Product Description
Kalighat painting, is a style of Indian Painting that derives its name from the region called Kalighat and it is characterised by generously curving figures of both men and women and an earthy satirical style.
It developed during the nineteenth century in response to the sudden prosperity brought to Calcutta by the East India Company trade, whereby many houses including that of 'Prince' Dwarkanath Tagore grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore became incredibly wealthy.
Many of these noveau riche families came from not particular exalted caste backgrounds, so the orthodox tended to frown on them and their often very tasteless conspicuous consumption. To the common people the 'babu's, as they were called, were equally objects of fun and sources of income. Thus the 'babu culture' portrayed in the Kalighat paintings often shows inversions of the social order (wives beating husbands or leading them about in the guise of pet goats or dogs, maidservants wearing shoes, sahibs in undignified postures, domestic contretemps, and the like.) They also showed European innovations (babus wearing European clothes, smoking pipes, reading at desks, etc). The object of this is only partly satirical; it also expresses the wonder that ordinary Bengalis felt on exposure to these new and curious ways and objects.
Kalighat pata pictures are highly stylised and are pen and ink line drawings filled in with flat bright colours