Visarjan, depicting an immersion procession, is said to have been painted between 1915 and 1920. The contrast between darkness and luminescence, characteristic of Gaganendranath’s style during a particular period, is engrossing; the departing goddess is at the centre of an incandescent orb, as it were, while the figures of revellers — men and, possibly, women — remain dimly lit. (The image being circulated on the internet appears to be an embellished version, disturbing this delicate balance between light and dark.)
In his essay, “The Painter of Modern Life”, Baudelaire contended that the goal of modern art and its practitioners ought to be to capture all that is at once fleeting — “the passing moment”— and transcendental. Visarjan’s roots, it could be argued, are modern in this sense. For it records a moment in passing: an immersion procession. But what it saves for posterity in the mind’s eye is something sentient that transcends that solitary speck in time: a sense of anxiety evoked by a chaotic — but democratic — phenomenon that remains peculiar to Bengal’s cultural landscape. To segments of the Bengali intelligentsia, the bhashaan and its paraphernalia — dancing and inebriated excesses — are yet to be fully neutered of genteel terror. They are, in this feverish imagination, the signal of a temporary collapse of entrenched segregation, comparable to Rome’s barbarians-at-the-gates moment. Yet it has also been argued that the Pujas and bhashaan are representative in nature, offering a transient glimpse of a broader, inclusive fraternity.
Another one on the same subject by the same artist:
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In the first painting above, male dancers and musicians are performing before an image of the goddess Durga installed inside a house. The shrine to Durga depicts her in the moment of triumph over Mahisha. On the left a group of three men are seated on painted stools, one smoking a hookah.
A prominent Company School* artist, Sewak Ram’s work defined the distinct stylistic elements of the Patna School of Painting. However, little is known about his early or personal life; it is believed that he moved to Patna in the 1790s from Murshidabad to find work as a painter in the bazaar, where he attained popularity.
By the time Ram began working, the Patna School was well established. Similar to the Murshidabad School, the Patna painters had absorbed European influences such as the use of watercolours and painting subjects such as festivals, which held great appeal for Europeans. Ram’s work introduced a formal style which became characteristic of Patna painting; he painted in a technique known as Kajli Siyahi where pictures were painted directly with a brush, instead of first creating outlines. The human figure was painted with precision, with identifiably sharp noses, thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes. The paintings have a sombre colour palette, influenced by European prints, with either sepia and ochre overtones, while clothing is depicted with dull whites and greys and using light and occasional colour.
Ram was well known for his crowd scenes depicting festivals, processions and interiors which he painted in the Murshidabad model, while also focusing on figure studies in the foreground. By the 1820s, his large-scale paintings of ceremonies and festivities were being collected by governors-general of India such as Lord Minto and Lord Amherst.
* The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings.
Isherah - Water Procession of the Image of Doorga Previous to Her Immersion at Sunset by William Prinsep
(Source: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:1804)
Preserved in the British Library archives in London, the first painting above by William Prinsep has appeared in numerous publications on life in colonial Calcutta. This undated painting is a prism that reflects the veritable feast that Durga Puja was in the 1830s. No other painting of this period captures the colour and contours of Durga Puja as celebrated in colonial Calcutta. It deserves a closer look.
William Prinsep (1794-1874) was the younger brother of James Prinsep, the Indophile who deciphered the Brahmi script and hence got immortalised in the pillars of Prinsep Ghat, the piece de résistance of post-colonial Kolkata riverside. William Prinsep was a merchant with the Calcutta firm of Palmer & Company, came from a family who had served in India for several generations. Apart from James, four of his brothers were also in the country. But William Prinsep never really made it. In those days it was common for a painter trained in Royal Academy to take the next ship heading to India, primarily to earn a living and also to appreciate the richness that the land of opportunities offered. A cursory look at his works reveals his interests in street scenes and landscapes. All pen and ink studies and water-colour works. They were collected as Indian souvenirs by small-time East India Company officers when they returned home. Prinsep and his types catered to this clientele.
The British Library archive note that “ the subject matter and treatment is rather unlike Prinsep's normal style, and it is possible that this is based on another artist's composition, possibly W.F. Hutchisson's”. This painting is indeed special, for this painting offers a dissection of Durga Puja festivity in the 1830s when the Baboos, not to be confused with the lower division clerks and their ilk who refuse to abide by any norm or decorum of an efficient office in contemporary Kolkata, left no stones unturned to entertain the British guests at their stately homes during the Durga Puja days. Robert Clive started all this in the autumn of 1757. It went from strength to strength in the decades that followed.
It is impossible to identify the neo-classical mansion that Prinsep chose to depict in this work. It could be the Sovabazar house of the Debs or the Jorasanko house of the Tagores. Or someone else’s. The Debs are a possibility because the flute-playing Krishna next to the deity hints at a Vaishnab connection. But Prinsep took liberties when he finished it. The ionic pillars with ornate Corinthian capitals may have been inspired by the Elgin marbles that Prinsep might have studied during his apprenticeship days in London. They were hard to come by in Calcutta. The arched entrance thakurdalan resembles the Roy mansion of Jorasanko, still standing tall at the Ganesh Talkies crossing. The pillars that flank the Puja vista come straight from the Odisha temples that enjoyed some degree of attention from the early generation of Orientalists. The balcony overlooking the urban courtyard has a replica in the Gwalior Monument next to Outram Ghat.
Forget the architectural liberties for the time being and concentrate on the dramatic scene inside. The worship of the mother goddess, sans the family members, in the deep centrestage looks a mere formality. The worship seems to be over. The priest must have left. Plates full of offering are lying untended in front of the deity. A lonely widow in white is standing all by herself casting a curious look to the drama unfolding at the stage middle. A group of Europeans, sahibs and memsahibs in formal attire of the day, have settled on chairs laid on a Persian carpet. Their ‘native’ counterparts are sitting behind. The host looks animated in white muslin with a turban on head. Clueless, it seems. It was autumn. So the pankhawallahs were dispensed with. The darwans and chaukidars seem relaxed at the right side of the frame. A khansama, standing alert by the steps leading to the thakurdalan, is ready to serve drinks, while a few other servants are ready to follow suit. Beside them, a couple sits comfortably, the wife looking merry and the husband attending his hookah.
However, it is the dancer, the nautch girl in British parlance, is stealing all the thunder. With a flowing skirt held at the hemline and a raised arm that tempts, she looks like a kathak dancer of her time. She is assisted by musicians playing the percussions and a string instrument that looks like a violin. Musically incorrect! Prinsep should have painted a sarenghi instead. It was customary to welcome the British with food and beverage, and music and dance. The last item was the most attractive one. Even Rammohun Roy found it obligatory. So did Radhakanta Deb, the leading Indian intellectual and social leader of the day, whose thakurdalan stood right in front of the jalsaghar where the dancers with years of experience in entertaining the patrons in the courts of Nawabs of Awadh and Lucknow performed. The music room no longer stands. But anecdotes about famed dancers like Nicky, Narabux, and Misri have found copious mention in print. 19th century periodicals like Calcutta Gazette and Samachar Darpan are full such reports.
The journals of Fanny Parkes mention one such outing on 13 October 1823. She wrote: “We went to a nach at the house of a wealthy baboo during the festival of the Doorga Pooja or Dasera, held in honour of the goddess Doorga. The house was a four-sided building, having an area in the middle; on one side of the area was the image of the goddess raised on a throne, and some Brahmins were in attendance on the steps of the platform.” She mentioned a ‘handsome supper’ that was ‘laid out in the European style, supplied by Messrs Gunter and Hooper, where ices and French wines were in plenty for the European guests’.
Looking again the Prinsep painting, at the far left side, one will find a sacrificial goat held tightly by a man and overlooked by another as a third man is poised by strike the head off. Is this goat being sacrificed for the entertainment of the European guests? Of course. This gory picture in black and white if often chopped off in glossy magazines that feature this painting. But this opens another vista complete with hutments and country houses. Colonial Calcutta is never complete without them. The non-Bengali, non-Hindu service providers to the rulers and their accomplices did not join this merry picture. Prinsep stole a moment of immortality for those.
It is on record that the Baboos believed that the presence of European guests would elevate their social standing. The Europeans longed for such invitations in equal measure, often ranking the entertainments they experienced during the Durga Puja days. It did not last long. The signs of decline were noticed in the mid-1830s. In 1840, the Company issued a notice that prohibited all the visits to the Baboo mansions during the festival days. (Source: https://thebengalstory.com/english/when-the-sahibs-and-memsahibs-joined-the-durga-puja-festivities/amp/)
