Answer: Return to native art for true modern Indian art
E. B. Havell collaborated with Abanindranath Tagore to promote a return to native art for the creation of true modern Indian art.
The divide between anglicists and orientalists was not based on race. Take the case of the Bengali intellectual, Benoy Sarkar, who sided with the anglicists and considered modernism that was growing in Europe as authentic in an article, ‘The Futurism of Young Asia’. For him, the Oriental Bengal School of Art was regressive and anti-modern. On the other hand, it was E. B. Havell, an Englishman, who was in favour of return to native art to create a true modern Indian art. It is in this context that we have to view his collaboration with Abanindranath Tagore. Amrita Sher-Gil is a perfect example of the meeting of both these points of view. She used the kind of style that the Bauhaus exhibition showed to depict Indian scenes. |
