Past & Present Master\'s Exhibition, Great Banyan Art
Mukul Chandra Dey (1895–1989) was one of the first to perfect the Indian art of printmaking in the modern context and one of the important names in the Bengal School of Art. Dey was Rabindranath Tagore’s student and was inspired by the ideals of the Swadeshi movement and the art revival expressed by Abanindranath Tagore. In 1916, Dey left for the U.S. and Europe where he learnt printmaking under several great masters such as James Blanding Sloan and Bertha Jacques in Chicago and continued his studies later at the Royal College of Art in London. He was the first Indian artist to study abroad to learn drypoint etching specifically and created a link between the Western techniques of printmaking and Indian themes. Dey’s artistic style shows a combination of the principles of academic realism, the Japanese aesthetic tradition and Indian cultural elements.
Dey made use of heavy copper gauges in preparing them to mirror finish. Drypoint technique means the process where the sharp steel needle is used to etch the lines on the metal plate. While in traditional etching acid baths are used to create the lines, the process of drypoint allows the artist to salve the etching manually and create rough metal edges called burrs. When the burrs are inked, they retain additional colors thereby creating soft, velvety lines in the Dey’s works. Dey was a kind of artist who wanted to work physically with the metal plate and sometimes using his own fingers he would push the ink in the grooves or burrs to get the desired depth. The particular print made by him known as "Gopala Milking The Cow" is used as an example of Dey's creativity when he colored his prints by hand.
In this artwork, Dey portrays the peaceful and rhythmic tempo of rural life in India. We see Gopala squatting close to the cow and milking it. Dey demonstrates his expertise in the art of observational line drawing in the way he renders the body and anatomy of the cow as well Gopala's humble stance. He skillfully executes cross-hatching and fine drypoint line work to create texture, shading, and dimensional depth in the form of the smooth skin of the cow and the folds in the drapery. By using soft colors, Dey adds color to the original black-and-white print while directing everybody's attention to the lines used by the artist. The rural landscape creates a feeling of timelessness, purity, and devotion in the audience. Dey turns a mythical subject by using realistic style and decolonizes Western methods of printmaking and brings forth his home country's culture and traditions.
Mukul Chandra Dey’s Gopala Milking the Cow is one of his masterpieces, which fully demonstrates his contribution to the development of modern Indian printmaking. The author used the Western technique of drypoint etching in combination with Indian themes to create a print that represents a scene from Indian mythology. In Gopala Milking the Cow, Dey used a sharp steel needle to scratch the copper plates making sure that rough burrs of metal are left and highlighted the lines he had made by hand-coloring the drawing. The image of Gopala milking the cow is realistic and religious at the same time, representing Indian life in its purity. Dey managed to capture the calmness of the Indian village landscape due to his exquisite line drawing and cross-hatching technique, added color washes that brought the picture to life. In such a way, the artist created an image of a holy man living in the wilderness, being isolated from the polluted world, thus decolonizing the Western method and uplifting Indian traditions.
