Question

Why did the scroll painters and potters come to Kalighat? Why did they begin to paint new themes?

Answer 1

Around the early nineteenth century, local village scroll painters and potters moved to Kalighat. It was a time when the city of Calcutta was expanding as a commercial and administrative centre. Colonial offices were coming up, new buildings and roads were being built, markets were being established. The city appeared as the place of opportunity where people could come to make a new living. These village artists too came and settled in the city in the hope of new patrons and new buyers of their art.
After the 1840s, there was a shift in what the Kalighat artists produced—from paintings related to mythology and religion, they began to produce paintings on social and political themes. In these paintings, they depicted the social life under British rule. This change was the result of living in a society where values, tastes, social norms and customs were undergoing rapid changes. Their paintings were their ways of responding to the world around them. For example, Kalighat paintings of this period often ridiculed the westernised baboo, criticised the corrupt priests and expressed the anger of the common people against the rich.