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Have you wondered how people looked at paintings and photographs in the nineteenth century? For DAG’s annual Heritage Festival ‘The City as a Museum’, we explored various aspects of the city’s visual culture. As we are about to launch the DAG Journal let us revisit the walk co-led by Sarbajit Mitra and Amreeta Das at the Uttarpara Jaykrishna public library to delve into the periodical archive and trace the evolution of printed pictures in India. Flipping through the pages of these periodicals offered glimpses into the everyday habits of consuming art—from simple wood-cut and lithograph illustrations, to full plate colour reproductions of paintings and photographs, artist albums, and exquisitely ornate typography.

Artists often proceed through a trial and error method—an incessant experimentation—leaving behind a singular trail of oeuvre composed of an irreconcilable, yet inseparable, set of works. Born in the small town of Sojitra in the Kheda district of Gujarat, Jeram Patel studied drawing and painting at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay. In 1959, excellence in his work led him to pursue commercial design at Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, on a scholarship, and also travel to France and Japan. Thereafter, he successfully held solo exhibition at various places in India and abroad, and participated in international events such as the Tokyo Biennale and Sao Paulo Art Biennale (both in 1963).

DAG Museum’s annual festival ‘The City as a Museum’ attempts to explore the various archives, communities and artistic traditions that cohere around the life of a city. Put together, they tell different stories about the city across time and space, from the point of view of neighbourhoods, collections and institutions, but not just limited to those either.

In order to learn more about this unique programme that seeks to explore heritage outside the walls of a traditional gallery or museum, read on!

The Devi or the female power in Hindu mythology appears in various avatars in our everyday lives—as idols during the puja, on covers of magazines, product labels, calendars and posters. The modern history of visualising the Devi goes back to naturalistic depictions in oil paintings by the Early Bengal artists, which were surpassed in popularity and fame by Raja Ravi Varma and his studio. His representation, however, was regarded as too human-like by artists of the Bengal School in the early twentieth century, who created idealised forms based on a synthesis of classical visual traditions. In the twentieth century, we find artists responding to distinctive traits of the goddess to portray specific aspects of her power, or to convey the artist's own relationship with divinity. Few artists who have turned to Hindu myths have been able to escape the temptation to interpret the female power in their own way, and the diversity in style, medium, and mood is a testament to that.

As a region that is home to many religions and cultures, South Asia has been a fertile ground for art that blends different styles, ideas, and influences. Conquest, migration, or friendly exchange of cultural ideas and values—be it in the visual arts, food, or politics—all played a part in shaping the region as a melting pot of civilisations. Explore artworks that showcase this syncretic legacy from DAG's museum collection—starting with the early encounters with European realism, the pan-Asian influences on the Bengal School, and beyond.

The wash technique has come to be associated in India with the art of the Bengal School, but the story of its origins in India takes us back to an era of rich cultural exchanges. In the early twentieth century artists like Abanindranath Tagore were trying to imagine a pan-Asian cultural identity, and they turned for inspiration to traditions from across Persia to Japan. Rabindranath Tagore's friendship with Okakura Kakuzō occasioned the arrival of several Japanese artists in Kolkata, such as Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunsō and Katsuta Shōkin. While the latter found inspiration in the Hindu epics, artists in Bengal adapted techniques that were used by the Japanese, such as the wash technique or the subtle use of ink and brush. Since then, the wash technique has been interpreted widely by individual artists, offering an ethereal quality of light to their works, or, in some cases, like for Gaganendranath Tagore and Prosanto Roy, new possibilities of painting in various shades of darkness.

A guided walk of the first free circulating public library of India—Uttarpara Public Library—with researcher Sarbajit Mitra, traversing the history of regional literary cultures, and sifting through their vast archive to delve into the vibrant world of illustrated periodicals in colonial Bengal, followed by a poetry reading by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. 

A guided walk of the first free circulating public library of India—Uttarpara Public Library—with researcher Sarbajit Mitra, traversing the history of regional literary cultures, and sifting through their vast archive to delve into the vibrant world of illustrated periodicals in colonial Bengal, followed by a poetry reading by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. 

A creative workshop for young people, from ages 12 to 14 years, interacting with the narratives depicted in history paintings, inspired by a special viewing of artworks from the museums’ vaults.

A workshop for high school teachers in collaboration with the Victoria Memorial Hall, based on a special viewing of selected history paintings from the museums’ vaults. The workshop investigated images as a medium for learning, introducing educators to tools for incorporating art into pedagogy.

A guided walk of the exhibition with historian Prof Aparna Vaidik, Ashoka University, and Dr Giles Tillotson, SVP Exhibitions and Publications, DAG, exploring the lesser-known narratives of the Independence movement through art.