Article Type: Research Article Article Citation: Dr. Alpana
Upadhyaya, and Vinny Wadhwa. (2020). THE ROLE OF VISUAL ARTS IN BALANCING
ADVERSE SITUATIONS IN INDIA. International Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH, 8(7),
358-361. https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v8.i7.2020.584 Received Date: 25 June 2020 Accepted Date: 31 July 2020 Keywords: Visual Arts in India Adverse Situation and Visual
Arts Visual Arts in Negative Thoughts Art and Health Everything that exists on this globe comes out of action, but action only achieves its fruits if it is aline with your inner world. Adverse situations in life will happen despite all the precautions and safeguards we put in place, in an attempt to prevent or at best avoid their effects. In this, people must concentrate on how to react and control the emotions in this situation. How to overcome negative thinking with the positive one? Positive thinking simply means that you approach adverse situation in a more positive way. Visual Art can be a refuge for intense emotions and illness in adverse situations. Visual art draws folk’s attention to minutiae and the environment, which distracts from day-to-day thoughts. No matter whether people chose visual arts to create for ourselves or simply observe or enjoy it.
1. INTRODUCTIONIndia occupies an exalted position in the realm of visual art of the ancient world as well as the modern world. And a so visual art, in its many forms, is practiced by almost all human culture and can be regarded as one of the defining characteristics. Studies suggest that visual art has been very helpful in treating issues such as depression, anxiety, and stress from the upper Palaeolithic Indians to the modern one. The visual arts here
mean art such as drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, film,
and printmaking. It is the art one can see, touch, and feel in a material form.
Since ancient times, Indian visual arts have come a long way. India has
observed an increasing fervor for art amongst the people, by the growing number
of cultural table, including art festivals, exhibitions, art fares and other
grand event whole across the nation but it also works in the negative form such
as the adverse or harsh situation in human’s life. Through the historical study
of India, it can be suggested that visual art helps to ignore life’s less
pleasant situations and is valuable to improve one’s self-appreciation and
confidence. [4] 2. VISUAL ARTS IN PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD OF INDIAFrom the primitive artworks of the world, it is known as
there is a special form of visual arts to reveal the efforts and tendencies of
human art vividly. In the prehistoric period, we see a proliferation of
artistic activities. Various paintings and sculptures are reported in different
centres across the nation. In Bradrik’s
book ‘PREHISTORIC PAINTING’ and Pigaut’s book
‘PREHISTORIC INDIA’, the content of this topic is exhaustive. It shows the
gradual development of a human being from period to period. Despite not having
many resources, they succeeded in expressing their feelings. Hunting scene, a depiction of signs of
worship such as trident, geometrical shapes are found in them. The Vedic period was not thoughtful but emotional. In the
absence of the origin of language, the first problem came in front of primitive
man was with the manifestation of their emotions. His further question was how they explain
their feelings to a third person or the next generation. This curiosity or
expression of human gave birth to hieroglyphs. Looking at the contemporaneous
hieroglyphics, it appears that some rules were already laid down for its
information. And later the pictographs
and hieroglyphics of that period gave birth to a scientific script or language [5] 3.
VISUAL ARTS
DURING EAST INDIA COMPANY
In India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European increasingly buys pictures from Indian artists and gave instructions to them. As many of these Europeans were British East India company officials, these artworks are generally named as ‘Company school’ art. The term, ‘Company School’ has become a valid aspect of South Asian art history since 1972, when Mildred Archer, an Art historian in British India published her catalog, Company Painting in the India Office Library. After the downfall of the Mughal empire ‘Company style’ emerged as a hybrid Indian European style of depiction that developed in eighteenth and nineteenth-century India through this new form of patronage. The painting went on in Patna for two centuries (18th -20th). In those days this place was the big center of business; the British got so many paintings of the artists and sent them to England. Those artworks expressed an Indian sight of the world, with the addition of new informational direction as per the instruction of colonial officials. The artists have to work in both the Europeanised style as well as an indigenous style. This was the wave that spread throughout the whole of India with a mixture of European and Mughal art developed with the East India Company. Also throughout history, only the name of the patrons who commissioned the work has identified but the name of artists has less identified. The subjects of the paintings were mostly firca paintings of Indian culture, general life, and no depiction of Royal splendor and Romanticism like Mughal art have found here. Indian artists who produced Company Paintings directed in many unique styles. The artist usually had a major training in an indigenous painting style, and would then embellish this style to meet the needs of European patrons. The level of this adjusting varied tremendously in reaction to the patron’s agenda. As company art is a difficult topic to define it was created over a vast period, and also the traditional art of India vanished, and this new technique which was, which was ugly, could not get an appreciation of the people, it became difficult to earn through such paintings. But the painters who properly copied the art and style of British were encouraged as a ‘company painter’. 4. VISUAL ARTS DURING INDIA PAKISTAN PARTITION 1947Before 1947, it was one land: Bharat. It was August of that year when British Raj has departed and Pakistan emerged as an independent nation. The Radcliffe Line expressed the division of India into Hindustan and Pakistan; it split villages in two, leaving one half in India and the other in Pakistan. Soon afterward, the biggest getaway in human history began- Millions of Muslims went in West and East Pakistan (now known as Bangladesh), while millions of Hindu and Sikhs went in the opposite direction. 1947 changed lives forever and changed the art landscape of India. It was the disastrous separation of unified community with the shared history and culture. In the twentieth century, Punjab was especially the main center of human violence- as 14-16 million peoples have been moved from one place to another, traveling by train, in bullock carts, and on foot. The range of death in post-partition was, from 2, 00,000 to two million. Around 1 00,000 women were raped or abducted as they often targeted as the epitome of community honor. At that time many art lovers who witnessed the whole tragedy managed to continue their art and only trust it to portray their experiences to posterity. A group of artists at that time rejected romanticism and lyricism of the Bengal school of Art due to famine, poverty, and war ravages. To express the suffering, pain, and urban society’s crisis, they felt the need to develop a visual dialect. They formed different art groups and are known to be eminent artists today. Pran Nath Mago, Tayeb Mehta, Paritosh Sen, Satish Gujral, Krishen Khanna, Jimmy Engineer, S l Para ser were among them who witnessed the whole devastation. The impacts of these adverse situations were distinctly seen in painting, sculpture, or other works. Few artists like Jimmy engineer also gave their partition series which describe the terrific scenes of migration. His work is an elegy to those millennial men and women who lost their lives forever and can’t even get to see the nation’s flag. [3] 5. VISUAL ARTS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN INDIASince world war- 2nd, the world has faced the greatest global humane challenge which is defined as COVID- 19 pandemics. All notions of productivity and creativity completely altered as lives came to a halt; people lost their beloved and faced economic falter. These have sudden and ample impact on visual arts and other sectors too. But in the darkest days when everything paused, people spun towards art. Visual art has been a source of consolation, comfort, inspiration, and a way to gain stillness during the hazardous time. Here the point is not to prove the artists were more important than other professionals at that time, especially security forces, healthcare professionals, security forces, sweepers, and essential services workers who were fighting at the frontlines. But visual arts can relieve people to come together, cope, and heal in the face of sorrow and harm in an inarticulate yet watertight way that this time of self-isolation proved idol for art to blossom. The worldwide health calamity and the uncertainty resulting from it completely affected the operations of organizations as well as individuals- both employed and independent sector. Whole across the world there were so many exhibitions, art festivals, events and performances cancelled or postponed. In response, there were profound efforts to provide alternative services through digital platforms, to maintain vital activities with the least resources, to present the event themselves through new addition, and simultaneously aware that there would be many creative works that had been inspired by the event. So many art centres of the nation or whole across the world have sent the open call for artists to share their plan on how to get through this phase positively and creatively, along with that they also provide a digital connection between eminent artists and art students through webinars, digital workshop, and classes. So many freelancers have started their online free or paid visual art classes for people all across the world. Due to this pandemic one side if people proceed to negative thoughts or demolition on the other side they also believe that this kind of self-isolation provides a space to the artist. From empty streets, deformed markets to outcome of the lockdown, visual artists too were capturing in canvas the effects of the pandemic. 6. CONCLUSIONHumans grow by facing different situations of life. Some life situations exist to teach them a lesson, while others come to take them forward with life. The situations that appear to be adverse are the doorway to new life. From the Palaeolithic till today, the man facing so many adverse situations and tried to stay balanced in such situations. The one reason for this ability of human beings who are balanced in all situations may be associated with visual arts. It is proving a relaxing and inspiring activity for many people. a man always looks at life from the perspective, that brings inner bliss to them, they can never go inexact with their life. In India, whether it was the time of a primitive man or the severe pandemic time, visual art has been playing its role in perpetuity. SOURCES OF FUNDINGThis research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. CONFLICT OF INTERESTThe author have declared that no competing interests exist. ACKNOWLEDGMENTNone. REFERENCES
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