Mapping the journey of Modernist Art from India

India’s Modern Masters are in spotlight thanks to a grand international showcase of their major artworks, entitled ‘The Body Unbound’, which also gives a comprehensive and immersive exploration of a socio-politically turbulent phase in India.

In the phase leading up to independence, these rebellious artists often disowned the techniques, styles and even the oil-on-canvas medium taught by British-bred Indian art schools. As the country freed itself from British rule, they had their own liberation, opting for more traditional tempera renderings of local relics, rural folk and gods. Post-1947, they took to a modern, international idiom of expression, styles and media.

To map these transformations, a new show ‘Modernist Art From India: The Body Unbound’ at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, looks at the enterprising manner in which the modernist artists employed the human figure to express optimism, pain and anxiety, also trying to explore the country’s painting scene in the backdrop of its independence, the partition and the violence that followed.

This grand international museum show indeed brings to life the country’s vibrant visual culture and reveals how the shift from colonial subject to sovereign nation has defined new artistic trends and styles. Beth Citron is the curator of this ambitious showcase that traces how the country’s shift from colonial subject to sovereign nation impacted artistic trends through the milestone figurative work by 23 pioneering artists.

Gathered from local private and institutional collections, they explore the subtle relationship between traditionally Indian, realistic depictions of the human form and modernist ideas, including abstraction. It brings to life the vibrant visual culture of India and illustrates how India’s dramatic rise into a new nation paved the way for startling new artistic styles, apart from illustrating how figuration served as a means of exploring fantasy and the imagined body by blending whimsical modernist abstraction and the human figures’ depiction.

The next two parts of the series will be presented later this year, namely ‘Approaching Abstraction’ and Radical Terrain, with a focus on abstract art and the modern Indian landscape, respectively.