Making artists

it is generally believed that artists are born and not made. in india, systematic art training institutions were established by the british in the pre-independence period after their pattern of art education, without much regard to the national outlook. but, in bengal a great change in the aesthetic and artistic worldview was brought about by the bengal school led by abanindranath tagore.further, rabindranath tagore's cross-cultural institution at santiniketan, particularly kala bhavan, introduced a free-formed pedagogy without a pre-conceived notion of teaching methods. along with it, other institutions like indian college of art founded by manmathanath chakravarty and, later, rabindra bharati university introduced an alternative to the colonial orientation of art education. an impression of such artistic products with different stylistic trends can be traced from an extensive display of art works (nearly 275 exhibits) from artists who are products, and in many cases teachers, of four important art institutions of west bengal - government college of art and craft, kala bhavan, santiniketan, indian college of arts and draftsmanship, kolkata, and faculty of visual arts, rabindra bharati university - were on view at birla academy of art and culture. although the artists of bengal school, and many others who were later inspired by it, believed in the religious, mythological, and lyrically linear aspects for creating "true indian art", the artists who followed the school discarded the principles and values of a dead past. in the show, however, we are offered both varieties: the traditional indian style of j.p. ganguly's 'work and worship', benode behari mukherjee's 'shakuntala' dhirendranath brahma' 'asanta', sushil sen's 'bharat meets rama', radha charan bagchi's 'scene from meghdoot' or gopinath dutta's 'ganapati' are found with atul bose's and kishori roy's western-style oil portraits, rathin maitra's interpretative oil study of jesus christ or bijan chowdhury's 'kite players'. what is particularly to be noticed is the strong foundation on drawing and life-studies in the works by the products of the government college of art and craft. on view are minute drawings of prahlad karmakar, linocuts of haren das, illustrations from makhanlal datta gupta, water colours of gopal ghose, and a rare oil study on the influx of refugees in bengal after the partition by rathin maitra, all of them being teachers of the college. special mention must be made of the two gouache studies by gobardhan ash and somnath hore's two subtle etching and litho works.