Fine Arts Test - 6

The correct answer is K.G Subramanyan.

Key Points

• Fairy Tales of Purvapalli:
  • This is a painting made using water and oil colours on an acrylic sheet and was created by K. G. Subramanyan in 1986.
  • The title refers to his home in Purvapalli, a locality in  Shantiniketan, West Bengal.
  • His imaginary landscape consists of a strange world, in which birds and animals rub shoulders with humans which hints at a bond between man and nature. There are unusual trees that grow feathers in place of leaves.
  • This style of painting is sketching and colours are applied in quick brush strokes.
  • The palette remains earthy using ochres, greens and brown colours.
  • The male and female figures on top remind us of urban folk art like the Kalighat painting of the Bengal School of art.

• Painting: Fairy tales of Purvapalli.

Additional Information

• Ramkinkar Baij:
  • He is considered the first modern sculpture.
  • Baij was a student of the Kala Bhavan of Shantiniketan and there his initial days were experimental. He tried various mediums for his painting like watercolour and oil paints and these too in various styles. Like other students at Shantiniketan, he too tried the wash and gouache technique of the East. He too followed the soft and slender style of the Bengal school of Art.
  • Ramkinkar ushered in a new wave of modernism with his distinct use of abstract thoughts in his sculptures like ‘Sujata’, ‘Lampstand’, ‘Santhal Family’ and ‘Call of the Mill’ are among of his most famous works.
  • He also mastered painting. Some of his famous paintings include Gossip, Cocks On the Table, Santhal couple, The Lunch, Swapnamoyee etc.
  • Ramkinkar was responsive to the socio-political changes that were taking place around him. He created a series of anti-war paintings in 1942 and his sculpture titled ‘Harvester’ was a response to the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.
  • He was also assigned to build the ‘Yaksha-Yakshi’ sculpture that stands outside the RBI building in New Delhi.
  • He was honoured with Padma Bhusan in 1970.

• MF Hussain:

  • Most of his paintings included boldness and vibrant use of colours executed in a modified Cubist style which was invented by the renowned artist Pablo Picasso. The cubist style stresses abstract thoughts and structures.
  • He was called the Picasso by Forbes magazine.
  • Some of his famous works are Mother Teresa, Bharat Mata, Madhuri Dixit, Battle of Ganga Yamuna, Hindu deities etc.
• Amrita Shergill:
  • She was a Hungarian Indian painter.
  • One of the influential women in the field of modern art.
  • Her works mainly focus on the lives of women, feminism,  and people suffering from poverty. She blended the western influence with the Indian culture.
  • Some of her famous works are Haldi Grinder, young Girls, Two women, Bride’s Toilet, Sumair,  Brahmachari etc.

The correct answer is Somenath Hore.

Key Points

• Somenath Hore's intense practice spanned painting, printmaking and sculpture, but he was interested in the human suffering brought by war, famine other devastating occurrences.
• Hore, who was born in Bangladesh, was greatly affected by the violence he experienced growing up in a colonist state. Events like the 1943 Bengal Famine and the peasant movement of Tebhaga of 1946 galvanized his work which emaciated human forms and chaotic situations.
• He was also involved with socialist politics, and ideologically followed Marxism and this combined with his anti-colonial focus in his paintings made him a Modernist icon of the Indian subcontinent.

• Paintings of Somenath Hore

Additional Information

• MF Hussain:
  • ​​​Most of his paintings included boldness and vibrant use of colours executed in a modified Cubist style which was invented by the renowned artist Pablo Picasso. The cubist style stresses abstract thoughts and structures.
  • He was called the Picasso by Forbes magazine.
  • Some of his famous works are Mother Teresa, Bharat Mata, Madhuri Dixit, Battle of Ganga Yamuna, Hindu deities etc.
• Jamini Roy:
  • He was one of the revivalists of the Bengal School of Art.
  • He was one of the most famous pupils of Rabindranath Tagore.
  • His paintings mainly focus on India’s folklore and rural ethos which can reach out to a wide range of the public.
  • He adopted the Kalighat style of painting which has unique features like big eyes, round faces, curved bodies, and vibrant colours
  • He was honoured with the prestigious Padma Bhusan in 1954.
  • Some of his notable works include Bride and two companies, Jesus Christ, Maa Durga with Little Ganesha, Black Horse, etc.
  • Roy's rejection of the then-modern style of painting and his interest in the realm of Bengali folk paintings marked a new beginning in the history of modern art.
• Krishna Reddy:
  • Whirlpool is a print art made by India’s celebrated printmaker  Krishna Reddy in 1963.
  • It is a  captivating composition created out of various shades of blue. 
  • Each colour blends into the other to create a powerful web of design.
  • It is the result of a new technique in printmaking that he developed known as viscosity printing.
  • This celebrated print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.

The correct answer is Bapu.

Key Points

• Bapu:
  • It is painted by artist Atul Dodhiya.
  • Photorealism is a form of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then creates the picture.
  • The picture 'Bapu' depicts Mahatma Gandhi in the background and a figure fully covered with a blanket, maybe due to cold. The figure is with a dog. The picture tries to convey that both are homeless and are companions of each other.
  • The artist provokes us into a recognition of political asymmetries and oppressive norms, as the Mahatma did, but the Mahatma also taught us to recognise the pain of the others.
  • The picture is now preserved at Rene Block Gallery, New York.

• ​Painting: Bapu

Additional Information

• Mother Teresa:
  • The painting is painted by 'Picasso of India', Maqbool Fida Hussain
  • The painting shows a faceless figure portrayed as Mother Teresa that can be recognized by her blue printed saree with soft flowing drapes which were typically adorned by Mother Teresa.
  • It is a watercolour painting.
  • In his own words, MF Hussain said, "She was the modern Madonna, who embraced the poor and the destitute as her own, for me she is a timeless figure, I will never get tired of painting her."
• ​Devi: 
  • It is painted by artist Jyoti Bhatt.
  • ​In this print, the pictorial image of Devi is re-cast and re-contextualised with a linear drawing of the frontal face of a woman, folk motifs and patterns.
  •  The portrait of Dent is centrally placed as an iconic image
  • The two-dimensional words and motifs around the portrait express the Tantric philosophy, evoking the power of self-evolution and self-involution, seeing the reality of the dynamic and static principle of Shakti.
• Whirlpool:
  • This was a print art made by India’s celebrated printmaker  Krishna Reddy in 1963.
  • It is a  captivating composition created out of various shades of blues.  Each colour blends into the other to create a powerful web of design.
  • It is the result of a new technique in printmaking that he developed known as viscosity printing.
  • This celebrated print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Art, New York.

The correct answer is Children.

Key Points

• Painting Children:
  • This is a graphic print on paper done with monochromatic etching with aquatint made by Somnath Hore.
  • The experience of the Bengal Famine of 1943, left a lasting impression on him.
  • His early sketches and drawings were spot and life drawings of helpless victims of the famine, suffering and dying peasants,  sick and infirm destitute, and portraits of men, women, children and animals.
  • In this painting, images of children were taken from the experience of the famine of 1943, which was etched in his memory. There are five standing figures, having no background. The figures are linear, each with a skeletal torso of a huge malaria spleen and a rib cage for the thorax. Supporting a huge skull, with a small face, the whole body is seen resting on two stick-like legs.
  • The effect of malnutrition can be visible clearly in the narrative. There is a sense of a lot of pain and suffering in the picture.
  • Somnath Hore’s other artworks include Peasant's Meeting, Wounded Animal, the Child, Mother with Child, Mourners and the Unclad Beggar Family etc.

• Painting: Children​ 

Additional Information

• Devi:
  • Painted ​by Jyoti Bhatt, In this print, the pictorial image of Devi is re-cast and re-contextualised with a linear drawing of the frontal face of a woman, folk motifs and patterns.
  •   The portrait of Dent is centrally placed as an iconic image
  • The two-dimensional words and motifs around the portrait express the Tantric philosophy, evoking the power of self-evolution and self-involution, seeing the reality of the dynamic and static principle of Shakti.

​​  

• Painting: Devi
• Of Wall:
  • It is painted by artist Anupam Sud.
  • She creates an interesting form of a woman by hollowing out the face. The absence of a face gives it a brooding and sad expression.
  • The painting depicts the figure of a lonely woman seating on the pavement before an old and broken wall. In the foreground, there is only a glimpse of two legs of a poor man lying down on the ground. Maybe he is dead due to poverty, contrasting with the clothed woman, and adding to the sadness of the picture.

• Painting: Of Wall
• Haldi Grinder:
  • Amrita Shergill painted Haldi Grinder in  1940.
  • This was the time when she was seeking inspiration from India’s idyllic rural scene. Such a scene depicts Indian women busy in a traditional activity of grinding dry turmeric.
  • She used bright, saturated pigments to paint this work. the way she has placed bright colour patches close to each other and created shapes of figures by colour contrast and not outline.
  • Such a style of painting is inspired by the Basohli paintings of north  India.

• Painting: Haldi Grinder

The correct answer is Rural Life.

Key Points

• In modern Indian art, the subject matter in painting and sculpture was drawn mainly from rural India.
• This is the case even with the Bombay Progressives and the Calcutta group during the 1940s and 1950s.
• City and urban life rarely appeared in the works of Indian artists. Perhaps, it was felt that honest India lives in villages. The Indian artists of the 1940s and 1950s rarely looked at their immediate cultural milieu.
•  Paintings of Jamini Roy, Amrita Shergill, Chittaprasad,  Somenath Hore, and Krishna Reddy are some best instances of this rural theme.

• Paintings of Jamini Roy and Amrita Shergill respectively (from left to right)

The correct answer is Krishna Reddy.

Key Points

• Whirlpool:
  • This was a print art made by India’s celebrated printmaker  Krishna Reddy in 1963.
  • It is a  captivating composition created out of various shades of blue. 
  • Each colour blends into the other to create a powerful web of design.
  • It is the result of a new technique in printmaking that he developed known as viscosity printing.
  • This celebrated print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.

Painting: Whirlpool​

Additional Information

• Jyoti Bhatt:
  • Jyotindra Manshankar Bhatt, better known as Jyoti Bhatt.
  • She is an Indian artist best known for his modernist work in painting and printmaking of rural Indian culture.
  • Famous paintings are A mother and child outside a rural house, South Gujarat, Queen of the Heart, Woman with parrot etc.
• Anupam Sud:
  • Anupam Sud had studied printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, in the early 1970s
  • . When she returned to India, she was drawn to its everyday reality. Apart from her deep interest in social problems faced by people, belonging to marginalised communities in society, she was keen to understand them artistically.
  • 'Of Walls' is one of her most celebrated artwork.
• Amrita Shergill:
  • She was a Hungarian Indian painter.
  • One of the influential women in the field of modern art.
  • Her works mainly focus on the lives of women, feminism,  and people suffering from poverty. She blended the western influence with the Indian culture.
  • Some of her famous works are Haldi Grinder, young Girls, Two women, Bride’s Toilet, Sumair,  Brahmachari etc.

The correct answer is  Mother Teresa.

Key Points

• Painting Mother Teresa:
  • The painting is painted by 'Picasso of India, Maqbool Fida Hussain
  • The painting shows a faceless figure portrayed as Mother Teresa that can be recognized by her blue printed saree with soft flowing drapes which were typically adorned by Mother Teresa,
  • It is a watercolour painting.
  • In his own words, MF Hussain said, "She was the modern Madonna, who embraced the poor and the destitute as her own, for me she is a timeless figure, I will never get tired of painting her."

• Painting: Mother Teresa

Additional Information

• Mother and Child:
  • Santhal ‘Mother and Child’ is one of the most famous paintings of the Indian Modernist Jamini Roy.
  •  The painting depicts a child in the protective embrace of its mother. The bond between the mother and child is considered to be the strongest and most precious.
  • The painter used bold, sweeping brushstrokes and restricted their palette to seven vibrant earthy colors-Red, Yellow Ochre, cadmium green, vermillion, grey, blue and white. 

• Painting: Mother and Chil
• Haldi Grinder:
  •  Amrita Shergill painted Haldi Grinder in  1940.
  • This was the time when she was seeking inspiration from India’s idyllic rural scene. Such a scene depicts Indian women busy in a traditional activity of grinding dry turmeric.
  • She used bright, saturated pigments to paint this work. the way she has placed bright colour patches close to each other and created shapes of figures by colour contrast and not outline.
  • Such a style of painting is inspired by the Basohli paintings of north  India. 

• Painting: Haldi Grinder
• Devi:
  • ​In this print, an image of Devi is re-cast and re-contextualised with a linear drawing of the frontal face of a woman, folk motifs and  patterns.
  • The two-dimensional words and motifs around the portrait express the Tantric philosophy, evoking the power of self-evolution and self-involution, seeing the reality of the dynamic and static principle of Shakti.

• Painting: Devi

The correct answer is A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

Key Points

• Haldi Grinder: 
  • Amrita Shergill painted Haldi Grinder in  1940.
  • This was the time when she was seeking inspiration from India’s idyllic rural scene. Such a scene depicts Indian women busy in a traditional activity of grinding dry turmeric.
  • She used bright, saturated pigments to paint this work. the way she has placed bright colour patches close to each other and created shapes of figures by colour contrast and not outline.
  • Such a style of painting is inspired by the Basohli paintings of north  India. 

• Painting: Haldi Grinder
• Mother Teresa:
  • It is Painted by MF Hussain.
  • The painting shows a faceless figure portrayed as Mother Teresa that can be recognized by her blue printed saree with soft flowing drapes which was typically adorned by Mother Teresa, leaning protectively over the body of an old man.
  • It is a watercolour painting.

• Painting: Mother Teresa
• Whirlpool:
  • This was a print art made by India’s celebrated printmaker  Krishna Reddy in 1963.
  • It is a  captivating composition created out of various shades of blues.  Each colour blends into the other to create a powerful web of design.
  • It is the result of a new technique in printmaking that he developed known as viscosity printing.
  • This celebrated print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.

• This was a print art made by India’s celebrated printmaker  Krishna Reddy in 1963.
• It is a  captivating composition created out of various shades of blues.  Each colour blends into the other to create a powerful web of design.
• It is the result of a new technique in printmaking that he developed known as viscosity printing.
• This celebrated print is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.

• Painting: Whirlpool
• Children:
  • This is a graphic print on paper done with monochromatic etching with aquatint made by Somnath Hore.
  • The experience of the Bengal Famine of 1943, left a lasting impression on him.
  • His early sketches and drawings were spot and life drawings of helpless victims of the famine, suffering and dying peasants,  sick and infirm destitute, and portraits of men, women, children and animals.
  • In this painting, images of children were taken from the experience of the famine of 1943, which was etched in his memory. There are five standing figures, having no background. The figures are linear, each with a skeletal torso of a huge malaria spleen and a rib cage for the thorax. Supporting a huge skull, with a small face, the whole body is seen resting on two stick-like legs.
  • The effect of malnutrition can be visible clearly in the narrative. There is a sense of a lot of pain and suffering in the picture.
  • Somnath Hore’s other artworks include Peasant's Meeting, Wounded Animal, the Child, Mother with Child, Mourners and the Unclad Beggar Family etc.

• Painting: Children

The correct answer is Jyoti Bhatt.

Key Points

• Jyoti Bhatt:
  • He studied painting, printmaking and photography, and was inspired by his mentor K. G. Subrahmanyan.
  •  He carved out an artistic language based on folk traditions and popular rural practice. His works occupy a tenuous balance between pace tradition and modernity.
  • He was honoured with Padma Shri in 2019.
  • He was one of the fellows of  Lalit Kala Akademi.
  • 'Devi' is one of the best graphic print works.

• Graphic Painting: Devi

Additional Information

• Ramkinkar Baij:
  • He is considered the first modern sculpture.
  • Baij was a student of the Kala Bhavan of Shantiniketan and there his initial days were experimental. He tried various mediums for his painting like watercolour and oil paints and these too in various styles. Like other students at Shantiniketan, he too tried the wash and gouache technique of the East. He too followed the soft and slender style of the Bengal school of Art.
  • Ramkinkar ushered in a new wave of modernism with his distinct use of abstract thoughts in his sculptures like ‘Sujata’, ‘Lampstand’, ‘Santhal Family’ and ‘Call of the Mill’ are among of his most famous works.
  • He also mastered painting. Some of his famous paintings include Gossip, Cocks On the Table, Santhal couple, The Lunch, Swapnamoyee etc.
  • Ramkinkar was responsive to the socio-political changes that were taking place around him. He created a series of anti-war paintings in 1942 and his sculpture titled ‘Harvester’ was a response to the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.
  • He was also assigned to build the ‘Yaksha-Yakshi’ sculpture that stands outside the RBI building in New Delhi.
  • He was honoured with Padma Bhusan in 1970.
• Krishna Reddy:
  • He was a printmaker born in Andhra Pradesh.
  • He developed a new technique of 'viscosity printing' which involved applying multiple colours to the same metal plate.
  • His main focus was on humanity and nature.
  • Some of his notable works include Whirlpool, Bull and Man, Dag etc.
• Nandalal Bose:
  • He was the disciple of Abanindranath Tagore.
  • His paintings mainly revolve around Indian history and Hindu mythology.
  • He drew the poster of the famous Haripura Congress of 1938.
  • He illustrated the Constitution of India by applying gold leaf and stone colours.

The correct answer is Ramkinkar Baij.

Key Points

• Ramkinkar Baij:
  • He is considered the first modern sculpturer.
  • Baij was a student of the Kala Bhavan of Shantiniketan and there his initial days were experimental. He tried various mediums for his painting like watercolour and oil paints and these too in various styles. Like other students at Shantiniketan, he too tried the wash and gouache technique of the East. He too followed the soft and slender style of the Bengal school of Art.
  • Ramkinkar ushered in a new wave of modernism with his distinct use of abstract thoughts in his sculptures like ‘Sujata’, ‘Lampstand’, ‘Santhal Family’ and ‘Call of the Mill’ are among of his most famous works.
  • He also mastered painting. Some of his famous paintings include Gossip, Cocks On the Table, Santhal couple, The Lunch, Swapnamoyee etc.
  • Ramkinkar was responsive to the socio-political changes that were taking place around him. He created a series of anti-war paintings in 1942 and his sculpture titled ‘Harvester’ was a response to the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.
  • He was also assigned to build the ‘Yaksha-Yakshi’ sculpture that stands outside the RBI building in New Delhi.
  • He was honoured with Padma Bhusan in 1970.

• The sculpture 'Santhal Family' by Ramkinkar Baij.

Additional Information

• Nandalal Bose:​
  • He was the disciple of Abanindranath Tagore.
  • His paintings mainly revolve around Indian history and Hindu mythology.
  • He drew the poster of the famous Haripura Congress of 1938.
  • He illustrated the Constitution of India by applying gold leaf and stone colours.
  • ​Some of his notable work includes  'Shiv and Sati', 'Sati', 'Parthasarathi' etc.​​
• Benode Behari Mukherjee:
  • ​​He joined Tagore’s experimental school for children the Patha Bhavan in Shantiniketan at the age of 12. When Kala Bhavan was established he was its second student. Later, he returned to his alma mater as a teacher. 
  • Art journals from the 1930s and 40s credit him as one of the first artists of Shantiniketan to be “devoted entirely to landscapes”. His exposure to Chinese and Japanese art traditions; frescoes of Ajanta helped him to develop his unique art language.
  • His art was generally with watercolours, tempera on wood, works on silk, felt tip pen and Chinese ink on pape1974r, textile block prints, etchings, lithographs and paper collages.
  • It is his 1946 Mural “Life of the Medieval Saints” is considered his career’s magnum opus.
  • His autobiographical essays, compiled as Chitrakar won him two literary awards including the prestigious Rabindra Puraskar in 1980.
  • He was honoured with Padma Vibhusan in 1974.
• Jamini Roy:
  • His paintings focus on India's folklore and rural ethos.
  • He embraced the Kalighat style of painting which depicts unique features like big eyes, round faces,  and curved bodies.
  • He is compared with French artist Henri Matisse.
  • His popular works are Bride and two companies, Durga with little Ganesha, Mother and child, Jesus Christ, Black Horse etc.