Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Delhi Breadth Assignment
From the many images that we saw in Delhi, for this assignment you should pick one to focus on for your next AP breadth piece.
Drawing inspiration from this piece, you are to make an artwork that is based on it in one or more of the following ways:
-- Composition
-- Color Scheme
-- Subject Matter
-- Concept
Many artists use older works to make new pieces – Picasso did this in the 20th century, basing work on Greek mythology from the ancient world, or from Spanish master paintings from the 17th century. It is a standard practice in artmaking, to come up with your own version of an older artist’s work. The work is still different from the original, but plays with tradition in a modern way.
The tradition of Indian art – either miniature paintings, or more recently, from the 20th century – is a rich springboard that is open to anyone’s interpretation. You can either play with ideas that you have been exploring already, or try something completely new.
You may use a piece that you sketched from in person, or find an image online, but it should be from one of the artists or schools that we encountered on our field trip.
DUE DATE: MARCH 1
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Delhi Assignment
Rajput Miniature Art 
Rajput Miniature Art traces its roots all the way back to the Mughals. In 1555, Emperor Humayun brought along Persian painters who excelled in this school of painting. This style flourished in India, especially under Akbar, who encouraged Hindu painters to utilize this form and also add more of their own culture into it. Soon, these painters were serving in courts of Rajasthani or Rajput rulers. Characteristics of Rajput Miniature Art include scenes from daily life. Inspired by their Mughal predecessors, they are painted with close attention to detail and in bold colours representing the romantic lives that they depict. Ananda Coomaraswamy, a pioneer of Miniature art divided it into several schools of art, more or less basing it on the areas to which they were popular to. The main schools of miniature art are Mewar, Bundi, Kotah, Marwar, Bikaner, Jaipur, and Kishangarh. Apart from the different origins of these groups, they also have a few distinctions in their content. For example, the school of Mewar had bold lines and burning colours, whereas Bundi was gentler, and more lyrical.
http%3a%2f%2fwww.wiki.indianfolklore.org%2fimages%2f8%2f87%2fRajasthan_miniature.pdf
Francis Newton Souza
Francis Newton Souza was born in the village of Saligao, Goa on April 12th, 1924. He was educated in St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, but was expelled for drawing graffiti in the toilets. However, he claims that he was only improving on a previous drawing, just because he thought it was very ugly. Later, he attended the Sir J.J School of Art, one of India’s most prestigious art schools, but expelled in 1945 due to his support of the Quit India Movement. Souza’s style of work has been defined as expressionistic. He has had wide recognition in the West. The Times of India describes it as this: "Be it the sluts or the suits, the seamy side of life or the steamy, the gnomish, pox-scarred boy from Goa who went on to become one of the first Indian artists to be feted in the salons of Europe, laid it bare."
A strong Catholic, many of Souza’s paintings focus on scenes from the Bible. His other inspirations include a strong sense of patriotism. Though Souza eventually moved to London, and then to New York soon after, he visited his home country every winter. He enjoys the use of bold colours and also erotic scenes, which he says were both inspired by the Indian culture. He also founded the Bombay Progressive Artist’s Group, which is still active today in producing avant-garde works of art.
http://www.fnsouza.com%2f
http://.contemporaryindianart.com%2ffrancis_newton_souza.htm
Rajput Miniature Art traces its roots all the way back to the Mughals. In 1555, Emperor Humayun brought along Persian painters who excelled in this school of painting. This style flourished in India, especially under Akbar, who encouraged Hindu painters to utilize this form and also add more of their own culture into it. Soon, these painters were serving in courts of Rajasthani or Rajput rulers. Characteristics of Rajput Miniature Art include scenes from daily life. Inspired by their Mughal predecessors, they are painted with close attention to detail and in bold colours representing the romantic lives that they depict. Ananda Coomaraswamy, a pioneer of Miniature art divided it into several schools of art, more or less basing it on the areas to which they were popular to. The main schools of miniature art are Mewar, Bundi, Kotah, Marwar, Bikaner, Jaipur, and Kishangarh. Apart from the different origins of these groups, they also have a few distinctions in their content. For example, the school of Mewar had bold lines and burning colours, whereas Bundi was gentler, and more lyrical.
http%3a%2f%2fwww.wiki.indianfolklore.org%2fimages%2f8%2f87%2fRajasthan_miniature.pdf
Francis Newton Souza
Francis Newton Souza was born in the village of Saligao, Goa on April 12th, 1924. He was educated in St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, but was expelled for drawing graffiti in the toilets. However, he claims that he was only improving on a previous drawing, just because he thought it was very ugly. Later, he attended the Sir J.J School of Art, one of India’s most prestigious art schools, but expelled in 1945 due to his support of the Quit India Movement. Souza’s style of work has been defined as expressionistic. He has had wide recognition in the West. The Times of India describes it as this: "Be it the sluts or the suits, the seamy side of life or the steamy, the gnomish, pox-scarred boy from Goa who went on to become one of the first Indian artists to be feted in the salons of Europe, laid it bare."
A strong Catholic, many of Souza’s paintings focus on scenes from the Bible. His other inspirations include a strong sense of patriotism. Though Souza eventually moved to London, and then to New York soon after, he visited his home country every winter. He enjoys the use of bold colours and also erotic scenes, which he says were both inspired by the Indian culture. He also founded the Bombay Progressive Artist’s Group, which is still active today in producing avant-garde works of art.
http://www.fnsouza.com%2f
http://.contemporaryindianart.com%2ffrancis_newton_souza.htm
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Delhi Trip assignment
Deccani School Of Painting
The development of Deccani School of painting started during the times when Adil Shahi, Nizam Shahi and Qutub Shahi once ruled in Bijapur. They supported in the development of this school. Deccani was inspired from the Mughal School and progressed to its own unique and distinctive style. The development of Deccani started from 1526 when the Muslim courts of Ahmednagar. Bjapur and Golconda joined as the leading authorities in the southern part. Later they became the most argumentative neighbors of the Hindu Kingdom of Vijaynagar. Later again on the same year they stood together and demolished the rich capital of Vijaynagar, but the alliance at once faded and the three went their own ways. After this period the conquerors took in many cultural characters of their Hindu opponents and employed many local craftsmen of medieval art styles of southern India. Deccani thrived in the 16th and 17th century but slowly faded away in the 18th and 19th century. A multicultural civilization containing of Indian Muslims, Hindus, Persians, Turks, Arabs and African, formed the modern symbolic expression that has been compared to an incredible, fantastic mood of an illusion. Pre Mughal styles of painting as well as Persian, Turkish and even European societies and tradition represented as substances to the blossoming of tiny painting in the midpoints of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, Golconda and Hyderabad. There was a painting known as Nujum-al-Ulum, a richly demonstrated reference work painted at 1570 in the Chester Beatly Library at Bijapur with a total of 876 tiny paintings in this work. There were numerous paintings showing weapons, utensils and constellations too. Other series of paintings consisted of the spiritual leaders of aspects of the earth who are portrayed as forbidding ladies in the South Indian dress, tall and slim as those in the Ragamala paintings.Ibrahim Adil Shah (II), who was the king of Bijapur in the 14th-15th century AD, loved painting and flourished from Deccani along with many other artists. His portrait is available in different museums in the world. Deccani School of painting’s skill, magnificence, talent and lushness can be signified and symbolized from the best portraits of Adil Shah which are available at the British Museum and also in the Lalgarh palace at Bikaner. He was the owner of Nujum-al-Ulum’s document. He had many successful compositions too. The picture here is in the Islamic Persian tradition especially the arabesques on the top of the throne, but conquered by a truly Deccani piece of plants and leaves against the deep blue sky.
http://www.indianetzone.com/23/deccani_school_painting.htm
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1862 in Bengal and expired on 1941. His father Debendranath Tagore was a leading light of the Brahmo Samaj. It is a new religious group in the 19th century Bengal and which attempted a renewal of the final monistic foundation of Hinduism as placed down in the Upanishads. He did not go to school but when he turned seventeen, he went to England for formal schooling but again did not finish his studies there. When he grew up, he took part in many activities which made him closer in touch with common humanity and made him gain his attention in social reforms. He also put use of his Upanishadic principles of education when he started a trial school at Shantiniketan. Later in life he gradually took part in the Indian nationalist movement. A few years after 1915 when British Government was ruling he resigned the honor as a protest against British policies in India. He wrote many writings in his native Bengal and was well known in the West. Later he became very famous and was taken across continents for lectures and tours of friendship and he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage and he was inspired by many people living in West Bengal. He was an artist of every kind. His writings summed up to fifty with some of his of volumes of poetry. He wrote numerous volumes of short stories and novels too. He even wrote musical dramas, essays of every kind, travel diaries and two autobiographies. He was the first to win Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 as a non-European.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-bio.html
Research Assignment
Siddharth Gurung
Class XII
AP Studio Art
Krishen Khanna:
Krishen Khanna is a famous Indian contemporary artist who was born in Lyallpur in 1925, which was a part of India back then, but because of the partition it is now in Pakistan. He currently lives in Pakistan; Faisalabad. Krishen Khanna traveled a lot in his lifetime he also lived in Shimla during the partition period of India and Pakistan. Khanna learned and developed his great artsy talents in Mayo school of art in Lahore. Khanna started arts when there was not so much of scope and glitz for arts. He was later moved to Mumbai due to his work, he used to work in Grindlays Bank. Khanna was later asked to join the Progressive Artist’s group with which he associated for rest of his time. Krishen held his first major exhibition and sold his first painting to Dr. Homi Bhabha for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Krishen was always motivated and supported by his father and wife also to pursue his career as an artist. Khanna has received many awards for his hard work, passion and interest for art. Krishen received the Rockefeller fellowship in 1962. He was also a residence artist at the American University in Washington in 1963-1964. He has also participated in many exhibitions like in Tokyo Biennale 1957 and 196 1, the Sao Paulo Biennale 1960, the Venice Biennale 1962, the Festival of India in the then USSR and in Japan in 1987 and 1988. Khanna was also awarded Padma Shri in 1996. His masterful maneuver of painting evokes the unmatched feelings of human situation. The thickness of paint in his artwork often seems like a prism through figures can be distinguished. . His earlier works are replicas of scenes that have imprinted themselves on his mind during the partition.
Kalighat Painting:
Kalighat is an actually a locality of Kolkata India, which is very densely populated and has a very rich culture. Kalighat painting is a form of art which was originated in Bengal in the 19th century, which was very popular in the rural areas during that time. It is named after the temple in Kolkata which was situated on the banks of river Adi Ganga. This painting is done on clothes and patas. Kalighat painting is famous for its generously curving figures both of men and women. In Kalighat painting they used to depict the Gods and goddesses and historic and epics. Villagers used to perform this type of painting; while they travelled they used to carry their scroll paintings with them and sang the scenes from the epics that were depicted on the painting. Kalighat pata pictures are highly sophisticated, it does not give much importance to perspective and are usually created using pen and ink a drawing filled with flat bright colors and mostly uses paper as a substrates. The artists who used to do Kalighat style painting back then were rarely educated. Kalighat paintings also expressed European influences and innovations; it also expresses the wonder that ordinary Bengalis felt on exposure the European influences. Kalighat paintings are still created now days although genuine work is hard to find. This art form is very urban and hugely secular.
Delhi Research Assignment
Company Painting is a particular school of painting which formed during the British rule in India back in the 18th century. It originated as the British East India Company extended its expeditions across South Asia, for which many British employees settled in India. Landing in the foreign and exotic environment, they wished to capture every aspect of the land and its culture, and knew better than to get British painters. Hence, they hired local Indian artists to paint for them in order tomaintain the authentic cultural element in the paintings.“Aesthetically, they are the descendants of the picturesque scenes of India created by the likes of Thomas and William Daniell.”[1]The medium used for these company paintings was water color instead of gouache (a medium similar to water color except heavier and more opaque with the ratio of pigment to water was higher and particles were larger). The paintings reflected the particular region from which they arose. This meaning that the local traditions heavily influenced the styles of the company paintings.
This company painting depicts six soldiers with their uniforms specific to their posts.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Painting_of_six_figures_depicting_military_uniforms.jpg
Amrita Sher-Gil was born, in Budapest, in 1913, to Sardar Umrao Singh Shergil (Punjabi) and Marie Antoinette (Hungarian). She grew up in Budapest while the First World War broke out. Due to the dismal events occurring at the time, the Sher-Gils were afraid to head back to India right away. Even after the war ended, their plans to return to India were yet again delayed due to Communist uprisings that occurred in 1919. Growing up, Amrita went back and forth, quite a bit, between Europe and India. Her early childhood paintings were influenced by the Hungarian folklore which her mother used to tell her and her sister, Indira. During her late teens and early twenties, she was sent to Paris, the European capital, for art training. She adapted well into Parisian lifestyle, although she eventually tired of the elite lifestyle. Her art at the time was mostly nude charcoal works. Eventually, she returned to India where her art style took a slight turn, as she began to focus on romanticizing Indian poverty.She then went on to proclaim that her real artistic mission was to “interpret the life of Indians and particularly the poor Indians, pictorially”[2]. However, she is known for the inconsistency in her work. She herself admitted, “My sense of form on the other hand is developing only now and still has a strong tendency to evade me. It very often happens that I grasp it only for a short period and only sections of my painting are good as a consequence.”[3]Some of her many works include Mother India, Three Girls, Self Portrait, and A Hungarian Peasant.
Mother India
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