Mukul Dey’s Sacred Tree, A Symbole of Hope to Decolonize Indian Art

Xuanlin Ye

doi:10.54097/ijeh.v4i1.1394

Authors

Xuanlin Ye

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/ijeh.v4i1.1394

Keywords:

The Sacred Tree, Mukul Chandra Dey, Rabindranath Tagore, Bodhi tree, The Bengal School of Art.

Abstract

Dey dedicated his life to the artistic revival of Indian art and adapted the traditionally Western technique of drypoint etching to this end, creating many prints that drew on Indian cultural heritage. The artistic revival of traditional imagery helped fuel the Swadeshi movement by fostering a sense of national pride and attempting to develop a new national style.Dey’s artworks represent his hope to decolonize Indian art and restore Indian national pride.

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References

Sister Nivedita quoted in Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India 1850-1922: Occidental Orientations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), PAGE NUMBER NEEDED.

Satyasri Ukil, “Mukul Dey: Pioneering Indian Graphic Artist,” Mukul Dey Archives, accessed December 8, 2021, http://www.chitralekha.org/#:~:text=Photo%3A%20Keisuke%20InanoIndian,of%20drypoint%2Detching%20in%20India. The Santiniketan school represents the origins of today’s Kala Bhavana (Institute of Fine Arts) at Visva-Bharati University.

Mukul Dey, “My Reminiscences,” Mukul Dey Archives, accessed December 8, 2021, http://www.chitralekha.org/articles/mukul-dey/my-reminiscences.

Ukil, np.

Natasha Eaton, “‘Swadeshi’ Color: Artistic Production and Indian Nationalism, ca. 1905–ca. 1947,” The Art Bulletin 95, no. 4 (2013): 623–41.

Ibid.

Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making of a New “Indian” Art: Artists, Aesthetics, and Nationalism in Bengal, C. 1850-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Ibid.

Abanidranath Tagore quoted in Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

]Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

Mukul Dey, Birbhum Terracottas (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1959).

]Mukul Dey, My Pilgrimage to Ajanta & Bagh (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1925).

Ibid.