Modern Trends in Indian Art

Modern art refers to the artistic work produced during the period of 1860s to the 1970s and represents the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually pertains to the art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. In India, the modern art movement began in the early 1900s. During 1900-1925, Bengal School dominated the Indian art.
Bengal school of painting represented the first art movement in the country. Artists like Abindranath Tagore, Nandal Bose, Raja Ravi Verma, Jamini Roy were some of the pioneers of Bengal school. It was the rebirth of Indian art. Bengal school witnessed the departure of traditional painting methods like tempera. Chinese cloth painting and Japanese wash technique were used. The Japanese water colour technique called wash became the hallmark of Bengal school. This technique diluted the impact of the colours used giving the paintings a mystic sense of space and atmosphere. The these of the paintings included religious, social and historical events. Paintings of landscapes, birds and animals were also done.
After 1925, artists refused to imitate the mannerisms of the art of the past. They argued that such imitation bounds the imagination and creativity of the artists. The contemporary artists stressed on liberating the imagination from the shackles of past. The art after 1925, was therefore very different from the previous Indian arts. There was variety in the techniques used and artworks were different from each other having more or less similarity.
Technique like cubism was used by the artist Gaganendranath. Cubism is a European style of art which aims to show all of the possible viewpoints of a person or an object all at once. Cubistic artworks look like they are made out of cubes and other geometrical shapes. Chiaroscuro, which is a characteristic of the European Renaissance was used in his famous painting ‘Magician’. Chiaroscuro is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.
The soft wash technique was discarded and oil painting started getting more recognition. These paintings had bold and contrasting colour scheme in comparison to the light wash technique of the Bengal school. The credit for popularising oil painting in India goes to Amrita Sher Gil.
Graphic Prints stated getting popular as well. Artist Krishna Reddy used techniques like intaglio and kaleidoscopic effects in his graphic prints. Intaglio is a printmaking technique in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is a process of print on engraved design. In his painting ‘Whirlpool’ which is a intaglio on paper, Krishna Reddy has also used the method of viscosity printing. Viscosity printing is a multi-colour printmaking technique which is uses the viscosity of the paint or ink.
Etching and aquatint was also used in contemporary print making. Etching is an intaglio printmaking process in which lines or areas are incised using acid into a metal plate in order to hold the ink. Aquatint is also an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. Both of these techniques were used together to create contemporary prints. ‘The Children’ by Somnath Hore, ‘TheDevi’ by Jyoti Bhatt and ‘ Man, Women and Tree’ by K. Laxman Goud are some of the famous prints which have been made using these techniques.