The exhibition, From Prayer Rooms to Parlours: The Legacy of Bengal’s Popular Prints, at Galerie 88 presented Sanjeet Chowdhury’s richly varied collection of chromolithographs and oleographs of late-19th and early-20th century vintage meant for mass consumption. Their themes were a good mix of the sacred and the profane. Stylistically, they were hybridised. The bright and colourful images of Hindu gods and goddesses were executed in a Western academic style by students of the Government School of Art in Calcutta. They were a dab hand at adapting the techniques of European neoclassical artists to predominantly Indian themes. On the other hand, the prints of the shapely ladies of pleasure, the “beauties” playing musical instruments, echoed the sinuous lines of the Kalighat pats.
Chowdhury has been collecting these prints for the past 35 years and he had
earlier held an exhibition of these. He was inspired by Radhaprasad Gupta, the renowned collector and raconteur, who was a family friend. Chowdhury had held an exhibition of his collection many years ago when bazaar prints had already become
collector’s items but they were yet to find a place for themselves in every other exhibition.
Popular battala prints, which were actually woodcuts, exuded a raw energy and their lack of technical finesse notwithstanding, predated the Bengal print industry. It was the establishment of the Calcutta Art Studio in 1878 by Annada Prasad Bagchi (1849-1905) that made all the difference. At the art school, Bagchi was taught oil painting, woodcut, lithography and other engraving techniques. Bagchi, along with his talented former students, Nabo Kumar Biswas, Phanibhushan Sen, Krishna Chandra Pal and Jogendranath Mukhopadhyay, opened the Calcutta Art Studio. After a few years, Bagchi went back to the school of art as a teacher and his four students became proprietors of the Calcutta Art Studio. Following in its footsteps, Kansaripara Art Studio, Chorbagan Art Studio, and Imperial Art Cottage opened in Calcutta, offering prints with a wide variety of themes for sale. The artists caught the Hindu mythological characters, who figured in these prints, in the most dramatic moments. So they look like scenes out of a jatra, accentuated by the kitschy costumes of the protagonists. In the popular imagination, this approximated a royal lifestyle.
So we have the king, Shantanu, being introduced to his son, Bhishma, by his mother, Ganga (picture). The beautiful Devyani in a wet saree being rescued from a well by King Yayati. Presenting the divine love of Radha and Krishna, both youthful lovers are depicted in a wide variety of romantic situations that never let us forget their divinity. Another favourite is the antics of a child Krishna with his little cowherd friends and his foster mother, Yashoda. Unlike the staidly dressed kings and queens, Radha’s clinging saree is tantalising. Krishna is presented as the charioteer of Arjun on the Kurukshetra battlefield as well. In a one-off print, Ramakrishna Paramhansa literally sits on a swan with Krishna playing the flute behind him. Vivekananda looks on. There is a lone image of the presiding deity of Kalighat.
Luckily, the names of all the artists are mentioned in each print. They are Bhabani Churn Law, Bamapada Bandyopdhyay, Shital Badyopadhyay. These divinities are in striking contrast with the prints of the musically- inclined bazaar beauties in translucent sarees. Their physical endowments are clearly demarcated. These prints were not meant for prudes.