From New York to London, to Tokyo or Paris, contemporary Indian art is becoming more and more popular, constantly scoring prestige points with international art collectors and art lovers. This worldwide boom is related to the fact that India, one of the most powerful, exotic and amazing cultures in the World, always had a passion for beautiful and artistic things. Whatever Indians do, they do it with art and style: their food is delicious, but first of all it looks good; their traditional clothing is practical, but in the same time it is quite artistically crafted. If food and clothing is enhanced in such a manner, imagine the beauty that Indian sculptures, paintings and other forms of art possess.
During the ascendance of the Indian culture, the country’s art was defined by the specific period it was developed in and the regional and religious presets that influenced it. Thus we can find forms of Hindi and Buddhist art, Islamic ascendancy art, art from the colonial period, modern art and contemporary art. The Indian contemporary art period starts off somewhere around the 50’s, after the Indian independence, won over the British in 1947, started to allow artists to freely express themselves.
The fact that contemporary Indian art suffered great influences from British, European or Islamic art is quite a well known fact, but what most people don’t realize is that this influence had a boomerang effect and now we can find Indian touches in a lot of European and North-American paintings, sculptures and music. Traditional and contemporary Indian music can be found in more and more American modern “big hits”, contemporary Indian paintings are making millions of dollars each year in auctions all over the world and contemporary Indian literature is finding more and more fans on an international scale.
Constantly influenced by the British, Indian art suffered extreme malformations during the Raj period. Taking a new turn, Indian art strayed away from its roots and traditions, forming a specific genre called the “Company art”. This art was a combination of Indian and European influences and it has a strange story behind it. This style had its most noticeable influence in painting, although some sculptures also bare the trademarks of the Company art.
It seems that British travelers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were constantly amazed by India’s diversity, exotic flora and fauna and the country’s outstanding ancient monuments and they wanted to capture all these marvelous images and send them home to their families. Most of these British colonists were either in the military or they were entrepreneurs in search for a new business, thus they had no artistic background, so they hired Indian artists to paint these wonderful settings for them. These “Indian postcards” used a combination of European motives and ideas and the painting style of the Indians, which was a colossal success in Europe at that time. Some of the most important features of this Indo-European style include heavy use of watercolors, linear perspective and shading.
However, soon after India gained independence from the British, in 1947, local artists started to return to their original traditions, renouncing the Company art style. As with all cultural and artistic currents that are formed around a distinct political event, the post-Indian art contained a heavy dose of political consciousness and social marks. This was the time of birth of Indian contemporary art (although some state that contemporary Indian art was truly outlined only in the early sixties) and besides the political issues of that period, it had a lot to do with the founding of a new art school in Bombay, called the “Progressive Artists Group”.
The Progressive Artists Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza, encouraged two types of art, which are mostly visible in contemporary Indian paintings. At one end, the recent political and social changes had artists painting bold and furious scenes related to these events, expressing their frustration of not being able to communicate their true artistic ideas and motives for the long period of British occupation. At the other end, the Bombay art school encouraged painters to return to Indian traditions and motives, creating magical and fantastic pieces of art. Sometimes both ends met and some famous Indian painters really stood out with their work, both because of their strong political message and their marvelous touch of the brush. Such names include the Progressive Artists Group’s founder, Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, Gulam Muhammed Sheikh or Sundaram, to name just a few.
Following these simple, yet outstanding leads, contemporary artists managed to bring Indian paintings, sculptures and other forms of visual arts to their original roots and traditions, while keeping a distinctly modern touch to them. Expressing Indian realities and social or political issues was not exactly an original form of art (for example European Romanticism took the same issues under its agenda), but the way Indian artists managed to transcend it is truly innovative. This is why contemporary Indian art is so valued and appreciated today and why it holds the first line of almost all major American and European auction houses.
One of the most important facts about contemporary Indian art is that it cannot be confined to a single style or cultural and artistic current. If we were to say that contemporary Indian art has a style, the only style that would truly fit would be called “diversity”. Contemporary Indian artists use a variety of modern and traditional styles in their paintings, including Expressionism, Surrealism, Mannerism, Classicism, Romanticism, Avant-gardism and so forth. Each major contemporary Indian artist took his or her reference from a different artistic movement and while most of them combined it with a heavy local and traditional touch, some used these styles to express social problems, religious content or erotic scenes.
For example, Francis Newton Souza, who is considered one of the forefathers of contemporary Indian art, used a lot of religious and erotic themes in his paintings, the sometimes shocking scenes bringing him international recognition. We can notice traits of Expressionism, Cubism and Primitivism in his paintings and they rarely hold social or national motives, but rather concentrate on the individual, on the human being (which is a central trait of Expressionism). Some say that the lack of “social wideness” in his paintings was a response to the other great rival art school formed in post-independence India, called the Bengal school. This school was created by a group of nationalists and the paintings that were created by its artists all bare a strong political, social and national touch.
Although the styles that contemporary Indian artists use are extremely diverse, some general traits can be observed on most of their paintings. Human bodies follow the dynamic and silhouette-like models used in ancient and traditional Indian art, while with more extravagant artists, humans are almost two-dimensional, which represents the emptiness of the human being.
Another fact that can be found with most of the contemporary Indian artists is the use of contrasting color schemes, especially nuances of orange and red, combined with black or gray. This contrasting combination also has its roots in traditional Indian paintings. The use of fervent reds and oranges could either show that contemporary Indian artists are extremely passionate, or they could be interpreted as balancing elements to a painting’s dark touches. In a lot of cases, the background is either red or orange (or a combination of the two), while individuals are darkened out, as to express the wild, passionate World in which the human being is contrastingly somber.
Contemporary Indian art receives a lot of hype these days and for a good reason too. According to recent polls in the press, Indian art manages to raise over 15 million dollars in auctions each year. Since both collectors and auction houses look upon contemporary Indian art as a new artistic trend, critics seem to appreciate it more and more for what it’s really worth.
The best example to express the strength of contemporary Indian art on today’s scene, would be to outline the outcome that three contemporary Indian paintings had at one of the most famous auction houses in New York, Christie’s, in September 2002. Tyeb Mehta, one of the leading contemporary Indian artists, put out a triptych (a series of three paintings tied together) for the auction, without really expecting huge success among the American art fanatics. You can imagine his surprise when the three paintings were sold for a whooping $317,500, which was, at the time, considered a seemingly unbeatable record for any contemporary Indian piece of art.
Although this event stirred the American art community and the major art critics, who had all praised the quality and stature of Tyeb Mehta’s paintings, another shocking episode took place a few months after the Christie’s auction, when the well-known Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain (who is also one of the founders of the Progressive Artists Group and a painter with a high prestige in India) broke this record, by selling his best piece of work for $436,000 to an American-based Indian. Needless to say that with the help of these two major transactions, contemporary Indian art received a huge boost in popularity and prices kept going up both in official auctions and private sales.
Besides Tyeb Mehta and Maqbool Fida Husain, other contemporary Indian artists are at high demand at the moment, some of the biggest names being Ram Kumar, Francis Newton Souza (founder of the Progressive Artists Group), Jamini Roy, Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharjee or George Keyt. Although these artists (and a few more) manage to produce outstanding results in auction houses all over the world, other important Indian artists are catching up, making a name for themselves. This group of so called “2nd line artists” includes names like Ramachandran, Laxma Goud, Arpita Singh, Somnath Hore or NS Bendre.
Indians are well-known for their prowess in IT knowledge and they used this knowledge to its fullest potential to promote their contemporary art and develop an entire network of profitable art businesses over the Internet. In recent years, when contemporary Indian art bloomed because of the extraordinary names that we mentioned earlier, many Indian Internet gurus saw this as an excellent opportunity to develop online businesses revolving around art. A lot of popular online auctioning sites emerged and great pieces of contemporary Indian art can be found effortlessly, at the click of a button.
Not only did the Internet make contemporary Indian art famous throughout the World, but it also managed to distinguish it as a unique cultural phenomenon of the Asian continent. As one of the most important contemporary Indian art critics, Anuradha Mazumdar (who currently works for the “Sotheby’s” auction house in New York) stated, “Indian contemporary art is emerging as the fastest growing category in Asian art". Actually, this “Indian trend” had a great effect on the cultural and artistic fields in all of Asia, as auction houses are now turning their heads to other business opportunities on the Asian continent, towards the contemporary art of Japan, Indonesia or Korea.
Making contemporary Indian art popular was one of the many benefits that Internet brought upon it, however some drawbacks also existed. Seeing how Europeans and Americans are extremely interested in contemporary Indian art, some online entrepreneurs started distributing low quality paintings under the cover of the recent hype related to the phenomenon. This attracted some negative reviews from popular art critics and somewhat diminished the powerful buildup the phenomenon had until then. This unfortunate downside however, is totally eclipsed by the benefits of making contemporary Indian art well-known throughout the World.
Another great influence that the Internet had over contemporary Indian art was the quick development of online digital art. Combining their excellent technical skills with their artistic nature, Indians are now regarded as some of the best digital artists around, their work being well sought after by the western entertainment industry and by the fans of this art genre, which has achieved new high standards of popularity in recent years.
It doesn’t take a genius to tell that contemporary Indian art is becoming more and more of an important business to European and American (especially American) entrepreneurs and auction houses. This creates the perfect setting for India’s art to develop and grow at a constant rate, so it is a win-win situation in which Indian artists and western auction houses benefit from each other.
With the colossal expansion of the Internet in the last decade, contemporary Indian art has reached all international markets, but the most important one remains the American one (centered around New York). If up until the year 2000 almost 75% of the people auctioning for contemporary Indian art were Indian people residing in the United States, this situation has started to change recently and more and more Americans, Brits, Australians and other international collectors and art-lovers are gaining interest in contemporary Indian art. Recently, the major art auctioning houses established local organizations in Bombay for a better control of the market, while the Indian art schools from the major cities are constantly giving out new talents.
So whether you can truly appreciate a high quality piece of art or if you just want to be “in line with the trend”, contemporary Indian art can prove to be a satisfactory addition. Purchasing contemporary Indian art can also be viewed as a future business opportunity seeing how the Internet hype revolving around this phenomenon is constantly increasing its prestige and with prestige, increasing its price. Who knows, you might buy a contemporary Indian painting now for $100 and it could prove to be a gold mine in couple of years when the respective artist receives more publicity.