Tag Archives: museum of art and photography

Painting scenes of daily life on sheets of mica in colonial India

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ONE CAN PAINT ON paper, canvas, glass, textiles, ceramics, and walls. Until yesterday (9 February 2025) when we visited an exhibition at Bangalore’s Museum of Art and Photography (‘MAP’), I did not know that paintings have been made on sheets of the translucent mineral mica. Mica has been, and still is, mined in great quantities in India.

 

Because of its translucency,  lanterns made with mica, on which images have been painted, have been used in both Hindu and Muslim ceremonies.  Since the eighteenth century artists have been creating paintings on mica, usually using watercolours or gouache mixed with an adhesive to ensure that the colours stick to the mica. Because the colours are on a translucent material that does not absorb any of the pigments, rather than opaque paper that inevitably absorbs some pigment, they appear much more vibrant on mica than on paper.

 

Murshidabad,  now in West Bengal,  was an important centre of mica painting. Initially, artists concentrated on paintings and portraits commissioned by local nawabs and other members of the Indian aristocracy.  With the arrival of Europeans in Murshidabad and other parts of Bengal in the late eighteenth century, the artists began depicting subjects designed to appeal to European customers. Europeans were particularly attracted to the paintings on mica. The subjects included illustrations of daily life and customs. They are therefore an interesting record of life in Bengal (and other parts of India) during the late eighteenth century.

 

The exhibition at MAP consists of a collection of paintings both on mica and on paper. These images were designed to appeal to European visitors (both short- and long-term) to India and are examples of Company Paintings  (East India Company).

 

Many of the paintings on mica depict people who appear to have no faces. Originally, these paintings had faces painted in gouache. However, the faces were painted on a layer of mica placed above that on which the rest of the subject was painted. This was done to give the images a three dimensional quality. Sadly, many of these upper layers have been lost, resulting in literally a loss of face.

 

The exhibition at MAP was well displayed. An extremely informative booklet about the exhibits and mica painting was available free of charge.  I am pleased we visited the show not only because it was both beautiful and fascinating,  but also because we had visited Murshidabad a few weeks earlier.

PS mica painting was done in parts of India where mica was plentiful,  such as Andhra Pradesh,  Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan,  Bihar, and Jharkhand.

Women in art

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SURVEYING THE REPRESENTATION of women by artists in a single exhibition might seem a daunting task, if not impossible. Yet, this is what the exhibition “Visible/Invisible” achieves successfully. Curated by Kamini Sawhney, Arnika Ahldag, Vaishnavi Kambadur, Riya Kumar and Arshad Hakim, this magnificent display of artworks can be viewed at the recently opened (in late February 2023) Museum of Art and Photography (‘MAP’) on Kasturba Road in Bangalore (Bengaluru). The exhibition, which is displayed in most of the rooms on one floor of MAP confines itself to works created by artists, both male and female, from the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora. However, this did not hinder the curators’ aim of demonstrating the female in art over the centuries.

The 130 artworks on show range in date of creation from the 10th century AD to the present. MAP’s website reveals that the various artworks:
“… are interwoven into four key sections based on narratives and counter-narratives: Goddess and Mortal, Sexuality and Desire, Power and Violence, and Struggle and Resistance. Each section presents how women’s lives have been portrayed, the spaces that they occupy and challenges that women have faced in the Indian subcontinent. The themes and ideas explored in Visible/Invisible hopes to encourage audience awareness of the history and role of women and gender in art.”
And the exhibition successfully raised my awareness of the multiple ways in which the lives of women have been portrayed by artists of both genders over the centuries,

The artworks include sculptures, paintings, photographs, film posters, textiles (some created by female artists and others woven in traditional patterns by craftswomen), and prints. Almost every exhibit was a joy to behold, What was particularly interesting were examples of artworks created within the last few decades that demonstrate how Indian women artist have taken control of the way they portray women and their lives, What the viewer sees is how women see themselves, which is a contrast to what has happened in earlier times when women have often been shown in the way that men have viewed their lives.

All in all, this exciting exhibition is compelling both visually and conceptually. The curators have expressed their ideas beautifully and powerfully, but not without considerable subtlety.