"...a pioneering, pathbreaking work."

Prasanta Ray’s book, Everyday Lifeworld of Paintings: Possibilities of Materialist Histories is a pioneering, pathbreaking work. There have been social histories of art such as Arnold Hauser’s pioneering ‘Social History of Art’ or Ratnabali Chattopadhyay’s ‘From Karkhanas to Studios’, but these works have confined themselves to the social background of painters and sculptors but rarely have they delved into the lives of the assistants of the painters or those of the suppliers of materials such as painting or sculpting materials, brushes, pencils, styluses, stones, rocks, marbles, papers, canvases and so on. This is what Prasanta has done in meticulous details.

His task has not been at all easy, because the histories of art have rarely, if at all, provided details of how its artists have actually worked. This is particularly difficult in the case of India. We have got details of the composers of Vedik hymns, of the Upanishads, of Ramayana and Mahabharata in their different versions of dramas such as Abhijnanashakuntala, Mrichchhakatika, but not of the sculptors, architects who produced great works of  Sanchi Stupa, Konark in Odisha,  Kandariya Mahadeva Temple of Khajuraho or the Minakshi Mandir in Madurai, or the paintings in Ajanta and Ellora. In contrast, the names of the prominent sculptors of ancient Athens are known, such as Praxiteles, Praxias, Antiochus, Apollonius. It is only with the Mughal paintings or the Kangra valley paintings that the names of the artists are recorded.

Prasanta has also dealt with the markets not only for paintings and  sculptures but also for the materials going into the artworks. There must have been markets for artworks in ancient Greece and Rome, but in Europe they practically vanished during the so called Dark Ages after the fall of Rome. The markets re-emerged after the birth of capitalism in the communes of Northern Italy such as Pisa, Amalfi, Milan, Florence, Genoa and Venice where some of the great painters and sculptors of the renaissance  emerged. Botticelli, Michelangelo,  Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Montague, Parmigianino, Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, Canaletto, Caravaggio, Giovanni, Gérard. But the markets expanded enormously when the nation states of England, France and the Netherlands became capitalised. Somehow the efflorescence of new artworks took the form of poetry and drama in England and France but the efflorescence of painting took place mainly in Belgium and Netherlands. Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch,  Jan Havickszoon Steen, Rembrandt   Van Rijin, the latter being one of the greatest painters of all time. There was an active market for artwork in 17h century Netherlands.  Rembrandt, for instance, collected the works of Montague and Giorgione.

Now I come back to Prasanta’s book. In his words, he explores lifeworlds, the world as lived in which painting is embedded in complex relations. Some of these are within the narrow arena of making paintings, Some in the ‘outside’, in the shape of social, economic and cultural institutions. In the former there are different kinds or relations on the one hand, the ‘superiors’- the patrons, the  art critics and the established painters, and on the other -- the ‘subalterns’- the assistants and the apprentices and un-categorised persons locating, collecting, preserving, processing and distributing the basic accessories or artists’ materials. These are from the natural commons like flowers, rocks and minerals for the production of colours, gums and binders. In fact, a whole lot –grindstones, earthen ware, brushes, calligraphic pens, easels and frames wood and metals for oleography and albums and exhibition halls. For the analysis of the social conditions of the subalterns I would ask the reader to turn to Prasanta’s references.  Now, I am going to relate some interesting stories in the book

In 1956, the famous painter and  teacher Nandalal Bose discovered a crazy artist. He was destitute but would not beg. Nandalal gave him colours and paper. He reacted strongly saying ‘I draw on a wall’. The paper was promptly pasted on a wall. He declared, ‘the brush will not do and those colours are useless’. Then he made black ink by collecting soot from of bottom of an earthen rice pot. Nandalal pointed out that as he mixed soot with starch it became sticky. He folded cloth pieces to make new kinds of brushes, one for thin line, another for wider lines and another for ‘wash’. After drawing a picture he left with his fixed fee not a single paisa more or less. Three drawings by this artist are preserved in Santiniketan’s Kala Bhavan. Nandalal himself used such cloth strips in his Natir Puja  murals in Santiniketan. Subalterns include malis, carpenters, workers in terracotta, workers as rocks transporters for art. What is interesting is that there  is at least one artwork by a mali, Govinda Mali of Madhubani village, Darbhanga found on place Arts of Bengal, the heritage of Bangladesh and India exhibition.

As there is a story about Nandalal Bose in Prasanta’s book, there are also stories about Abanindranath Thakur, the Guru of Nandalal Bose, Mukul De and many others. The youngsters of Jorasanko  Thakurbari insisted that a brush would be essential for painting. Abanindranath retorted that he would paint with pen and pencil. If these also are not available he would use chalk. Another time Abanindranath painting on a canvas, but he was not satisfied with it. Then he asked a man who worked in the house what was wrong with the painting. The man replied, these three figures. The man was right. Abanindranath was happy when he removed those figures.

Abanindranath procured his materials from grocers’ shops. Then European firms such as Winsor and Newton marketed manufactured materials for painting. They were followed by Indian firms Abinash Chandra Dutt and GC Laha & Co.

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

March 9, 2024.