Modern Indian painting came into its own when artists began to fuse traditional approaches with the bold experimentation of the west. Indian subjects are treated in startlingly different ways as these eleven artists from Bengal evoke through symbol, myth, colours and lines, the rich and complex aspects of this amazing land. Green landscapes threaded by gleaming rivers, mysterious and lovely Radhas rising from beds of purple lotuses, Durgas astride lions, business men with rolled umbrellas, women working and dreaming, leaves and water, Gods and beasts, are caught in colours and shapes rich enough to make one see the world in a fresh, glinting light. The eldest of the painters represented in this volume was born in 1918, the youngest in 1965; the time span is the twentieth century, and the style modern, but these Christs and Noahs and Krishnas speak of realities as old as the hills, as permanent as the plains. The paintings simply stun one into silence. This volume reaches out to a public that may never see these paintings, may never have been to Bengal, never thought of the intricate design that lies under the plethora of phenomena. We hear them speak; we learn about their lives by the river, or in the city, or the small town; we see how passion drives them to paint, and we catch something of that flame.
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