The rebel artist Jamini Roy, one of India’s ‘national treasures — He rejected his western art training to return to his roots

Jamini Roy is known as a rebel artist from India. He is also known as the father of modern Indian art. The artist is famous for his unique flok style of art. His art style mainly focused on flat forms as well as a bold border will be placed all over each element.

Early life and background

Born into a family of middle-class landowners on on April 11, 1887, Roy grew up in Beliatore, an obscure village in Bankura district in West Bengal. Having demonstrated an affinity for art from a young age, he was sent to study at the Government College of Art in Kolkata at the age of 16.

The vice-principal of this college was Abanindranath Tagore. It was under him that Roy trained in the classical western genre of art. This is why Roy’s initial work (in the early 1920s) reflect the influence of Western classical style of art. However, while these works were technically perfect, they lacked a certain energy and enthusiasm.

How his journey begin with his own art style

He realized that he needed to draw inspiration, not from Western traditions, but his own culture, and so he looked to the living folk and tribal art for inspiration. He ditch the western art style and started creating his style with bold outline art.

By 1925, he had become fascinated by the Kalighat style of painting and the unique features of its figures — big almond-shaped eyes, round faces, curvaceous bodies, and firm contours.

Painted mostly on mill-made paper with fluid brushwork and vibrant natural dyes, Kalighat paintings are believed to have originated in the vicinity of Kolkata’s iconic Kalighat Temple. The paintings, which depicted mythological Hindu deities, mythological characters, tribal life, and themes from everyday life, were originally sold as souvenirs to temple visitors.

Roy is also described as an art machine because he produced 20,000 paintings in his lifetime which is about 10 paintings daily but made sure his artistic aims remained the same. He always targeted the ordinary middle class as the upholder of art however he was thronged by the rich. Keeping his respect for the middle class reflected in his critical views; he believed that ordinary people were more important than governments because they were the voice of his art.

Achievement

In 1934, he received a Viceroy’s gold medal in an all India exhibition for one of his work. In 1954 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, the third highest award a civilian can be given. In 1955, he was made the first Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, the highest honour in the fine arts conferred by the Lalit Kala Akademi, India’s National Academy of Art, Government of India.

In 1976, the Archaeological Survey of India, Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India declared his works among the “Nine Masters” whose work, to be henceforth considered “to be art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value”.

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