Art is a sentence in itself. When we discuss art, people understand it’s mainly related to painting or sculptures. But what is the holistic idea of art? Well, it was beautifully explained by a former artist and humanist. Rabindranath Tagore as he showed extraordinary creativity in poetry, music, drama, and painting. His essence continues and still influences the art and culture of Kolkata. Kolkata is the native land of modern Indian literary, artistic thought, and Indian nationalism
(aka intellectual capital of India). People in Kolkata celebrate festivals with enormous enthusiasm, the city of palaces is lively with a hint of mystery, elegance, and classiness. This also shows in their culture and art.
Hence, Let’s dive into the wide variety of fields in the culture of art inaugurated in Kolkata. Kolkata has been setting trends in contemporary art with new visions and Avant Gardists of artistic movements. There are so many art fairs and museums for art devotees and for ambitious artists to exhibit their work such as the Aakar prakar art fair. Where the artists carve sculptures from the wood or plastic of old worn-out household objects. The vision of the artists here is to reuse and portray the history of the house and illustrate people’s emotions through objects and wood that indicate liveliness.
Then There’s the Cima art gallery which gives a retrospective view of Indian culture and Self-portraits showing the misery of India. The folk art at the University of Kolkata and the exhibition at Victoria memorial hall duplicate Britain’s relations with India. There’s a wide range of intriguing and valuable pieces of installation art, textile design, photography, painting, or video in the art fair and museums of Kolkata. Kolkata has more than 30 museums. The Indian Museum was founded in 1814 and is the largest and the oldest. Kolkata’s book fairs are enchanting. The city organizes one of the best music festivals. There vibrant trading of polemics on walls, and because of that Kolkata named the “City of posters”.
The city has also been the pioneer of modern experimental dramatic forms and the center of motion-picture production in India. Kolkata was the throne of the British Empire that’s why western influence is dominant in many of Kolkata’s architectural monuments.
Bottom line: Art shapes the silence within and Kolkata depicts the expression of every art creation with its fair share of disturbances and poetic nature.
An article by Fiza Aman
