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Pallavi Baheti  Art exists as a single-minded concentrated attention beyond individuality. It does not exist for its own sake, it exists for an experience. Indian artists do not seek an illusion of nature; rather they try to create a truthful suggestion of character of the subject. In the words of Ananda Coomaraswamy, ‘Art is neither […]

Abhishek Dixit Hari Ambadas Gade was born in the Amravati district of Maharashtra and graduated in Science from the University of Nagpur in 1938. In the same year, his interest in art grew, and he enrolled himself at the Nagpur School of Art. He completed his Diploma in art in 1949 and his Master’s in

Ved Prakash Bhardwaj S G Vasudev’s art opens different layers of life in his paintings. In this process of seeing and opening life, he keeps the physical condition of man as well as his psychological condition in the centre. The artist focuses on the interrelationship between all living and non-living elements of the world and

Ved Prakash Bhardwaj Amidst the divergence of social and political systems, Arpita Singh’s painting has been a specialty by keeping the psychology of man at the center. From the very beginning, there has been a sense of irony in her art. Functioning like a scathing commentary, her paintings and drawings expose the realities of our

Vandana Shukla Speech blurbs, thought bubbles and the nuances of graphic illustration enter the canvas to express the absurdity and the hybrid reality of the times we live in. Dhruvi Acharya introduces speech blurbs while she plays on comic values by juxtaposing narratives of reality and fantasy, alongside a dark vision of contemporary urban life.

Vandana Shukla Since the time man began to express himself by painting the walls of a cave, humour was used to express what could not be said otherwise; ridicule is used to critique the times. Humour was made pivotal to Indian art by the post-modernists; it was not an invention of the post-modernists though. What

Vandana Shukla Through the cultural renaissance of India, especially in Bengal, artists were targeting social evils. Social satire emerged as a major theme in art, replacing the monkeys and donkeys, to tickle the laughing bone. The caricatures of Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) place the opposites and the odd in the same frame. The Brahmins and rich

Vandana Shukla Humour and satire are used anecdotally in ancient Indian art. The theme or subject of an artwork is never treated exclusively with humour. Seeing the richness and diversity of themes and ingenuity of expression in our art- it is a bit baffling. Because most art forms evolved around religion and myths, perhaps humour

Vandana Shukla Laughter comes as naturally to humans, as does anger or pathos. All human expressions have occasional humorous anecdotes; to kill monotony. In art, though humour is inexplicable. It can be decipherable; subject to perceptibility. Long before Indian art acquired the stiff- upper- lip stance of modernism; it was already defined by the principles