8 Bengal Masters

Published on the occasion of the show 8 Bengal Masters - Miracles of Existence, this book explores the post-colonial cultural context of Bengal which produced some of the finest artists of all times. Focusing on eight eminent artists, it traces how they embarked on individual artistic journeys fostered by a renewed modernist search for an appropriate style in tandem with their responses to the contemporary situation. Preceded by international figures like Rabindranath Tagore, cross-cultural contacts with the modern European art and a fresh exploration into indigenous sensibilities heralded a whole new set of alternative aesthetic possibilities for these artists. Their works reflect a period of intense social and aesthetic transformations with a visible emphasis on the humanistic concerns and existential condition of che newly independent India. The eight artists showcased here redefined the quest for personal idiom not as a mere stylistic search but as the intimate and mutually transforming dialogue between individual and the world - both the social and natural. From this perspective, this book takes a fresh look at the works of these artists as some of the best examples of the socially-relevant liberating aesthetics of the post-40s modern Indian art.