Patna Kalam Painting

Patna Kalam Painting – Origin and
Characteristics

Introduction

• Patna School of Painting (also known as Patna Qalaam, Patna Kalam, or Company painting) is a style of Indian painting which existed in Bihar, India in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Patna Kalam Painting was one of the schools which were an offshoot of Mughal painting flourished during early 18th to mid-20th century in Bihar.
• Patna Qalaam was the world’s first independent school of painting which dealt exclusively with the commoner and his lifestyle.
• Patna Kalam Painting was deeply influenced by daily life of common man.
• Their main subjects were local festivals, ceremonies, bazaar scenes, local rulers, and domestic activities.
• The Principal centers were Patna, Danapur and Arrah,

Origin of Patna Kalam Painting

• Patna Kalam Painting is the link between the Mughal style and the British style. The Mughal style of painting matured in the regime of Jahangir, and his period was considered the golden era of Mughal paintings.
• But during the rule of Aurangzeb in the late 17th and early 18th century, artisans faced mass prosecution and aversion in art and painting.
• The painters migrated from Delhi looking for shelter in different places. One such group moved eastward and landed in Murshidabad under the patronage of the Nawab of Bengal and other local aristocrats.
• In the mid 18th century, with the decline and subsequent fall of Murshidabad, the court artists looked westwards to the next biggest city in the East and started migrating to Patna.
• In Patna they came under patronage of local aristocracy and often Indophile scions of early East India and started a unique form of painting which came to be known as the Company painting, or Patna Kalam.

Characteristics/features of Patna Kalam Painting

The characteristics of the Patna Kalam Painting is given below:

• Most of the paintings are of miniature category and made on paper.
• Later on the drawing on ivory, leather was started.
• Paintings on the daily life are in abundance in this style.
• Daily labourer, fish-sellers, basket makers, market scene, local festivals, iron-smith dominate the subject of these paintings.
• Patnia Ekka (horse-cart of Patna) is the oldest painting style. Shivlala’s ‘Muslim Wedding’, Gopal Lal’s ‘Holi’, Mahadev Lal’s ‘Rani Gandhati’, are the famous creations of this style.

• In this style of painting, colours are extracted from indigenously plants, barks, flowers and metals.
• Paintings are characterized by light coloured sketches and life-like representations.
• One of the important characteristic of Patna Kalam is that usually they do not paint any landscape, foreground or background.
• Another unique feature of the Patna School of Painting was the development in the shading of solid forms.
• Paintings are painted straightway with brush without using pencil to outline the contours of thepicture. This technique was commonly known as ‘Kajli Seahi’.

Decline of Patna Kalam Painting

• After attaining the fame and glory for about a century, Patna Kalam painting gradually declined due to lack of patronage from the colonial government, lack of demand from the customers, advent of photography etc.
• Dr. Abdul Haidi wrote a book on Patna Kalam which gives the detailed account of the same.
• This is the most unfortunate things about the Patna Kalam, like the world-famous Madhubani paintings, it has not received its due share of acknowledgement despite of that many believes that the eponymous painting was far superior to the more popular Mithila paintings.
• The Patna Kalam faced competition from the Madhubani paintings which is marketed professionally both at home and abroad.
• Also, Madhubani painting is a folk form which could be easily transferred from one generation to another.

Patna Kalam Today (Well Known Artists of Patna Kalam)

• Some well known painters or artists of Patna Kalam were Sewak Ram, Hulas Lall, Shiv Lal, Shiva Dayal, Mahadeo Lal, Ishwari Prasad Verma and Nisar Mehandi.
• Among the last flag bearers of Patna Kalam were Ishwari Prasad Verma. Radha Mohan Babu left no stone unturned to make this school of painting popular.
• He was the founder of Patna Art School
• There is currently no one to carry on the tradition.
• Only three collections of Patna Kalam paintings exist in Bihar, one at the Patna Museum and others at Khuda Baksh library, Patna, and Patna University’s College of Arts and Crafts whereas a good number of them are also on display in London’s Art Gallery and Prague’s museum.
• The Patna Kalam flourished only as long as its Western patrons existed.
• The Government of Bihar made a brilliant effort to revive this 200-yearold Patna school of miniature paintings by publishing them in its official calendar in 2010 for the first time post independence.

“The objective behind publishing this theme-based 2010 calendar is to highlight Bihar’s rich heritage of art and culture. To make people aware of the exquisite paintings of Patna Kalam that lent a unique cultural identity to Bihar.”