India is a rich in cultural hues.
The richness is reflected in its art forms.
Among them the visual art arena is reigned by paintings.
The ancestry of Indian paintings dates back to 5500 BC.
The petroglyphs at Bhimbedka, Madhya Pradesh are the oldest instances of human drawings in the subcontinent.
The tradition continued in frescos, murals and miniatures at Ajanta and Ellora caves, temples and palaces.
Later on, it was diversified with time and space into Eastern, Western and Malwa, Deccan and Jaunpur miniatures, charismatic Mughal school, Rajput school, Mysore school, Tanjore school, Madhubani style, folk forms like Pattachitra, Bengal School and finally into Modern and/ or contemporary styles.
Petroglyphs of Bhimbedka were created by nameless personalities.
Nobody can name the painters of Ajanta, Ellora or sculptors of Khajuraho and Konark.
Yet we can trace creators of Mughal School as Abdus Samad,Mir, Sayyed Ali, Sultan Jehangir, Ustad Mansur, Abul Hasan and Bishandas and continued by Mir Hashim, Mohammad Faqirullah Khan, Muhammad Nadir, Anupchhatar Chitarman, Bichitr, Manohar and Honhar.
But the most of the practitioners involved in the other schools as well as also folk forms had sank into oblivion.
During early twentieth century, the Bengal Art School emerged out.
This was the Indian form of avant garde boosted with nationalist sentiments.
Obviously it was against the prevalent styles and forms as promoted chiefly by Raja Ravi Verma of Cochi royal lineage and also against the British School of art.
Earnest Binfield Havel and Abanindra Nath Tagore were the leading figures of this movement.
The waves generated by the Bengal School dissuaded soon after the modernist movement of twenty century embarked at the Indian art arena.
The result was creation by numerous powerful painters and sculptors.
Some of them grabbed the western ideals of composition, perspective and realism depicting Indian themes.
On the contrary, Jamini Roy has become distinguished for her inclination to Indian folk forms.
Soon after the independence of India in 1947, Progressive Artists' group was constituted with, H.
A.
Gade, S.
K.
Bakre, S.
H.
Raza, M.
F.
Husain, F.
N.
Souza and K.
H.
Ara.
But in the mid 1950s the group was dissolved.
Most of the noted sculptors and painters were then associated with this organization.
Some more of the survivors are V.
S.
Gaitonde, Om Swami, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee, Krishen Khanna, Bal Chabda, and Ram Kumar.
Standing outside this cluster those who have enriched painting in India are Jatin Das, Narayanan Ramachandran, Jahar Dasgupta, Prokash Karmakar, John Wilkins and Bijon Choudhuri.
Post-liberalization era saw introduction of pseudorealism.
The leading practitioner is Debjyoti Roy.
Other eminent ones are Raj Mehta for his murals, Narayan Ramchandran for his third eye series.
Anish Kapoor has already made a deep impretion on the international arena.
The richness is reflected in its art forms.
Among them the visual art arena is reigned by paintings.
The ancestry of Indian paintings dates back to 5500 BC.
The petroglyphs at Bhimbedka, Madhya Pradesh are the oldest instances of human drawings in the subcontinent.
The tradition continued in frescos, murals and miniatures at Ajanta and Ellora caves, temples and palaces.
Later on, it was diversified with time and space into Eastern, Western and Malwa, Deccan and Jaunpur miniatures, charismatic Mughal school, Rajput school, Mysore school, Tanjore school, Madhubani style, folk forms like Pattachitra, Bengal School and finally into Modern and/ or contemporary styles.
Petroglyphs of Bhimbedka were created by nameless personalities.
Nobody can name the painters of Ajanta, Ellora or sculptors of Khajuraho and Konark.
Yet we can trace creators of Mughal School as Abdus Samad,Mir, Sayyed Ali, Sultan Jehangir, Ustad Mansur, Abul Hasan and Bishandas and continued by Mir Hashim, Mohammad Faqirullah Khan, Muhammad Nadir, Anupchhatar Chitarman, Bichitr, Manohar and Honhar.
But the most of the practitioners involved in the other schools as well as also folk forms had sank into oblivion.
During early twentieth century, the Bengal Art School emerged out.
This was the Indian form of avant garde boosted with nationalist sentiments.
Obviously it was against the prevalent styles and forms as promoted chiefly by Raja Ravi Verma of Cochi royal lineage and also against the British School of art.
Earnest Binfield Havel and Abanindra Nath Tagore were the leading figures of this movement.
The waves generated by the Bengal School dissuaded soon after the modernist movement of twenty century embarked at the Indian art arena.
The result was creation by numerous powerful painters and sculptors.
Some of them grabbed the western ideals of composition, perspective and realism depicting Indian themes.
On the contrary, Jamini Roy has become distinguished for her inclination to Indian folk forms.
Soon after the independence of India in 1947, Progressive Artists' group was constituted with, H.
A.
Gade, S.
K.
Bakre, S.
H.
Raza, M.
F.
Husain, F.
N.
Souza and K.
H.
Ara.
But in the mid 1950s the group was dissolved.
Most of the noted sculptors and painters were then associated with this organization.
Some more of the survivors are V.
S.
Gaitonde, Om Swami, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee, Krishen Khanna, Bal Chabda, and Ram Kumar.
Standing outside this cluster those who have enriched painting in India are Jatin Das, Narayanan Ramachandran, Jahar Dasgupta, Prokash Karmakar, John Wilkins and Bijon Choudhuri.
Post-liberalization era saw introduction of pseudorealism.
The leading practitioner is Debjyoti Roy.
Other eminent ones are Raj Mehta for his murals, Narayan Ramchandran for his third eye series.
Anish Kapoor has already made a deep impretion on the international arena.