The Land, the Landscape, and the Long view
by Sampurna Chakraborty The prototypical scope of ‘scenery’ painting and the concept of the ‘picturesque’ did not have any historical and cultural manifestations in India until the mid-eighteenth century. For centuries, the genre of landscape painting in Indian art history found itself in a subsidiary position. The predominant
read more The Khoai Scroll: Painting as Alchemy between Place and Self
by R Siva Kumar All his life Benodebehari lived in a kind of hermetic solitude. A recluse by choice, nature was for him a pervasive presence that kept him company. He once compared himself to a solitary palm tree in a vast khoai - the expanse of eroded, arid, red laterite land that surrounded Santiniketan in
read more The Flower Paintings of Benodebehari Mukherjee
by Nilima Sheikh Flowers are accessible: they can be plucked, smelt, held in the hand for scrutiny or sensuous pleasures, and put to many uses. Their formal riddles and life-cycles, their infinitesimal variety in pattern and colour, have provided artists studying nature a range of inspirational as well as learning material.
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