Tracing Calcutta's dual heritage in the Kalighat tradition

Enter a world where history is rejuvenated through art, where each colour stroke narrates a tale of devotion, aspiration, and metamorphosis.

- BIDISHA GHOSH

DAG's most recent exhibition, Babu and the Bazar, at the Alipore Museum honours the magnificent development of Bengal's artistic heritage via the Kalighat painting tradition. More than just showcasing artwork, this show resurrects a bygone Calcutta, a city that was once positioned between the secular and the sacred, between social modernity and spiritual zeal. It transports the audience to the narrow, congested lanes of nineteenth-century Calcutta, where patrons, painters, and pilgrims coexisted in a harmonious symphony of faith and business, and where the Kalighat patuas' flowing, impromptu strokes expressed the city's pulsating identity.

Excavating the underlying history of Bengal

To grasp this driving motive behind this exhibition is to return to the Calcutta of the nineteenth century — a metropolis that stood at the nexus of colonial ambition and indigenous creativity. Calcutta, which was recognised and established by the British East India Company, quickly evolved from a modest rival centre into the vibrant and bustling capital of British India. The city's dual identity began to take shape — on one hand, the Babu, the affluent Bengali gentleman steeped in colonial education and refinement, while on the other, the bazaar, brimming with artisans, traders, and devotees whose daily lives were inextricably tied to the sacred heart of the city: the Kalighat Temple.