What is trompe l'oeil in art?



When it comes to art, what you see is not always what you get. An art technique known as trompe l'oeil uses realistic imagery to create an optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions.



Trompe l'oeil was widely popular during the Renaissance, the technique was often employed to murals and frescoes on church ceilings. The fresco painting on the ceiling of the Church of Saint Ignazio in Rome, created by Andrea Pozzo during 1691-1694, is one classic example. A semi-circular roof is transformed into a fantastic picture of the heavens, in which Saint Ignatius ascends into paradise.



The term trompe l'oeil (meaning trick of the eye in French) was first used by artist Louis-Leopold Boilly as a title of his painting in Paris in 1800. It later gained currency throughout Europe. The technique was usually used to create the impression of a bigger space.



Artists Vittorio Carpaccio and Jacopo de Barbari took the technique further. They added small trompe l'oeil details to their paintings such as a curtain that appears to partly conceal the painting, or a person might appear to be climbing out of the painting altogether.



Putting things in perspective



A lesser-known art technique known as anamorphosis, is an offshoot of the trompe l'oeil technique. In anamorphosis, a deformed image appears in its true shape when viewed in an unconventional way. There are two types of anamorphosis images:



** Oblique - These images need to be viewed from a position that is very far from the usual positions from where we normally expect images to be looked at



** Catoptric - The image must be seen reflected in a distorting mirror. The Hungarian artist István Orosz has produced some beautiful examples of these



How does it work?



We tend to believe something is real if we see it in front of us. However, seeing is not a direct perception of reality. What we see is the result of our brains constantly interpreting and giving structure to the raw visual input from our eyes. Artists use this knowledge to create optical illusions in the tromp l'oeil paintings.



 



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Born into an aristocratic family from Travancore in the mid-19th Century, who is known for his works depicting Hindu mythology using European styles?



Raja Ravi Varma was a celebrated Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. His works are one of the best examples of the fusion of European academic art with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography. Additionally, he was notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. His lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes among common people. Furthermore, his religious depictions of Hindu deities and works from Indian epic poetry and Puranas have received profound acclaim.



Varma was patronised by Ayilyam Thirunal, the next Maharaja of Travancore and began formal training thereafter. He learned the basics of painting in Madurai. Later, he was trained in water painting by Rama Swami Naidu and in oil painting by Dutch portraitist Theodor Jenson.



The British administrator Edgar Thurston was significant in promoting the careers of Varma and his brother. Varma received widespread acclaim after he won an award for an exhibition of his paintings at Vienna in 1873. Varma's paintings were also sent to the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 and he was awarded three gold medals.[8] He travelled throughout India in search of subjects. He often modelled Hindu Goddesses or Indian women, whom he considered beautiful. Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his paintings depicting episodes from the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and Nala and Damayanti, from the Mahabharata. Ravi Varma's representation of mythological characters has become a part of the Indian imagination of the epics. He is often criticized for being too showy and sentimental in his style but his work remains very popular in India. Many of his fabulous paintings are housed at Laxmi Vilas Palace, Vadodara.



 



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Elected the first Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 1955, who is known for his iconic folk style paintings with flat forms and bold outlines?



Jamini Roy was an Indian painter. He was honoured with the State award of Padma Bhushan in 1955. He was one of the most famous pupils of Abanindranath Tagore, whose artistic originality and contribution to the emergence of art in India remains questionable.



Jamini Roy was born in the year 1887 at Beliatore village in the Bankura district of West Bengal. Roy was born into an affluent family of land-owners. His father, Ramataran Roy, resigned from his government services to pursue his interest in art. In the year 1903, when he was only 16 years old, Jamini Roy left his village and made it all the way to Calcutta (now Kolkata) to enroll himself at the Government College of Art. There, he received education under Abanindranath Tagore, famous for his valuable contribution in the field of modern art. Tagore was the vice principal of the college and trained Roy as per the prevailing academic tradition. Roy finished his education in 1908 and was given a Diploma in Fine Arts. Roy was true to the art that he learned and started painting in accordance with the Western classical style. But he straightaway realized that his heart belonged to some other form of art. 



Jamini Roy’s paintings that belong to the early 1920’s reflect the influences of the Bengal School of art. Initially, he came up with some excellent paintings that marked his entry into the Post-Impressionist genre of landscapes and portraits. Later in his career, several of his many paintings were based on the everyday life of rural Bengal. Then, there were numerous ones revolving around religious themes like Ramayana, Radha-Krishna, Jesus Christ, etc. Jamini Roy also painted scenes from the lives of the aboriginals called Santhals. Throughout his works, his brush strokes were largely bold and sweeping. Around mid-1930s, Jamini Roy moved away from the conventional practice of painting on canvases and started painting on materials like cloth, mats and even wood coated with lime. He also started experimenting with natural colors and pigments derived from mud, chalk powder and flowers instead of European paints.



 



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Nephew of poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was instrumental in setting up the Indian Society of Oriental Art?



The Victoria Memorial Hall is proud to present this major exhibition of paintings of the great master Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951), the foundational figure of the Bengal school of Art, and widely hailed as the 'Father of Modern Indian Art'. Curated by Professor Ratan Parimoo, the Director of Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum of Indology and N. C. Mehta Gallery, Ahmedabad, and a leading expert of Tagore paintings, this exhibition - put together painstakingly from the combined collections of the Victoria Memorial Hall and Rabindra Bharati society - includes representative samples from Abanindranath's entire oeuvre, showcasing not only iconic works like Bharatmata and The Passing of Shah Jahan, but also works from his celebrated series of Krishna Lila, the Mangal Kavyas, The Arabian Nights, and his playful takes on Masks. Many of the works included in this exhibition will be on view to the public for the first time.



Abanindranath Tagore was born in Jorasanko, Calcutta, British India, to Gunendranath Tagore and Saudamini Tagore. His grandfather was Girindranath Tagore, the second son of "Prince" Dwarkanath Tagore. He was a member of the distinguished Tagore family, and a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore. His grandfather and his elder brother, Gaganendranath Tagore, were also artists.



Tagore learned art when studying at Sanskrit College, Kolkata in the 1880s.



In 1890, around the age of twenty years, Abanindranath attended the Calcutta School of Art where he learnt to use pastels from O. Ghilardi, and oil painting from C. Palmer, European painters who taught in that institution.



In 1889, he married Suhasini Devi, daughter of Bhujagendra Bhusan Chatterjee, a descendant of Prasanna Coomar Tagore. At this time he left the Sanskrit College after nine years of study and studied English as a special student at St. Xavier's College, which he attended for about a year and a half.



He had a sister, Sunayani Devi.



 



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Who literally wrote the Constitution?



The original Constitution of India was handwritten by Prem Behari Narain Raizada in a flowing italic style with beautiful calligraphy. The Constitution was published in Dehradun and photolithographed by the Survey of India.



The original copies of the Indian Constitution were written in Hindi and English. Each member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution, signed two copies of the constitution, one in Hindi and the other in English.



There are a total of 117,369 words in the English version of the Constitution of India which contains 444 articles in 22 parts, 12 schedules and 115 amendments.



With so much of writing, the Indian Constitution is the longest of any sovereign country in the world. In its current form, it has a Preamble, 22 parts with 448 articles, 12 schedules, 5 appendices and 115 amendments. Both the versions of the Constitution, Hindi and English, were handwritten. It is the longest handwritten constitution of any country on earth.



 



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The original Constitution of India, adopted on January 26, 1950, was entirely handcrafted by the artists of Shantiniketan under the guidance of which Indian art exponent?



The original Constitution of India, adopted on 26 January 1950, was not a printed document. It was entirely handcrafted by the artists of Shantiniketan under the guidance of Acharya Nandalal Bose, with the calligraphy texts done by Prem Behari Narain Raizada in Delhi. This document is now preserved in a special helium-filled case in the library of the Parliament of India. In many ways, the original handcrafted Constitution represents one of the triumphs of Shantiniketan and Kala Bhavan.



At the beginning of each part of the Constitution, Nandalal Bose has depicted a phase or scene from India's national experience and history. The artwork and illustrations (22 in all), rendered largely in the miniature style, represent vignettes from the different periods of the history of the Indian subcontinent, ranging from Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley, the Vedic period, the Gupta and Maurya empires and the Mughal era to the national freedom movement. By doing so, Nandalal Bose has taken us through a veritable pictorial journey across 4000 years of rich history, tradition and culture of the Indian subcontinent.



The Vedic period is represented by a scene of gurukula (forest hermitage school) and the epic period by images from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Then there are depictions of the lives of the Buddha and Mahavira, followed by scenes from the courts of Ashoka and Vikramaditya. There is a beautiful line drawing of the Nataraja from the Chola bronze tradition.



 



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Conferred the Padma Shri in 2018, which Gond tribal artist from Madhya Pradesh has taken his art to international fame and onto the pages on illustrated books?



Internationally-acclaimed Gond artist Bhajju Shyam has also been honoured with a Padma Shri. Mr. Shyam is famous for depicting Europe in his Gond paintings. Born in a poor tribal family, he worked as a night watchman and electrician to support family before becoming a professional artist. His The London Jungle Book sold 30,000 copies and has been published in five foreign languages.



Kerala’s medical messiah for the terminally ill, M R Rajagopal, is among the awardees. Rajagopal has specialised in pain relief care for neo natal cases.



Maharashtra’s Murlikant Petkar, India’s first para- Olympic gold medalist, who lost his arm in 1965 Indo-Pak war, is another winner.



Tamil Nadu’s Rajagopalan Vasudevan, known as the plastic road-maker of India, developed a patented and innovative method to reuse plastic waste to construct roads, has also been given the Padma Shri.



 



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Who was referred to as Indian Frida Kahlo?



She was young and super talented but we lost her when she is just 28 due to unknown reasons. Late artist Amrita Sher Gil was about to attend her first solo show in Lahore but went into a coma and left her legacy behind which went onto becoming world famous! Born in 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, her paintings are known worldwide. Often called India's Frida Kahlo for aesthetically blending traditional and Western art forms, Amrita was one of the most famous painters of India.



Her artwork may have mostly depicted Western style and culture during the initial stages of her career, but she gradually rediscovered herself by depicting Indian subjects using traditional methods. She even travelled to different parts of India, France and Turkey, which inspired her techniques. 



Her works in India, which were after her wedding, Amrita's paintings had a tremendous impact on Indian art. Many of her works were influenced by the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Abanindranath Tagore. Some of the best works of her time include ‘Siesta’, ‘Village Scene’ and ‘In the Ladies' Enclosure’, which represented the poor state of the unprivileged and women in the country. In 1941, she moved to Lahore (before independence), where art was being appreciated at that time. There she came up with ‘The Bride’, ‘Tahitian’, ‘Red Brick House’ and ‘Hill Scene’.



 



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