Chhapai Chhabir Katha Few years back [probably 1994/95] some frontline Bengali artists and art-critics assembled at the Kattayun Gallery near Auckland Square in Kolkata to discuss the possibilities and future of graphics in India. One of the issues that came up in the discussion was the surprising lack of popularity of graphics in India. The coda of the present essay lies there. It attempts to outline the basics of graphics art- its origin, short history, application and its position in the context of the world of Indian art. Graphic originates from the fundamental human desire to take impressions an urge that dates back to pre-historic impressions on the walls of the Altamira cave. “Graphics” comes from the Greek “Graphikos” and etymologically means, “pattering” or “line drawing”. Along the ages, graphics developed by changing its medium from the blocks made of smouldered soil China, to the zinc blocks and finally the Xerox offset. Naturally, graphic is used as a good medium in typography, tentil graphics, advertising, interior decoration, Computer graphics, and other similar fields. This in turn enriched the field graphics by introducing various printing processes such as “wood cut”, “wood engraving”, “lithography”, the modern “computer graphics” etc. The graphic artist was first known as “Commercial Artist”- a very doubtful term considering every art is commercial for its artist at some level. Moreover the first print is known as the “Artist’s Proof” and it is marked by the artist as A/P. Graphic art is also much less costlier than the traditional painting. So in 1965, the “Print Council of America” introduced the term “Printmaking” to signify creative graphics and the paint created by this medium came to be known as “Fineprint”. Funnily, may be a little ironically, the term “Chhapai Chhabi” [“Printed Picture”] was introduced in Bengal way back in 1920 by Nandalal Basu. Many great artists have used Graphics as their medium. Rembrant, Gaunga, Picaso, Matiche, Rosenburgh, Utamaro and many other European, Russian, Latin American and Japanese painters have graced the field of Graphics. German Expressionism uses Graphics as one of its main mediums. The history of Graphics in India is pretty long and illustrious. Nandalal Basu used lino wood for the frames in Rabindranath Tagore’s “Sahaj Path”. The Tagore family was enthusiastic about Lithography and even formed a short-lived club “Bitchitra” in order to encourage lithography. Later Mralidhar Tali, Ramendranath Chakroborty etc. carried on the tradition. In the post-Independence era the works of Krishna Reddy, Somnath Hor, Anupam Sud, Sanath Kar and many others drew attention and critical acclaim to the field of Graphics. Many universities offer courses on Graphics. In the ‘80s and ‘90s Nirmalendu Das, Swapan Das, Anita Chakroborty etc. in Bengal and Kabitha Nayar, Kanchan Chandar, Palani Appan and many others in other states have contributed significantly in making graphics a throbbing art in India. Yet, paradoxically, graphics is still not regarded as a mainstream art in India. Collected from the magazine “Naishabder Pathacrome” [“The Literature of Silence”]
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