Calcutta, Santiniketan
It is now April, which means that my main priority is one thing: a large research paper on the Bengal School and Pan-Asianism.
In the early twentieth century, there was a group of Bengali intellectuals and artists who, in an effort to reclaim India’s artistic identity from the cultural stronghold of the British, tried to engineer a style of painting which would exemplify “Indian” standards of art. They rejected realism and illusionism taught in stuffy English classrooms and looked towards rural traditions of folk art. There was a handful of these artists who spoke with visiting Japanese artists, who were also looking for nationalism in art, and visited China and Japan themselves. They were inspired by East Asian artistic techniques and, working with their Japanese counterparts, attempted to combine these with their own traditions to create a style of painting and printing which represented Asia as a whole - a response and affront to the broad cultural unity of Europe and European colonialism.
My goal is to research Pan-Asianism, its influences, its effects, and its artists, and produce a long paper and presentation by the end of the month.
This objective has brought me to Calcutta, the stomping ground of the movement. There I have been visiting museums and meeting with professors to trace the trajectories of the movement. Calcutta is a fine city with a cosmopolitan feel and a strong artistic community.
I am staying with a woman in the neighborhood Ballygunge. She lives alone and has chosen to rent out the spare rooms of her house to foreigners. She is quite interested in art and her house is well decorated with interesting impressionistic paintings and surreal sculptures. Some of the work, like the sculptures, is that of her son, who has studied in the U.S. and has lived in Amsterdam. She says that Calcutta is dying, but has a soul.
I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with some British NGO workers, three Indian law students, and one shy Indian girl living in the same hostel as one of my classmates. I’ve also been wandering around the city with my SIT fellows and friends.
Currently I am in Santiniketan, a small town outside Calcutta where some of these Bengali artists designed their own art education, establishing a small school in the peaceful countryside. The school is now a university. I came in early this afternoon by train and after a nap I walked around the town a bit. I am the only white person here. Few speak English. I was given a warm toothless grin by an older man on a bike, and one young kid spat at the ground in front of me and turned to his friends and lauged as he and they walked away. My room has air conditioning and quite a few bugs. It’s a pile of good things and bad things.
I’ll be here till Monday, visiting the university and galleries and archives. Hopefully.
