An eye on creatures big and small

Scientific racism may have been the motive behind early examples of documentation of human beings, but with the benefit of hindsight, as in the case of Baltazard Solvyns (1760-1824), we realise that such exercises held up a mirror to 18th-century Indian society. The vast and expansive exhibition, People of Bengal: Coloured Etchings by F. Baltazard Solvyns, organised by the Delhi Art Gallery in collaboration with the Alipore Museum, where it was held, and curated by Giles Tillotson, provided a holistic view of “people and material culture that Solvyns encountered over the decade he lived in Bengal during the 1790s”, according to DAG.

These images are part of the rare volumes that the Flemish artist published of his etchings in Paris between 1808 and 1812. The etchings are mainly known for the representatives of every profession, from priests to swineherds, that they depict. The Indians are evenly dark-skinned and well-built. The rags of the poor are in stark contrast to the opulence of the rich. The bejewelled lady of distinction wears shoes and a hookah stands beside her comfortable bed, but the end of her saree covers her head (true in the case of other women too) and her torso is bare. Solvyns had an excellent eye for detail and his representations of an alien culture were quite accurate, although his transcriptions of Indian terms may sound puzzling initially. The “Radjah Paré” is straight out of a Mughal miniature, while the “Soudre” carries a metal badna meant presumably for his master’s ablutions (picture, left). The “Bannean”, who acted as a go-between and assisted his White master with his business transactions with natives, sits in a room with a French window. An ink stand with a quill is placed on a table beside the chair on which he is ensconced. Solvyns executed portraits of couples of different castes and of Moghul spouses as well. However, he could not get Indian features right. The Caucasian mould is occasionally evident. Was it a ploy to make them more acceptable to his consumers? The etchings also document festivals (the attenuated Durga who resembles a praying mantis is famous) and sacred rites, animals, birds and insects, trees and crops. The etchings are a faithful record of the various kinds of boats, carriages and musical instruments used then. Solvyns was awestruck by the Hooghly bore tide.

Gallery Sanskriti’s Sambandh: Affinity with Lines and Colours testified to the stamina of Ramananda Bandyopadhyay, who, at 88, continues to draw with pastels. His soft-featured maidens in the daintiest of washes and fluid lines were there but so were some adroitly executed ink drawings (picture, right). They depict a man relaxing on an easy chair, various portraits, and some caricatures that are far removed from his standard depictions of village belles. Besides the women with huge dreamy eyes, Bandyopadhyay has drawn bauls and their female companions and Brahmin couples harking back to times past. Some of the flowers he drew on black sheets of paper were in luminescent shades.

Parvathy Nayar & The Hashtag#­Col­lective’s exhibition, Biome: Celebrating Land Water Life, brought the rich and the diverse ecosystems of the coastlines, mangroves and wetlands close to Calcutta and Chennai to Ganges Art Gallery. The multimedia exhibition depicted the colourful and fascinating shoreline flora, fauna and birds of these ecosystems that thrive on water and went beyond that to bring to light the micro-organisms that exist there. It was quite a revelation for they are not visible to the naked eye. The exhibition space came alive with the beautiful colours and forms of aquatic creatures and blooms. While the pink-orange flamingos were eye-catching, no less attractive were the other animals, such as the tortoise and otters and the delicate micro-organisms, with their multifaceted forms.