THE CANVAS ART OF KALIGHAT

Since the terminal phase of the 18th century, another mode of painting gained prominence. It was prevalent in Calcutta through out the 19th century. This was the Canvas Art form of Kalighat. For the sake of trade and commerce, the East India Company took utmost care for all round development of Calcutta. Soon it was found that the oldest Kali Temple was drawing more pilgrims and devotees than ever before. Even the higher officials of the British East India Company sent offerings to the Mother Goddess at Kalighat and seeked her blessings. Pilgrims and devotees started flocking here from all over the country.
The sea of people who thronged here impelled the rural painters and artistes to settle down in or around Kalighat. They started to make paintings of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses which sold at reasonable prices. Initially, these rural painters used to make paintings of the Gods and Goddesses merely. But with the passage of time, they had to introduce changes and emphasized on novity of subjects, considering the changing tastes and demands of the refined urban people. So the contemporary life and society saw its reflection in the changed mode of paintings. However, the traditional paintings of Gods and Goddesses as well as those based on the grand epics like the Mahabharata, was carried on simultaneously.
The paintings of Kalighat had a simple elegance which was far from being ostentatious. It soothes the aesthetic tastes of the connoisseurs of art. The canvas art of Kalighat holds a pre-eminent position in the world of paintings. However, it is a cruel irony of fate that the Kalighat school of art was regarded as infra dig and neglected by the so called educated Bengali elites trained in English education. This was all the more pathetic because this art had by then reached its creative zenith. Hence, in the terminal phase of the 19th century, this powerful art form failed to compete with the cheap and flamboyant printed European art and reached the verge of extinction.