In the history of India’s anti-colonial struggle, revolutionary ideological innovations and political upheavals are usually located in the 1920s. It was then that surging nationalistic fervour gave civil resistance a central role in the anti-colonial struggle and it was against this backdrop that art in India emerged as an effective medium for the expression of anti-colonial sentiments.
At the end of the year 1922, an exhibition of the works of various Bauhaus artists was held in Calcutta; a momentous event due to which December 1922 is often identified as the fount of Modernism in Indian art. Artists developed aspects of art as expressions of carefully cultivated modes of resistances and interactions between global modernity and nationalist politics in the construction of a national identity led to adoption of a new language of Modernism by Indian artists. In this way, artists came to play a central role in India’s anti-colonial struggle and their works became a reflection of debates and political concerns of the times. Such engagement of art with the politics of decolonisation/anti-colonialism becomes all too evident in the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Shergill, Jamini Roy, the towering figures of Modernism in Indian Art. Modernism provided these three and several Indian artists with the artistic vocabulary and freedom to respond to Colonialism in their own unique ways.
Issue 1, Volume 5 of Literophile invites from the student community original and annotated papers and/or semi-academic articles and commentaries of not more than 2,500 words respectively addressing issues and debates that emerged at this particular juncture in history. Contributors may also append images of particular art works should they be pertinent to their contributions. We invite by 25th March, 2012 interpretations of works of various artists, comments on critical responses to these art works or analyses of popular responses to various artists and their works. However, this is not meant to limit discussions in papers to merely the areas discussed above. Our aim is to encourage intellectual and literary engagement with this period in history and hopefully, also evoke and respond to questions pertaining to the role of art in society. Please mail contributions and queries to firstname.lastname@example.org