What was the significance of Kala Bhavana in Indian art history?

It was the first national art school in India

Answer: It was the first national art school in India

Nandalal Bose, a student of Abanindranath Tagore, was invited by poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore to head the painting department in the newly established Kala Bhavana. Kala Bhavana was India’s first national art school. It was part of the Visva-Bharati University founded by Rabindranath Tagore at Shantiniketan. At Kala Bhavana, Nandalal founded the intellectual and artistic milieu to create an Indian style in art. By paying attention to the folk art forms that he saw around in Shantiniketan, he began to focus on the language of art. He also illustrated primers in Bengali with woodcuts and understood the role of art in teaching new ideas. For this reason, Mahatma Gandhi invited him to paint panels that were put on display at the Congress session at Haripura in 1937. Famously called the ‘Haripura Posters’, they depicted ordinary rural folks busy in various activities — a musician drumming, a farmer tilling, a woman churning milk, and so on. They were painted as lively colourful sketchy figures and shown as contributing their labour to nation building. These posters echoed with Gandhi’s socialist vision of including marginalised sections of Indian society through art.