Indian Art and Letters

Author(s): India Society
Publisher: India Society

Page 23

Modern Art in Western India of art makes a few exceptional people so terribly competent that they can do things which nobody else can do.
Captain Gladstone Solomon, as I say, has actually achieved the feat of getting the Government of Bombay to see that it was worth while to delegate the whole of the art side of the activities in their Presidency to a separate Government Department. In Bombay the School of Art is no longer under Education, but is a separate Government Department, and the Principal of the School of Art as such is Director of the Department.
I think that is such an unusual achievement that I am sure you will be eager to hear the man who brought it about, especially as he is going to follow up his lecture by showing us some most interesting slides.
Captain Gladstone Solomon then gave his paper :
MR. DE LA VALETTE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
The subject of Modern Art in India may seem rather more novel than natural to those who have been accustomed to survey the art of India from a standpoint that is essentially retrospective; and others, perhaps, while admitting that there is such a thing as modern art in India, will consider that the New Bengal School is the only school of painting representative of India to-day.
The Bombay School, which in recent years has once more emerged into prominence, is a distinct and open departure from the Bengal School of exclusive Indian archaisms, and as such should not be judged by the same standards. It is my agreeable task to tell you something to-night about the methods and ideals of art in Western India to-day, for I have had the privilege of spending seventeen years on that side of the country, and have been for the past fifteen years in charge of a very large Indian art school.
The Bombay School of Art was founded in 1857 by the Government in response to a generous donation which the Parsee philanthropist, Sir Jamsetji Jeejebhoy, and his family presented for that purpose, and has borne the name of the donor ever since.
We are aware, of course, that there are people who object to art schools on principle, just as there are people who object to academies of art or to all attempts to organize the profession of the fine arts-people who look upon anything resembling organized art as a wolf masquerading in sheep's clothing. And we know that some others, not so prejudiced, yet think it is a pity that we should give art schools to India when her own art is so much more interesting than that of Europe. The latter objection would only be understandable if the objectors were in a position to provide an alternative which would really make schools of art, which have become more and more numerous in Europe in modern times, superfluous in the Eastern hemisphere. NEW SERIES. VOL. VIII., NO. 2.
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