Untitled

The practices of many artists from Bengal were informed by the traumas of ordinary people. During India’s freedom struggle, Bengal was faced with famine, hunger and the Partition of the large province into two separate Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority political entities. These harsh realities and the ensuing violence from the Partition came to symbolize Bengal at the time. Several painters were impacted by these events and chose to represent them on canvas. Bijan Chowdhury, a twentieth-century Indian artist, was moved by the poverty, neglect and general apathy that was afflicting the nation and this painting, showing a gigantic figure in a state of despair with an owl, a vigilant bird, for company, is a telling image of how Chowdhury’s work was dictated by the violence of historical change.