Practicing Success

Target Exam

CUET

Subject

Fine Arts

Chapter

The Bengal School and Cultural Nationalism

Question:

Who, among the following individuals, favored the return to native art to create a true modern Indian art?

Options:

Lord Curzon

Benoy Sarkar

Anand Coomaraswamy

E. B. Havell

Correct Answer:

E. B. Havell

Explanation:

Answer: E. B. Havell
E. B. Havell, an Englishman, favored the return to native art to create a 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.