The struggle to make something modern that does not break with our civilizational roots has been present in all aspects of Indian life since the freedom struggle. It is in this context that one can understand Gandhi's movement and his interpretation of the Bhagwad Gita, or Rabindranath Tagore's use of the Upanishads in modern poetry. It was not any different in art. The modern Indian artist sought to create a new language  and aesthetic that could frame a modern Indian people's aspiration for freedom in civilizational terms. Thus, the artists of Shantiniketan; Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee in particular, sought inspiration in ancient Indian art and sculpture. In their quest they turned to the lyrical and vibrant frescoes and sculpture of the Ajanta-Ellora caves. Much can be said about the genius of the artwork in these caves, several of which date back to 1,500 years ago.
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When put alongside each other, the work of the Shantiniketan artists on the walls of buildings such as Cheena Bhavan show beautiful resonance with Ajanta murals. Below we attempt exactly this, to show the roots of our modern art movement in ancient civilization. We believe that the experiment of Shantiniketan holds much of value to our ancient civilization which is struggling into modernity.

Ajanta sculpture

Outside of a cave, Ajanta

Above, above left and left: Ajanta murals

…we shall go to the monument and see, not only the eyes of defeated caves above the ravines, or the archaelogical survey numbers, or even hear the legendary history from the guides. Perhaps we shall try to touch the half-finished pillar here, or trace the ocntours of the unnoticed image in the darkest dark nave, or observe the flight of the angels on the upper wall. We shall take our bent heads with us, but also our adoring hearts. We shall beckon our own dreams, release our own desires, notice our own eyes filled with the moisture of tenderness at the loving stance of the cylindrical women. We will allow our frenetic blood to sway slowly towards our nerve ends, to comprehend the perfection of the constructs before us. We shall trace the secret behind the silent areas. We shall see the phantoms rise in the delirium of our sensibility about the mentally sick queen escaping from the king---to give to the gods her unwanted love. We shall get lost in the clouds of dust raised by the hammers striking the chisels, and discover, in the mirage, the thousand hands which moulded the rocks day by day. Perhaps, we might hear the Dhavani of the tornado of energies, let loose, generation after generation, to render the human condition in terms of the unearthly creatures. And then the earth will be ours, because the unearthly ones are the flesh of our flesh, the blood of our blood, and belong to us forever from the sympathy of that force in us which has created the shapes of things unknown---the force of our imaginations. 

Mulk Raj Anand

Cheena Bhavan Mural, team led by Nandalal Bose

Painting at Cheena Bhavan, Shantiniketan

Like Abanindranath did not specially like Ajanta, Rabindranath too was not much moved by it — it did not excite or overpower him emotionally. He said there was no gap in it anywhere, which he did not like. (May be this upset us to hear.) My reply to this is : Space is of two kinds — the outer space and the mental space. In the painting of Ajanta we see this mental space, with a sense of peace and equipoise everywhere. That is a great thing. The painting of Ajanta has not given exaggerated expression to emotion. No one laughs or weeps anywhere. Even in that picture of a woman in Bagh — she has only covered her eyes by the hem of her garment. But even there what reticence, what gravity’. The painting of Ajanta has an epic quality— its unity is in the suggestiveness of its movement. 

Ajanta’s art is like carved sculpture but even if three-dimensional you cannot say it is imitative or realistic. The animals, human figures or whatever we see are lifted out of our familiar plane to a higher plane. The form is not realistic in concept ; despite the three-dimensionality it is rhythmic, not realistic.’ 

Nandalal Bose

Above two: Benode Behari Mukherjee's 'Life on Campus'

Above, right and row below: Ajanta murals.

Our long stay in Europe has aided me to discover, as it were, India. Modern Art has led me to the comprehension & appreciation of Indian painting & sculpture. It seems paradoxical but I know for certain that had we not come away to Europe I would perhaps never have realised that a fresco from Ajanta or a small piece of sculpture in the Musee Guimet is worth more than the whole Renaissance! 

This is a wonderful place, the most silent place that I have ever experienced. One doesn’t know what silence is, what it can be, till one has been to Ellora. ​​

Then the Cave temples. Imagine colossal chains of rock with innumerable caves hewn out of them--low, with heavy columns. Silence and peculiar twilight everywhere with water trickling through the rocks and sculpture, sculpture everywhere. Magnificent sculpture and desolation. 
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The two days that we were here were spent almost wholly at the Caves, sitting for hours on the stone steps or stone floors in silence. 

Amrita Shergill

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Mural of Cheena Bhavan hall, team led by Gauri Bhanja.

“..at that time we felt as if we had begun another new chapter in the wake of the Ajanta murals.”


(on Nandalal Bose)...Mythology had been the dominating influence on his imagination in his early age; and this naturally made him susceptible to the fascination of the traditional Indian art, particularly, sculpture. This influence has not only been the most effective in his work, but also the most lasting. It is clearly marked in his creations, much more so than in those of Abananindranath; for this reason, that whilst to the latter it came as a later influence, on nandalal it had grown as the earliest, and therefore the most potent, influence. Moreover, Nandalal came of a class to which tradition had always been more real than the classics.”

Benode Behari Mukherji