Artist Jamini Roy- the genius from West Bengal

 

                                                  

One of the most prolific painters coming out of West Bengal and very beloved was Jamini Roy.

 

He first started learning art at the Govt college of Art, Calcutta. He started out as a portrait painter, and then moved onto to other subjects

 

There were two schools of thought or art that came out of Bengal, at the turn of the last century considered to be the leaders in Modern Art. The Bengal School and the Shantiniketan School of art.

Both influenced Jamini Roys work the most . Interpretations of art that  took the existing art form from Ajanta Ellora caves/ Patua paintings  and the figurative styles they offered.

 

He painted a lot of paintings, apparently over 20000, and also did small scale paintings of larger ones- like an idea forming in his mind, and then it takes shape and then becomes the real painting

 

How does one explain his art. Like all painters he started out first by being influenced by what was around him like the European style – may be because it paid the bills, who knows, but soon developed his own style, and slowly evolved into his own style. Was it because he got introduced to Sunayani Devi , a self taught painter herself but more importantly the sister of Gagendranath and Abnindranath Tagore.

 

She introduced Jamini to the Kalighat Style of  painting or the Patua  using earth, chalk powder and vegetable colour,  with slanting large eyes, which showed the women, etc of good nobility , with a hint of divinity in it.

The largest canvas he painted or plural form canvases was the Ramayana series , he then did individual smaller canvases of the bigger painting, taking aspects of it, like the Bankura horse or some religious formats, and made them into individual paintings. Both big and small

 

The Indian Government under the patronage of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and carefully selected by Pupul Jayakar, named 9 artist as Navratnas (nine gems) of Indian art, and made thier art works, national treasures, and non exportable, this included Jamini Roy.

 

Now here is a fact very few people know. The Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan was setup in 1919, the same year the Bauhaus was set up in Germany. Little known fact that Wassily Kadinsky and Paul Klee were both influenced by “the cult of India “ art. In the early decade that time, a Indian exhibit, complete with a gigantic elephant was displayed in Germany.

 

I am lucky to have 5 of his paintings, and each is mesmerizing its own way.

Jamini was greatly influenced by Christian iconography and started to blend or marry the concept of Christianity and Kalighat style, so a Mother and Child, depicting Mother Mary and Infant Jesus , but painted in the Kalighat style, how fascinating and original

I hope you have learnt something today. Its important for us to keep our traditions and heritage alive by talking , learning and being proud about this.  

Below are two image of my Jamini Roy , the Mother and Child and the Infant Jesus and Mother Mary painting