''Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism'' was an exhibition curated by

R. Siva Kumar Raman Siva Kumar (born 3 December 1956), known as R. Siva Kumar, is an Indian contemporary art historian, art critic, and curator. His major research has been in the area of early Indian modernism with special focus on the Santiniketan Schoo ...

at the

National Gallery of Modern Art National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence. The exhibition, through bringing about a hundred works each of four modern Indian artists, namely

Nandalal Bose Nandalal Bose (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his "Indian style" of painting. He became the principa ...

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

Ram Kinker Baij Ramkinkar Baij ( bn, রামকিঙ্কর বেইজ) (25 May 1906 – 2 August 1980) was an Indian sculpture, sculptor and painter, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. Earl ...

and

Benode Behari Mukherjee Benode Behari Mukherjee (7 February 1904 – 11 November 1980) was an Indian artist from West Bengal state. Mukherjee was one of the pioneers of Indian modern art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. He was one of the earliest artists in mo ...

on the centre stage, put the Santiniketan art movement into focus. Kumar argues that the "Santiniketan artists did not believe that to be indigenous one has to be historicist either in theme or in style, and similarly to be modern one has to adopt a particular trans-national formal language or technique. Modernism was to them neither a style nor a form of internationalism. It was critical re-engagement with the foundational aspects of art necessitated by changes in one’s unique historical position".

Contextual modernism

The year 1997 bore witness to two parallel gestures of canon formation. On the one hand, the

Baroda Group The Baroda Group refers to the artists involved with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, now known as Vadodara in Gujarat state of India. An experimental art school that drew artists of a variety of backgrounds, the ...

, a coalition whose original members included

Vivan Sundaram Vivan Sundaram (born 28 May 1943) is an Indian contemporary artist. His parents were Kalyan Sundaram, Chairman of Law Commission of India from 1968 to 1971, and Indira Sher-Gil, sister of noted Indian modern artist Amrita Sher-Gil. He is marr ...

Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh (born 16 February 1937) is a painter, poet and art critic from Gujarat, India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1983 and Padmabhushan in 2014 for his contribution in field of art. Early life Sheikh was born on 16 Febru ...

Bhupen Khakhar Bhupen Khakhar (also spelled Bhupen Khakkar, 10 March 1934 – 8 August 2003) was an Indian artist. He was a member of the Baroda Group and gained international recognition for his work as "India's first 'Pop' artist." Works Khakhar was a sel ...

, and

Nalini Malani Nalini Malani (born 19 February 1946) is a contemporary Indian artist widely acknowledged to be among the country's first generation of video artists. She works with several mediums which include theater, videos, installations along with mixed ...

—and which had left its mark on history in the form of the 1981 exhibition "Place for People"—was definitively historicized in 1997 with the publication of Contemporary Art in Baroda, an anthology of essays edited by Sheikh. On the other hand, the art historian Kumar’s exhibition and related publication, ''A Contextual Modernism'', focused on the

Santiniketan Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by hi ...

artists

, and

Ramkinkar Baij Ramkinkar Baij ( bn, রামকিঙ্কর বেইজ) (25 May 1906 – 2 August 1980) was an Indian sculptor and painter, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. Early life and ...

. Of the Santiniketan artists, Kumar observed that they "reviewed traditional antecedents in relation to the new avenues opened up by cross-cultural contacts. They also saw it as a historical imperative. Cultural insularity, they realized, had to give way to eclecticism and cultural impurity." According to Kumar "The Santiniketan artists were one of the first who consciously challenged this idea of modernism by opting out of both internationalist modernism and historicist indigenousness and tried to create a context sensitive modernism." The literary critic

Ranjit Hoskote Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator. He has been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the Sahitya ...

while reviewing the works of contemporary artist

Atul Dodiya Atul Dodiya (born 20 January 1959, in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, India) is an Indian artist. Biography Atul began exhibiting and selling his work in the early 1980s following his graduation from Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai where he received a B ...

writes, "The exposure to Santinketan, through a literary detour, opened Dodiya’s eyes to the historical circumstances of what Kumar has called a “contextual modernism” developed in eastern India in the 1930s and ’40s during the turbulent decades of the global Depression, the Gandhian liberation struggle, the Tagorean cultural renaissance and World War II."

Contextual modernism and the Bengal School of Art

Kumar had been studying the work of the Santiniketan masters and thinking about their approach to art since the early 1980s. The practice of subsuming

and

under the

Bengal School of Art The Bengal School of Art, commonly referred as Bengal School, was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal, primarily Kolkata and Shantiniketan, and flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent, during the Britis ...

was misleading. According to Kumar, "this happened because early writers were guided by genealogies of apprenticeship rather than their styles, worldviews, and perspectives on art practice".

Santiniketan: art movement and school

Kumar draws distinction between ''Santiniketan the art movement'' and ''Santiniketan the School'':

References

External links

"ALL THE SHARED EXPERIENCES OF THE LIVED WORLD, part-I"

"ALL THE SHARED EXPERIENCES OF THE LIVED WORLD, part-II"

"Overcoming Polarized Modernities: Counter-Modern Art Education"
{{Santiniketan Postcolonialism Books by R. Siva Kumar Art exhibitions in India Works about art genres Works about ideologies 1997 non-fiction books 1997 in art Art movements Santiniketan Memorials to Rabindranath Tagore

Contextual modernism

Contextual modernism and the Bengal School of Art

Santiniketan: art movement and school

See also

References

External links