VB facelift for priceless Nandalal Bose frescoes – Times of India

KOLKATA: Two wall-to-wall murals created by the legendary Nandalal Bose have been restored by the Visva-Bharati authorities — fittingly in Kala Bhavana’s centenary year — and are being taught to students as treatises on the Ajanta and Bagh caves.

Bose, a pioneer of modern Indian art and a one-time principal of Kala Bhavana, provided detailed documentation on how he painted the murals. For students, this remains the only key to the Buddhist cave drawings of Ajanta and the lost treasures of Bagh. One wall is representative of the Bagh caves, while the other is a copy of Ajanta cave paintings that Bose, along with his band of students, brought to life on the walls on Havell’s Hall, the first building around which Kala Bhavana developed. For years, the murals were in a pitiable state, attacked by damp and fungus.




Bose did not stop at just creating scenes relating to the Buddha in particular and Buddhism in general. He left a detailed documentation of the colours used, their ratios, the use of egg whites, oil, sand, the percentage of turpentine oil, chalk varnish, among others. Below one of the murals is a windowlike dent where he has specified almost every technical detail that has been used to make the mural.
It was Rabindranath Tagore who was instrumental in sending Bose to study the cave paintings of Ajanta and Bagh and copy them for the use of Visva-Bharati students. “You cannot study art history of the country without studying our Buddhist cave paintings. While Ajanta still remains for us to see and study, those at Bagh are lost and then we have to fall back upon Nandalal’s murals. Those are of immense value from the point of academics,” said R Siva Kumar, faculty member and eminent art historian.
The murals show scenes from the Jataka tales, Bodhisattava figures and some scenes from Siddhartha’s life. “Even after the restoration, it might seem that the murals are faded. However, the restoration job has been thoroughly done and we have been able to save the murals. We do not intend to brighten the paintings because that would mean repainting, and would take away the original character of the murals,” said Jogen Chowdhury, who used to head Kala Bhavana earlier and is still involved in teaching. Thank you
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