The early nineteenth century saw the emergence of the Kalighat painting style in Calcutta. As the Kali temple in Calcutta gained prominence and became deeply significant to Indian Hindus, a new painting style emerged during the colonial era. A group of painters known as “Patuas” created a collection of paintings and drawings known as “Kalighat Paintings” on hand-made or, more often, machine-made paper in the area surrounding the well-known Kali temple at Kalighat. These Patuas created what are known as “Kalighat pat”, which are Kalighat paintings.
The Patuas told stories through the use of scroll drawings called patachitras. Traditional patachitras were either square or scroll-shaped and were typically painted on fabric. The patuas utilised them as visual aids during their performances. In addition to performing songs, the Patuas would display scrolls that were painted based on the tales they told the populace. Additionally, scripts were used on these artworks. In rural regions, this technique was widespread since the patuas would move from village to village carrying the scroll drawings.
(source: The India Craft House)
After migrating from rural Bengal, these lower-class patuas moved close to the Kali temple. Instead of using traditional fabric as their medium, the Kalighat patuas began practicing their paintings on paper. These paintings required a long time to create since they were huge and were traditionally done on scrolls. To make the technique simpler and less time-consuming, the patuas later shifted to single-paper painting. These paintings’ primary features—bright, rhythmic lines, blank backgrounds, and vivid colours—had a significant influence on the pilgrims who came to see the Temple of Goddess Kali. These paintings are also known as “Bazaar Paintings of Bengal” because they were so popular in the temple’s surrounding marketplaces. These paintings were captured by inexpensive, machine-made lithograph prints in the early 20th century, which overflowed the market and became more popular with consumers.
THE HISTORY OF THE PAINTINGS
The Kalighat Temple became a popular destination for pilgrims, residents, and some foreign visitors by the early 1800s. As the goddess Kali gained popularity and notoriety, a large number of craftspeople and artists rushed to the Kalighat region in order to take advantage of the emerging market by offering travellers inexpensive religious trinkets. Patachitra, or handmade paper scrolls, were used in the villages to paint lengthy narrative stories. These scrolls were frequently more than 20 feet long. Because each portion was called a pat, the painters were referred to as patuas. As they travelled from hamlet to village, the patuas would sing the narratives to their listeners while unfolding the scroll one portion at a time. The tourists at Kalighat, however, did not want to buy long scrolls that would require a long time to paint, so the patuas started making single images with a few characters that could be painted quickly using simple shapes, keeping the background simple and eliminating extraneous details.
(source: Kalighat Kali Temple)
The paintings peaked between 1880 and 1890. The majority of the Kalighat painting collections seen in museums throughout the globe date back to this time frame. As inexpensive printed replicas of the subjects of Kalighat paintings proliferated on the market, the glitz of the paintings progressively faded.
The field is now filled with inexpensive oleographs of all kinds from Bombay and Germany, some of which are obvious copies of Kalighat paintings. These low-quality replicas have all but destroyed the hand-painted painting industry as a whole, along with the Kalighat artists’ creative impulses and abilities. Their children have now pursued other careers since they are unable to compete with the outputs of machines that are less expensive than hand-drawn and hand-painted drawings that sell for two or four dollars each. German traders copied these images after realising how popular they were nationwide—they sold thousands of copies across India—and shipped back varnished and coloured lithographed duplicates, flooding the nation and displacing the original hand-painted images. The original artwork is no longer there; instead, museums’ and a few art enthusiasts’ collections are now housing the images. After around 1930, W. G. Archer, a British art historian, came to the conclusion that the last stage of the Kalighat paintings had ended.
THE STYLE OF KALIGHAT PAINTINGS
During the colonial era, Calcutta, the capital of British India, was a hub of growth. These paintings were created on machine-made paper that was accessible in India during the colonial era. To illustrate and enhance their theme, the Patuas employed strong lines, vivid colours, stark simplicity, and graphic rhythm. Usually measuring 17 by 11 inches, the paintings were created on blank pages with just one or two individuals and no backdrop. These artworks were widely accessible and reasonably priced.
A group of people created the paintings to satisfy the increasing demand for them, with men drawing the subject in bold outline and three to four women filling in the hues within the drawing’s outlines. Each woman was given a specific colour to use after the drawing was completed on paper, allowing for the production of 200 to 300 paintings in an hour. The tints applied were natural colours like lamp black and various colours derived from flowers, vegetables, and soil, and they were made using a variety of water-based solid colours like indigo, red, blue, yellow, green, and carbon black.
- Colour Preparation: These colours were made by grinding several natural materials, such as turmeric root and haritala for yellow, Aparajita flower petals for blue, indigo for Indian indigo, and oil lamp burning beneath a pot for black. the colour of red clay or Gerumati. In the paintings, gold and silver were employed as embellishments. The pigments were bonded using crushed tamarind seeds and natural gums, such as bel fruit gum. Originally created by hand, the colours were subsequently enhanced by “Patuas” using watercolours produced in British factories.
- Base preparation: To achieve the appropriate stiffness and to preserve the painting, a certain quantity of gum derived from natural sources is added to the paper or fabric.
Painting Application
(source: India Today) - Colour application: A range of hues, including deep and pale tones of green, blue, red, turquoise, yellow, violet, brown, and black. In figures, the Patuas often favoured yellow for body hue, though occasionally they favoured Indian red. Typically, women’s clothing is shown as red sarees, and when white, the drapery folds are painted with striking black or blue lines. While some paintings use bright yellow washes for the backdrop, the painters’ chosen hue for backgrounds with a range of light and dark tones is green. This colour application creates a rounded three-dimensional volume by contrasting light and dark hues on a flat background.
- Brushes: Goat or squirrel hair was used to make the brushes for these paintings. Traditionally, these patuas produced these brushes at home. Since Kalighat paintings had the sculpting properties of all painting topics with traits of roundness and three-dimensionality, these patuas also featured potters, carpenters, and stonebreakers in Bengal’s ancient art techniques. Rigid and straight economy, expressive movements, fine brushwork, and perfect rhythmic strokes are characteristics of these paintings.
THEMES OF THE PAINTING STYLE
Kalighat paintings included a wide range of topics. The topic of Kalighat paintings encompasses everything from the universe of Hindu gods and goddesses to religious and modern societal events.
- Religious and mythological themes: Kalighat paintings were primarily offered for sale as sacred mementos that guests visiting the Kali shrine brought home. Therefore, it was clear that religious and mythical figures were the main emphasis. Hindu gods and goddesses, scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, events from Krishna’s life, and other legendary figures are just a few of the religious themes that have been reflected in the Kalighat murals over the years. Aside from Shiva in the form of Panchanan, sitting with Parvati on Nandi, or lugging Sati, Lakshmi herself or in the form of Gajalakshmi or Chandi as Kamalekamini, Durga as Mahishasur Marindu, and other gods and goddesses like Kartikeya, Ganesha, Saraswati, and Jagadhatri, Kali was the most popular deity. The artists aimed to depict whatever aspect of the genuinely global market that was accessible to them. Husain, the Prophet Muhammad’s younger grandson, was martyred at the Battle of Karbala on the “Duldul Horse”, a well-known depiction in the Kalighat paintings. There were other examples that were related to Islamic mythology.
Goddess Kali Painting
(source: WIkipedia) - The Society Portrayal: In a series of Kalighat paintings, the patuas mockingly anticipated the emergence of “Babu culture” in the late eighteenth century. These paintings depicted the “babus” as affluent, high-class gentlemen, usually characterised by their well-groomed hair, pleated dhoti in one hand, and either smoking a hukkah or chewing betel in the other, while flirting with courtesans. A major scandal in Calcutta in 1873, the Tarakeshwar murder case centred on an affair between Elokeshi, the main priest of the Shiva temple at Tarakeshwar, and the young, attractive wife of Nabinchandra Banerji. Nabinchandra Banerji used a fish knife to slit Elokeshi’s neck after learning about the romance. During the trial, the top priest received a fine and a three-year prison sentence, while Nabin received a life sentence. The Kalighat repertory had a number of sequences pertaining to the Tarakeswar event. Shyamakanta Banerjee gained notoriety in the 1890s for her tiger-wrestling performances in circuses. Kalighat paintings also frequently included this theme.
Societal Theme
(source: Asia Research News) - Depiction of Animals: The Kalighat patuas’ interest in depicting household pets may have been influenced by both modern British painters and Mughal artists. Kalighat paintings frequently featured depictions of animals, such as cats, birds, prawns, lobsters, and fish, such as Shol and Rui.
CURRENT STATUS
Since the beginning of the 20th century, when cheap printed reproductions of Kalighat’s subjects started to be sold, the popularity and recognition of Kalighat paintings gradually decreased.The artists’ artistic talent and creative urge were eliminated by these inexpensive chromolithographs, which destroyed the handcrafted school, halted production, and caused them to go to other industries or return to the villages where their ancestors had formerly lived. The progeny of these painters left the practice and pursued other careers because they were unable to handle the difficulties posed by the machine-made creations, which were less expensive than their hand-drawn and painted works. Although the painting is no longer done as it was in the past, modern artists like Anwar Chitrakar are continuing the tradition in some rural areas of Bengal, especially in Medinipur and Birbhum, by using organic dyes, similar to the patuas of the 19th century, to portray a variety of independent and religious themes.
The European academics who later became the first managers of South Asian art believed that Kalighat paintings might be added to collections in museums like the British Museum and others. The Kalighat paintings’ gradual transition from their previous function as “bazaar paintings”, which were sold to pilgrims and tourists as souvenirs in the marketplaces, to cultural collections in museums signified their entry into the “domain of art”, which by the mid-1800s was described as a creative, unadulterated, and impromptu realm characterised by refined sensibility and expressive “genius”.
Kalighat paintings are among the holdings of several museums worldwide. The greatest collection is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, while 110 Kalighat paintings may be found at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff has 25 paintings; the India Office Library, now part of the British Library, has 17; the Naprstek Museum in Prague has 26; Philadelphia’s University of Pennsylvania Museum has 57, while Moscow’s Pushkin Museum has 62. The Indian Museum in Kolkata has forty paintings, the Victoria Memorial Hall has twenty-four, and the Gurusaday Museum has about seventy paintings and sketches. There are 40 paintings in the collection of the Indian Museum in Kolkata, 24 at the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, and around 70 paintings and sketches in the Gurusaday Museum. Kala Bhavana at Shantiniketan, the Birla Academy of Art & Culture, and the Ashutosh Museum all have significant collections of paintings.
CONCUSION
The social, cultural, and political climate of Bengal in the 19th century is reflected in Kalighat painting, which is more than just a thriving folk art tradition. This art style became socially concerned and spiritually based as it progressed beyond religious themes to incorporate sarcastic portrayals of modern life. Its striking lines, vibrant hues, and simple backdrops produced an artistic style that was exceptionally approachable for the average person. Even though modern art movements and industrial printing led to a collapse in traditional Kalighat painting, its impact can still be seen in popular culture and current art. In today’s cultural narrative, Kalighat paintings demand fresh attention and preservation since they are both historical records and symbols of artistic expression. They are an important part of West Bengal’s visual history.