Patna Kalam Paintings an Introduction

Mughal Emperors of India has influenced the social, cultural, political and economic life style of the Indians. Its effect was so deep that it was seen over art and architecture of the country. Mughal style of painting is a brightest feature of cultural landscape of the Indian history, which matured in the regime of Jahangir and his period was considered as the golden era of Mughal paintings.

                                          Patna Kalam Art: Domestic work by women


Mughal style of paintings is the fusion of Persian style with the Indian traditional style and created their distinct identity. Many Indian schools of paintings were founded, enriched, nourished and flourished afterwards and they were heavily influenced by Mughal paintings.

Patna School of Painting which is popularly known as the Patna Kalam or Company painting was  derivative from Mughal painting and it was developed during early 18th to mid 20th century in Bihar particularly around Patna. 

During the relinquish rule of Aurangzeb Hindu artisans of Mughal painting faced mass prosecution amid his widely practiced anti-Hindu doctrine and aversion in art and painting.

Hindu painters migrated and taken shelter in Patna and laid the foundation of their own school of painting known as Patna Kalam.

                                                        Patna Kalam Art: A Lohar working

Patna Kalam was build upon the basic features of Mughal painting but their subject matter was quite different. Unlike the Mughal painting, which was centered over the royalty and court scenes, flag bearers 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 activities.

Some well known painters of Patna kalam were Sewak Ram,Hulas Lall, Shiv Lal,Shiva Dayal,Mahadeo Lal and Ishwari Prasad Verma. 

The practitioners of the Patna kalam used to extract indigenously colors from plants, barks, flowers and metals .The canvas they used were made up of glass, mica and ivory sheets.

The prominent centers of Patna Kalam schools were centered Patna, Danapur and Arrah.

These paintings were featured by light colored sketches and life-size representations. One of the most distinguishing characteristic of Patna Kalam is that, they do not have any landscape, foreground or background.

The figures of such paintings are depicted by the heavy eyebrows, pointed noses, lean and gaunt faces, big mustaches sunken and deep-set staring eyes.

Second 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 and the procedure of painting is popularly known as 'Kajli Seahi.

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.

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.

                                                        Patna Kalam Art: Money lender

This is the most unfortunate things about the Patna Kalam,like the world-famous Madhubani 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 "Madhubani paintings which is marketed professionally both at home and abroad. Also, Maghubani painting is a folk form which could be easily transferred from one generation to another".

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.