Contemporary painting and Indian politics

[Guest]

<b>In his own words - From the commie rag</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>An artist and a movement </b>

<i>Any great change in a nation's civilisation begins in the field of culture</i>.

M.F. HUSAIN

The water colours reproduced here were painted by M.F. Husain for this Special Issue of Frontline.

WE had our own parallel national movement. We were part of the Progressive Artists Group; there were five or six painters in Mumbai and a few in Calcutta. We came out to fight against two prevalent schools of thought in those days, the Royal Academy, which was British-oriented, <b>and the revivalist school in Mumbai, which was not a progressive movement</b>. These two we decided to fight, and we demolished them. The movement to get rid of these influences and to evolve a language that is rooted in our own culture was a great movement, and one that historians have not taken note of. It was important because any great change in a nation's civilisation begins in the field of culture. <b>Culture is always ahead of other political and social movements. </b>
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From wiki entry, it says, he had painted those pictures in 70s and only 1996 they have gained the notoriety.