Author: B N Mukherjee
Publisher: Indian Museum Calcutta
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 28
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
The name Kalighat Pata is applied to a class of paintings and drawings on paper produced by a group of artists called patuas in the neighborhood of the famous Kali temple at Kalighat, now a part of Calcutta. This portfolio comprises 12 plates of paintings and drawings of the Kalighat style with 16-page text detailing the background and description of each of the twelve paintings.
Though the exact date of the beginning of the activities of the Patuas at Kalight cannot be determined, it must have been several decades earlier than 1888, when T N Mukherjee noticed the sale of a great number of paintings at inter alia Kalighat. The activities of the Patuas as a creative group are considered to have ended by AD 1930, though a few of them are known have been alive even in the sixties of the present century and at least one, if not more, can be noticed even now as trying to produce Kalighat patas. But on the whole, the Kalighat style flourished and declined or at least began to decline during the British rule in Calcutta, the cultural metropolis of India.
The Indian Museum has in its collection forty paintings and four drawings of the Kalighat style. Of the forty painting, thirty-nine were acquired in 1889. Eleven of these pictures and an imitation of the Kalighat style form part of this album.
Contents
The Indian Museum has in its collection forty paintings and four drawings of the Kalighat style. Of the forty painting, thirty-nine were acquired in 1889. Eleven of these pictures and an imitation of the Kalighat style are catalogued below:
1. Against a bluish background and below a raised curtain goddess Kali stands to front. She is four armed, holding a sword and the severed head of a male in her upper and lower left hands.
2. Child Krishna is shown in a kneeling or half crawling posture. He is fully ornamented, and has a head dress, a girle on a piece of cloth.
3. Siva, adorned with ornaments and three snakes, sits to front on a bull standing or slowly walking to left and turning its head to right.
4. Siva sits to front, with his right leg on the left thigh. He holds a trident and a pot for smoking marijuna.
5. A six armed male stands to front cross-legged on a circular mat or a conceptualised representation of a lotus and in the posture of tribhanga
6. Gauranga and his disciple Nityananda stand to front on circular mats. Each of them wars a lower garment and has a scarf around the shoulders and along the two sides of body.
7. Lakshmi and Sarasvati the two daughters of the goddess Durga, stand to front in tribanga pose and cross legged on mats.
8. A male and a female stand to front almost in dancing poses. The lady wars a skirt, blouse and veil, while the male wears a lower garment and a long headdress and has an auspicious mark on the forehead.
9. This picture depicts the Ramayana scene of the fight between the epic hero Ram and Lave and Kusa, the minor sons of Sita. The boys who had not seen him since their birth, stopped the horse destined to take part in Ram's Ashamed sacrifice.
10. This drawing shows a calf sucking the udders of a cow, whose head is affectionately towards it.
11. This picture shows a lady wearing a sari lying on a cot with the upper portion of her body resting on a pillow.
12. This picture shows Yasoda sitting with child Krishna on her lap. She is curling the child who also fondles one of her breasts.