When Sir Herbert Baker designed the new building of the High Commission of India
(India House) in London in the 1920s, he provided high vaulted ceilings on the
ground floor, as well as a huge central dome, as readily available spaces for
decoration. India’s High Commissioner, Sir Atul Chatterjee, who had proposed the
building of India House in 1925, was persuaded by Sir William Rothenstein
(1872-1945), the Principal of the Royal College of Art in London, to select
artists from India to paint these vacant spaces in the reception areas of the
new building. The actual painting of the murals began only after the building
was opened officially on July 8, 1930 by King George V, and was completed in
January 1932.
The most striking feature of the art of India House is its
organic link with contemporary movements in Indian art, especially the Bengal
School. This was due in no small measure to the vision of Rothenstein, who had
been active in the Royal Society of Arts, London. Along with Ernest Binfield
Havell (1861-1934), the former Principal of the Government School of Art in
Calcutta from 1896 to 1905, Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), Lady Christiana
Herringham (1852-1947), and Thomas Arnold, among others, Rothenstein founded the
India Society on 13 January, 1910 in order to encourage an appreciation of
Indian fine art. It was Coomaraswamy who introduced Rothenstein to the works of
one of the leading artists of the “Calcutta” school, Abanindranath Tagore.
Rothenstein recounts in his essay, “An Indian Pilgrimage,” how his
decision to travel to India in 1910 to see Indian art for himself was due to
Lady Herringham. Prior to his visit to India, Rothenstein had been warned by Sir
Richmond Ritchie, Secretary in the Political and Secret Department at the India
Office, that his “sympathy for Indians and for things Indian would encourage the
Nationalists,” but he did not heed this advice.
Rothenstein’s visit to
Benaras left vivid impressions on him, “the crowded, coloured, agitated scene”
reminding him of “a classical city; of Corinth or of Carthage; and again, in the
densely packed streets, of medieval Rome”. His painting “Sunset at Benaras” was
presented to India House after the building was opened in 1930, and hangs in the
Nehru Hall of the building today.
When he reached Calcutta, Rothenstein
was met by Abanindranath Tagore, along with his brother Goganendranath, who took
him to their family home, Jorasanko. Rothenstein interacted with the artists of
the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta. Apart from Abanindranath and
Goganendranath Tagore, this group included Nandalal Bose and Asit Halder.
Abanindranath and his contemporaries had popularized their contemporary art
movement, which became known as the “Bengal School.” They looked to ancient
murals and medieval Indian miniatures for inspiration in their choice of subject
matter and in the use of materials such as tempera. Significantly, these styles
and influences were to find exquisite expression in the art of India House twenty
years later.
It was at Jorasanko, in February 1911, that Rothenstein
first met Abanindranath’s uncle, Rabindranath Tagore. Rothenstein was deeply
impressed by Rabindranath, whom he described as “one of the most remarkable men
of this time”. The meeting between the Indian poet and the British artist was to
prove significant in propagating the appeal and creativity of Indian nationalist
thought in the West. Rabindranath visited England during 1912 and 1913. On board
the ship, he took up the poems of his Gitanjali, filling up a notebook with
translations of the collection from the original Bengali into English. Soon
after his arrival on June 16, 1912 Tagore sought out Rothenstein, who took the
notebook of English-language translations of poems from Tagore and had copies
typed. On July 7, 1912 Rothenstein arranged for the poems to be read at his
rented house in Hampstead by the poet W.B. Yeats. On November 1, 1912 the India
Society published a limited edition (750 copies, of which 500 were for its
members and 250 for general sale) of Gitanjali: Song Offerings containing
English translations of 103 poems, with an introduction by Yeats and a
pencil-sketch of Tagore by Rothenstein. Gitanjali won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1913. Tagore dedicated the publication to Rothenstein.
High Commissioner Sir Atul Chatterjee referred the proposal for painting
the interiors of India House to the Government of India. The Chief Commissioner
of Delhi, Sir John Perronet Thompson, chaired a high-powered committee that
selected four artists from the eighty who applied. The successful artists were
Lalit Mohan Sen (Lucknow), Ranada Charan Ukil (Delhi), Dhirendra Krishna Deb
Barman (Santiniketan) and Sudhansu Sekhar Choudhury (Calcutta), and they
travelled to England to be further trained at the Royal College of Art under
Rothenstein.
Each of the artists was relatively unknown, yet their
paintings were imbued with the spirit of contemporary Indian art and technique.
Lalit Mohan Sen, born in the town of Nadia in Bengal in 1898, had moved to
Lucknow in 1912. After studying mural art at the Royal College of Art, London,
in 1926, he had returned to Lucknow to work as Superintendent, Drawing and
Teacher’s Training Class in 1929. That same year, Sen had been chosen to
decorate the Viceroy’s House—today, Rashtrapati Bhawan—in New Delhi,
subsequently appearing in the competition for painting murals in India House.
Ranada Charan Ukil was the youngest of the famous Ukil brothers. Sarada
Ukil (1889-1940), had been an early student of Abanindranath Tagore, coming to
Delhi in 1918 as the first Arts teacher of Modern School, located at 24,
Daryaganj and run by Sarada’s friend Lala Raghubir Singh. The Sarada Ukil School
of Art was established in Delhi, in 1926. Two years later, through the “active
and keen initiative of the illustrious Ukil brothers, Sarada, Barada and
Ranada,” the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) was founded in New
Delhi, to “propagate art and culture in India and abroad, and to look after the
upliftment of artists in India in particular.”
Dhirendra Krishna Deb
Barman, born in 1903, studied art at Santiniketan under Nandalal Bose between
1919 and 1928. He went on to specialize in mural painting at the Royal College
of Art in London. After working on his project in India House, he was appointed
Principal of the Kala Bhawan at Santiniketan. Sudhansu Sekhar Choudhury, born in
1903, studied under Abanindranath and Gogendranath Tagore at the Indian Society
of Oriental Arts, Calcutta. He visited Thailand and Cambodia in 1928, appearing
in the competition to select artists for the murals of India House a year later.
Choudhury, who lived in England between 1929 and 1932, had a solo exhibition at
London’s prestigious Fine Arts Society on New Bond Street. After his return to
India, Choudhury painted murals in various cinema halls in northern India.
The four young artists were sent to London on scholarships in August
1929. They visited Florence, Rome and other European cities to study the
technique of painting on plaster. On completion of their training the artists
were employed for the decoration of India House.
They started
preparatory work in a temporary studio set up in a room (with a skylight) on the
top floor of India House. It took them approximately ten months to finish their
preparations. On April 9, 1931 the artists began painting. Technical reasons
prompted their decision to use egg-tempera—made by mixing powdered pigments with
yolk of egg and water—instead of oil. In the tradition of the Bengal School,
Indian mythology and Indian history provided their thematic inspiration.
In the Entrance Hall, two of the artists, Ukil and Choudhury, painted
eight sections of pendentives depicting India’s six seasons, and dusk and dawn.
The delicate brushwork in the choice of theme was beautifully worked around the
poet Kalidasa’s lyrical poem “Ritusamhara,” or “The Pageant of Seasons.” The
seasons were Grishm, (summer, May/June); Varsha (monsoon, July/August); Sharad
(early autumn, September/October); Hemant (late autumn, November/December);
Sheet (winter, December/January) and Basant (spring, March/April).
In
the lunettes of the Visitor’s Room/Reading Room on the ground floor there is the
poignant legend of Anarkali, as well as the theme of Shasti Puja (worship of the
folk-goddess of fertility) painted by Choudhury. The other two lunettes, the End
of Roza (The Fast) and the theme of Todi Ragini, were painted by Ukil. On the
first floor lobby, Barman painted a set of eight pendentives to represent the
eight phases of life: Birth (Janma), Childhood (Balyavastha), Student Days
(Vidyarthi Jeewan), Love (Prem), family life (Grahstha), work (Karma),
renunciation (Vanprastha), and finally Nirvana.
In the Library Hall where
King George V formally inaugurated the new building of India House in July 1930,
Sen painted the lunette Buddha with his Disciples The full splendor of the
murals of India House is most visible in the magnificent Central Dome, which is
by far the most dominant feature of the building. The murals on the dome merge
together harmoniously, depicting four rulers from the history of India. All four
artists labored over a period of ten months to transform spectacular historical
events into richly colored murals; 24-carat gold leaves were used for the gold
background at the then staggering cost of nearly a thousand rupees. The soft,
impressionable metal allowed for impregnation with various tints and tones,
combining beautifully to create the rich effect visible in the dome of India
House.
The Southern Quadrant was painted by Ukil, portraying the scene
in which Alexander the Great saluted the chivalry of the Indian King Porus after
the latter’s defeat in the Battle of the Hydaspes (today Jhelum) River in 326
BC. The western Quadrant was painted by Choudhury, showing the Emperor
Chandragupta Maurya, who acceded to the throne of Magadha in 322 BC,
acknowledging a morning salute from his bodyguard of women soldiers. Deb Barman
painted the Northern Quadrant visualizing the Emperor Ashoka (304 BC-232 BC)
sending his daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka to propagate the teachings of
Buddha. The Eastern Quadrant was painted by Sen, depicting the Mughal Emperor
Akbar (1542-1605) and his architect, discussing plans for the new capital
Fatehpur Sikri.
Both Ukil and Choudhury painted “Sky and Birds (Balaka)”
on the coved ring above the dome and the dome and the ceiling at the base of the
hanging lantern. These are in a series of eight panels, worked in light pastel
colors, portraying birds in fight in a sky of clouds. Fittingly, Rabindranath
Tagore visited India House in 1931 with Rothenstein to meet the artists. He was
delighted to discover that all the subjects and themes selected for the murals
were typically Indian. The painting of all the murals was completed in January
1932. The spirit of Indian nationalism had found creative expression in the
heart of London.
[The author has served as Deputy High Commissioner of
India to the United Kingdom. Reprinted with permission from India Perspectives.]