BPSC Mains Tipic-Patna Kalam

Patna Kalam Moving Towards Demise..

Mughal Emperors in India has impacted the socio-cultural, political and economic life style of the Indians. The influence of Mughal rule was widely observed in art and architecture of the country. The Mughal style of painting is the brightest feature of Indian painting history in the regime of Jahangir which is also known as the known as the golden era of Mughal paintings.

Combination of Persian style with the Indian traditional style has given the a new way of painting. Many Indian schools of paintings were enriched, nourished and  flourished afterwards and they were heavily influenced by Mughal paintings. One among these was Patna School of Painting which is popularly known as the Patna Kalam or Company painting. Historically Patna Kalam was an derivative of Mughal painting flourished during early 18th to mid 20th century in Bihar. 

During the regime of Aurangzeb Hindu artisans of Mughal painting faced prosecution due to his widely practiced  anti-Hindu policy and aversion in art and painting. Hindu painters were taken shelter in Patna and introduced their own school of painting known as Patna Kalam. Although they followed the basic features of Mughal painting but  their subject  was quite different. Unlike the Mughal painting, that were based on royalty and court scenes, painters of Patna Kalam were deeply influenced by daily life of common man.Their main subjects were local festival, ceremonies bazaar scenes, local rulers, and domestic works as well. Some well acclaimed flag bearers  of Patna kalam were Sewak Ram, Hulas Lall, Shiv Lal,Shiva Dayal,Mahadeo Lal and Ishwari Prasad Verma. 

The painters of the Patna kalam used to extract colors indigenously from plants, barks, flowers and metals. Their most common canvas were on glass, mica and ivory sheets. The main centers of Patna Kalam schools were Patna, Danapur and Arrah. These paintings are featured by light colored sketches and life-like representations. One of the most distinguishing characteristic of Patna Kalam is that, they do not paint any landscape, foreground or background. Another unique component of the Patna School of Painting was the development in the shading of solid forms.

Patna Kalam paintings are painted straightway with the brush without marking with pencil to delineate the contours of the picture. This procedure is commonly known as 'Kajli Seahi.The features of the figures of such paintings are depicted by the heavy eyebrows, pointed noses, lean and gaunt faces, big moustaches sunken and deep-set staring eyes. The Patna School of Painting has faced a gradual decline and inching towards the extinction with the lapse of time as new artists are not coming forward to carry on this beautiful tradition and the old ones are passing away one by one.

The subject matter of these paintings had always been the Aam Admi (Common Man)  and his domestic routines. It's basically a miniature form of painting which has, because of its unique style and form, occupied separate shelves at art galleries in London and museums in Prague.

This is the most unfortunate things about the Patna Kalam, like the world-famous Mithila paintings, it has not received its due share of acknowledgement despite of that many believes that the eponymous painting was far superior to the more popular Mithila paintings.

The “Patna Kalam” faced competition from the "Mithila paintings which is marketed professionally both at home and abroad. Also, Mithila painting is a folk form which could be easily transferred from one generation to another." On the contrary, Patna Kalam was essentially court painting which had to face inevitable death with time. Today, only few existing miniatures of this rare form lie in unkempt and dusty shelves in the Patna museum where it was fondly created and adopted at one time.


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