Far away from Delhi’s busy streets, towards the end of South
Delhi, at Anandgram where the Sanskriti Foundation is located a small ‘retrospective’
is on. The word retrospective brings an elaborate display, a huge catalogue and
somewhat crowded gallery spaces into our minds. But in the multipurpose gallery
of the Sanskriti Foundation, West Bengal based Kalam Patua’s retrospective does
not evoke such grandeur but each work displayed there proves that it is not the
visual grandeur nor is the lighting techniques that make a work of art worth
focusing on. The simplicity of Kalam Patua’s carefully learnt and traditionally
earned Kalighat and Patua styles of painting respectively enchant the viewer.
Curated by Jyotindra Jain, the master art historian of Indian folk and traditional
arts, this retrospective of Kalam Patua is titled ‘From the Interstices of the
City II’ and is mounted as a part of the collaborative efforts undertaken by
the India Art Fair ‘in supporting their endeavor to include contemporary voices
from the sphere of the Indian vernacular art practices’ (in the words of
O.P.Jain, director of Sanskriti Foundation).
(all works illustrated here by Kalam Patua)
Those who have visited the India Art Fair must not have
forgotten the exquisite display of the Kalighat paintings at the Delhi Art
Gallery pavilion and also the curiosity evoking arrangement of late 19th
century Company School art from the Swaraj Foundation. Ever since the Poddars
shifted their gear of their art collection from the contemporary to the folk
and traditional (thanks to the global interest in ethnic art as a part of
reconciling with the colonial atrocities and also as a part of co-optation of
the ethnical into the mainstream as an untapped source of creativity once
disparaged and now much valued for their intricate expressive qualities besides
the anthropological, ritualistic and sociological values) there have been
frantic efforts from other collectors and galleries to showcase and promote the
pre-modern and post-Mughal art as well as traditional and folk art from
different parts of India, qualified as the ‘contemporary vernacular’ or vice
versa. A new found interest in the Gond painters shown by both the new and old
galleries in the urban centers stands evidence to the fact that ethnical art
has not lost out to the contemporary expressions yet; perhaps that day is not
too far that the contemporary is displaced by the ethnic and vernacular.
When the India Art Fair takes interest in supporting the vernacular
art in India, this should be seen as a welcoming move and at the same we should
know that it is not just the philanthropic edge that is visible here but the
emerging market’s interest in co-opting all what is distinct and still
operative from without the mainstream economic structure built around art works
and their makers. Kalam Patua however has been around for quarter of a century
as an artist with considerable patronage from institutions as well as
individuals. Born in Murshidabad, West Bengal, Kalam Patua got his training in
painting ‘pat chitra’, scroll paintings as it was his family tradition and
gained considerable fan following and patronage from the rural folk and the
professional story tellers. His fame brought him an assignment from the French
Cultural Center, Alliance Francaise in 1990, to depict the history of French
Revolution in the Pata style.
In 1995, Kalam Patua came across the original Kalighat
paintings and spent considerable time in learning the techniques. Once he
gained the required finesse he chose to paint in Kalighat style that in pat
chitra style. But the dexterity of the Patuas, traditional scroll painters, to
adopt contemporary issues in their paintings helped Kalam Patua also to pick up
the contemporary issues in Kalighat style, which in fact had dealt with
contemporary issues of the mid-late 19th century in West Bengal in
general and Calcutta in particular. Initially Kalam Patua was an accomplished
copy artist of the traditional Kalighat paintings, which he happily did for his
clients. However, once he started working on the contemporary themes, the irony
and humor of the Kalighat paintings remained along with the style in him but he
almost pushed the old Kalighat painterly themes behind. But the spirit and the
referential depths of Kalighat kept coming back to his works as he reworked
many traditional themes typical to Kalighat paintings in the contemporary
context.
Kalighat paintings, thematically speaking were the
representations of the degeneration of the aristocracy and also the rise of the
greedy middle class. While the Bengali literature of the mid to late 19th
century dealt with the changes in the socio-political life a bit seriously,
often highlighting the tragedy of an impending collapse of the social structure
and also the aggression of the political resistance combined with the deliberate
attempts to erase class and caste by the educated class while keeping the
cultural standards high, the Kalighat painters were looking at the emerging
socio-political and economic scenario in more acerbically witty terms. “Kalighat
painting stemmed from the changing world of nineteenth-century Kolkata, where traditional
techniques of painting, iconographies, and art practices in general co-mingled
with Mughal court culture, Sanskrit Drama, the proscenium stage, and swiftly
churned out images from photo studios and lithographic presses in the fast
growing urban center, transforming folk art into popular genres”, observes
Jyotindra Jain in the catalogue.
The popularity of the Kalighat paintings could be rightly
attributed to the transformation that had been happening to most of the art
forms in the hands of the local artists who in fact became the meeting points
of the various styles floating in the society, as pointed out by Dr.Jain.
However at the same time, the thematic of these paintings also must be a reason
for their popularity for the content of these paintings always had suggestive
erotic connotations and were dripping mostly with scandal and gossip, which
were popular and prevalent in those days. Kalighat paintings seemed to have
shared a populist affinity with the elitist cartoons that used to appear not
only in the British press but also in the vernacular press. Illustration for
the literary works, posters for the theatre and also the racy narratives for
the emerging literate class also might have triggered the Kalighat painters to
make their works ‘vulgar’ (popular) and appealing to the mass.
In retrospective, in the case of Bazaar sort of art, which
Kalighat painting obviously was, elements of populism, which are often
connected to corporeal pleasures and thrills including clandestine affairs,
extra marital sex, lives of the entertaining women (courtesans), scandalous
affairs, murders and so on, were a pre-requisite. Hence the idea of refinement
for the subject matter was not the primary concern of the Kalighat artists,
which interestingly was not the case of the Pata painters who worked more on religious
mythologies with due seriousness and folk-ish playfulness or even later the
case was in their treatment of contemporary issues like the assassination of
political leaders, terrorists attacks and natural calamities. When Kalam Patua
paints his Kalighat style works, what we see is not the raunchiness of the
Kalighat painters on the contrary a refined sense of irony and humor without
losing the perspective of the subject matter that he is handling. This I believe
is because of his grounding in the pata chitra style and techniques.
There is a fundamental difference between Kalam Patua and
the other painters who work in the Kalighat style. Kalam Patua is serious in
his treatment without leaving the humor part aside. The humor is subtle and
intelligent. For example, when he paints the Birth of Postal Service in Germany
based on some literary source (as a tribute to his own life for thirty years as
a post master in rural Bengal), what we see is a master working, just like a
miniaturist in Mughal court with seriousness and complexities required to the
subject. The literary source is not followed to the dot but it is altered for
the pictorial purpose by compressing too many scenes into one and breaking the
linear perception generally required viewing a painting. The same sense of
seriousness and lightness could be seen in his India International Centre
series, which he had been commissioned by the trustees. Those who have visited
the IIC once, could really see how ‘realistic’ he is in his works and those who
have not seen the IIC also could enjoy exactly the way the Goan life is enjoyed
by people who have never been to Goa but have seen the visual renderings of
late Mario Miranda.
Kalam Patua is an artist who is innovative yet anchored in
tradition. He lets himself to travel to different subject matters but the
adherence with tradition that he observes in his works makes him attached to
the conventions of the Kalighat paintings and their themes. He paints a
contemporary domestic occurrence which has erotic undertones. Even if he has a
chance to break the conventions and remain within the style of Kalighat
paintings, Kalam Patua does not attempt to do so. Hence, such scenes still have
the traces of Radha-Krishna love games, the notorious Elokeshi-Mahant affair,
the arrogant Brahmin’s pretentions and the lecherous middle aged men. As I
mentioned before, Kalighat paintings while being the meeting point of several
styles and emerging social realities they also thrived on the degenerative tendencies
of the social life in Bengal, which was aspirational and self-defeating at the
same time. Perhaps, the contemporary Kalighat painting as practiced by Kalam
Patua also stems from the current degeneration of the contemporary society
perhaps selectively and intelligently seen by the artist himself. The market of
Kalighat paintings was initially limited to the vicinities of the Kalighat
temple in Kolkata but it moved from there to the houses of patrons. Now the
market has expanded and Kalam Patua has become a part of that extended market.
I wish he would also be treated one day as the way the Singh Sisters are
treated (as contemporary artists who use Persian and Mughal miniature styles).
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