Article Written By EIH Researcher And Writer
Aadrit Banerjee
During the winters of 1909, Lady Herringham, a British artist and connoisseur, led a team of artists to make copies of the renowned murals of the Ajanta caves, and in the team were two young Indian artists recommended by the master Abanindranath Tagore. They were Oshit Kumar Haldar and Nandalal Bose. In the same year, Nandalal would meet Rabindranath Tagore who would eventually persuade him to take over Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan as its first principle. The lifetime experience at Ajanta Caves, and later at the Baug Caves, would inspire Nandalal to create a more monumental and public art. Thus was born the practice of mural paintings in Shantiniketan which Nandalal included as an integral part of the Kala Bhavan curriculum. The art form has since then been practiced and perfected by artists like Benodebehari Mukherjee, and till recently by Somnath Hore transforming Shantiniketan into “a rich open-air museum of modern Indian art with several in situ murals, some of which are landmarks of Indian history”. Dive into the article to read about some of the fascinating murals that adorn Tagore’s abode of peace.
“Medieval Indian Saints” is a sprawling 80 feet long spanning across 3 walls – mural that adorns the Hindi Bhavan at Shantiniketan. Created by Benodebehari Mukherjee, who despite being born with a partial blindness, shined as one of India’s brightest modern artists under the tutelage of Nandalal Bose, the mural celebrates the co-existence and plurality of religious beliefs along the Ganges river (symbolically representing life) by portraying Indian saint-poets like Kabir, Surdas, Guru Gobind Singh, Ramanuja and others. It was created in 1946, a transitioning period in Indian history, wherein India was marching towards independence along a path marked by communal violence between the Hindus and the Muslims, and thus the mural portraying the spirit of syncretism assumes greater significance. At present when such communal fervour has not stopped but instead is constantly on the rise, it would do good perhaps to visit and look at this mural that is considered “ambitious” in modern Indian art, and has been created using the fresco-buono technique.
This technique that involves mixing powdered pigment colours in water and applying to wet fresh lime plaster ground was first introduced in Shantiniketan by Pratima Tagore who had learnt it in France under R. La Montague St. Hubert around the same time that Nandalal had begun mural painting. This technique took its root in Shantiniketan reaching its finesse with Mukherjee’s most acclaimed work on the medieval saints.
Mukherjee would turn entirely blind soon, but nowhere would his impairment dissuade him from his art; in fact he would create the ceramic tile mural of several human figures after losing his sight; a mural considered to be created purely out of the sense of touch, and believed to be based on paper-folded figural images. The creation of this mural features in Satyajit Ray’s documentary on Mukherjee entitled “The Inner Eye”.
Meanwhile in Cheena-Bhavana along the stairway, is Mukherjee’s mural: “Life on Campus”, that portrays the ethos of Shantiniketan’s campus life, evoking nostalgia by weaving together individual events and memories in a detached loosely structured manner. The mural effectively captures the essence of Tagore’s song celebrating the quintessential Shantiniketan spirit:
আমাদের শান্তিনিকেতন আমাদের সব হতে আপন।
(This is our Shantiniketan —
Of all places, this is our very own.)
Mukherjee’s murals today stand as a testimony that even a visual impairment couldn’t deter him or douse his passion for art.
While Mukherjee’s teacher, the famous and legendary artist Nandalal Bose’s legacy continues through the murals like Natir Puja, Halakarsana and Birth of Chaitanya. Nandalal Bose who is credited with bringing in several different techniques of mural painting to Shantiniketan was Abanindranath Tagore’s pupil, and the first principal of Kala Bhavan, and fondly remembered by Shantiniketan as its “Mastermoshai”.
After “Natir Puja” — a Buddhist tale of devotion based on the martyrdom of the dancer Srimati, which Tagore wrote as a dance drama adapting and expanding his own earlier poem “Pujarini” — was first staged in Shantiniketan, Nandalal was fascinated with the “Nati” imagery so much so that he produced scenes from the play repeatedly as if in preperation for this exquisite mural that embellishes the walls of Cheena Bhavan or the Chinese Department. Created using the brush-less touch technique wherein a rag-dipped in colour is dabbed over the entire painting, this mural spreads out capturing primary moments of the story. The mural’s design as a story board reminds one of the influence of Japanese art styles on Bose’s works. A very different version of the mural can also be spotted at Baroda’s Kirti Mandir designed by Nandalal himself. While on another wall of the Cheena Bhavan, stands the mural by Nandalal’s colleague Vinayak Masoji portraying “Chandalika”, another one of Tagore’s Buddhist themed dance drama.
Drawing his inspiration from around his environment, Nandalal used the tempera on paper technique to create the murals in Patha Bhavana, one of whose frames depicts the “Birth of Chaitanya”. These frames are one of Bose’s earliest creations and represent copies of Persian, Chinese motifs, Ajanta and Baug Cave murals. In fact, in 1933, Bose brought Narsingh lal, a local artisan from Rajasthan to assist in this project of painting the murals on the Patha Bhavan’s ground floor veranda. While on the walls of Surul Kuthibari in Sriniketan, the rural epicentre created to promote tribal traditions and artforms, is Bose’s mural “Halakarsana” that captures the festival of the same name designed by Rabindranath Tagore to honour the tiller of the soil and celebrate the connection between man and nature.
His touch can also be seen in the 1934 “Kalo Baari” or the Black House. Planned by him, along with Surendranath Kar, the chief architect who is credited for having designed the majority of the Shantiniketan buildings in Tagore’s time, and Ramkinker Baij, the renowned sculptor and painter, this building made of mud and coal tar flaunts motifs from Egyptian symbols, Ajanta Cave Paintings, Bengali folk-art and also the Harappan Bull.
Inside the Kala Bhavan, the painting department of Viswa Bharati, three elaborate murals greet ones eyes. One shows the tale of Ramayana on one wall and that of Durga on the other. This is done in black and white paint. Then there is the comparatively new building dedicated to Bose which has elaborate alpona designs and Nandalal Bose’s words inscribed on the walls. The mural is done in stoneware tiles. The third one represents the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati with crocodile, turtle and lost at their feet. All three murals were created by the versatile genius Kalapathi Ganapathi Subranmanyan fondly known in Shantiniketan as Mani-da. He was mentored by the doyens: Nandalal Bose, Ramkinker Baij, and Benodebehari Mukherjee!
Today, these murals impart to Shantiniketan a flavour of art that is distinct and cosmopolitan. The murals alongwith the architecture, sculptures and culture of the place breathes life into the quaint town and embodies the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore, and of the several masters whose contributions have enriched Shantiniketan’s heritage and history. Several of these murals today like the one made by Benodebehari on the ceiling of the hostel of Kala Bhavan is fast degrading. Mural painting today largely remains restricted to the educational syllabus. The need of the moment therefore is to document these histories of art, to find ways to reproduce and innovate them, so that they keep echoing the humane stories of life and love.
References:
— Chakrabarti, Jayanta et al. The Santiniketan Murals, Seagull Books, 1995.
— Mitra Saheli. “Grand murals of K.G. Subramanyan at Kala Bhavan”. GetBengal, 28 Nov. 2018, https://www.getbengal.com/details/grand-murals-of-k-g-subramanyan-at-kala-bhavan.
— The Heritage Lab. “Art Tour : Shantiniketan”. The Heritage Lab, 9 Aug. 2018, https://www.theheritagelab.in/shantiniketan-art-tour/.
— Roy, Debabrata. “The mural paintings of Shantiniketan (Episode – 1)”. YouTube, uploaded by Prinseps, 2019, https://youtu.be/FixrZm8Pmh0.
— Roy, Debabrata. “The mural paintings of Shantiniketan (Episode – 2)”. YouTube, uploaded by Prinseps, 2019, https://youtu.be/5DmpjPYCe20.
