direct purchase or by gift. The earliest purchases were two paintings that were originally part of the India Museum collection. Both paintings depicted secular themes: a seated Bengali babu (a foppish male figure, with a mix of Bengali and Western style), and an illustration of Jackal Raja’s court.

Kalighat painting gained international attention in 1895, when Maxwell Sommerville donated fifty-seven paintings to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA. Following this, On 8th August 1917, John Lockwood Kipling’s personal collection of 233 works were donated to the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum, London, UK, by his son Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was a sculptor and teacher, and Curator of the Lahore Museum in the late 1870s, thus became the owner of largest collections of Kalighat paintings in the world.
Another significant source was that of W.G. Archer, Keeper of the Indian Section at the V&A in the 1950s, who oversaw the acquisition of 90 Kalighat paintings.
Interestingly our own Indian Kalighat Paintings can be found as exhibits in many foreign notable institutions like
* Bodleian Library, Oxford, Library has 110 paintings.
* The India Office Library collection, now part of the British Library, London has 17 paintings.
* The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff has 25 paintings.
* Naprstek Museum of Prague holds a collection of 26 works.
* The Pushkin Museum of Graphic Arts, Moscow has 62 works.
* The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia holds 57.
* Unfortunately, the Kalighat paintings do not appear on the walls of Indian Houses.

In India, the most prominent Kalighat collections can be found at museums across Kolkata, including the Victoria Memorial Hall; the Indian Museum; the Gurusaday Museum; the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, the Asutosh Museum; and Visva-Bharati University Kala Bhaban, Shantiniketan.

Kolkata, as unofficially accepted cultural capital of India, has pioneered several movements and trends in literature, cinema and theater, performing arts, etc. over the past centuries. Many of those are worldwide acclaimed but however the Kalighat Paintings remained unknown to Indian community. Kalighat painting, a school of art founded in the city during the 19th century, is among those rich legacies the country continues to bask in today.

The alternate discipline of Kalighat painting, known as the “Occidental school,” included pieces that depicted ordinary people engaging in everyday life or captured the changes taking place in Kolkata at the time. A N Sarkar & C Mackay
remarked that “The Kalighat school of painting is perhaps the first school of painting in India that is truly modern as well as popular. With their bold simplifications, strong lines, vibrant colours and visual rhythm, these paintings have a surprising affinity to modern art”.

Acknowledgements:

http://chitrolekha.com/kalighat-paintings-review/
https://mapacademy.io/article/kalighat-painting/
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=kalighat+painting&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjVkpzKkeLUAhVIw7wKHbHFAFQQsAQILA&biw=1188&bih=532&dpr=1.1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYPB6KcBgY8
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/kalighat-painting?srsltid=AfmBOorMyW9AZ703-9qUyGrNlxa_RAJfF8H3GOfJHkPYz4RiJ08xXEf5#slideshow=4207388&slide=0

1. Ajit Ghose, “Old Bengal Paintings”, Rupam, Calcutta 1926
2. Mukul Dey, “Drawings and Paintings of Kalighat”, Advance, Calcutta, 1932. (Courtesy: http://www.chitralekha.org/articles/mukul-dey/drawings-and-paintings-kalighat)

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