Art Offshoots
Impressionism: Claude Monet Sunrise 1872
Abstract art: Mark Rothko Orange Red Yellow 1961
LEGACY OF THE MOST INVENTIVE WESTERN ART
& how fine art can add to India’s economy
- Sen Shombit
- January 4, 2026
ABOUT MODERN ART
– The word modern means timeless, it never gets old.
– The origin of Modern Art in western Europe is traced to the mid-19th century when certain artists and art critics rejected the academic tradition of Realism in subject matter and style.
– They were fed up with traditional art methods. The works these artists created went against the norm of the centuries old classic art establishment. These artists were coined “moderns” although they would later call themselves Impressionists.
– These Impressionist school of thought painters that emerged in France in the late 1860s sought to free painting from the tyranny of academic standards of art.
Genesis of Modern Art. Timeline with 3 core influences.
1. Japanese print making (ukiyo-e) with wood blocks had influenced many western European painters from 1820 onwards.
2. Camera invention: When in 1839 French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce successfully took and recorded the first photo in the world with the invention of a “camera obscura”, its impact changed the art world dramatically. Arguably, that was the trigger for Modern Art. Photography posed a challenge to Realistic art. The demand for artists doing portraiture and realistic landscapes began to decline.
3. Invention of paint in tubes: American inventor and painter John Goffe Rand patented the invention of the tin tube for oil paints in 1841. This allowed unused oil paint to be stored and used later without drying out. The impact of the paint tube was that artists could now go outdoors for landscape
But the influence of Modern Art came to the US only around 1940s with Jackson Pollock.
– Impacted by the above 3 core influences, French painter Claude Monet created a radically new style in landscape in 1872. He was an unconventional artist of that time who had a bold focus. He made a series of paintings with a consistent style of application. These paintings marked the first breakaway from Classic Art. So Monet is credited to have kicked off the Impressionist movement.
– Many art historians also consider French painter Paul Cézanne, working in the late 19th century, to be the inventor or “Father” of Modern Art. He tried to break away from the Impressionist style.
Modern Art, which has changed the world’s perspective on art, has remained the umbrella for all the new art styles that have emerged after Realism since 1860.
The Modern Art movements include Impressionism, Pointillism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Metaphysical painting, De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism, Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Optical art, Minimalism, and Neo-Expressionism among others.
Having broken academic rules from Realism in the 2nd half of the 19th century, Modern Art continues to be a wide ranging platform of art till today’s contemporary modern art times.
In the metaphor of Modern Art and contemporary modern art, artists don’t paint or sculpt what they see in real life. Rather, artists interpret reality with their imagination to transform painting substances so as to create curiosity in the subconscious minds of viewers
ABSTRACT ART IS A BY-PRODUCT OF MODERN ART
Abstract art does not have any recognizable figurative in a painting. It is a departure from reality into non-figurative abstract form. Historically, abstract art has its roots in early human civilization. Cultures across the globe have, for centuries, used non-figurative, but highly symbolic and decorative depictions in abstract form.
A new abstract form of art started to evolve at the end of the 19th century. It became the dominant art form of the mid-20th century.
Its main objective was to provide viewers with an emotional experience only where different viewers can interpret the subject in their own way.
Abstract artists reject figurative representational art forms to express personal imagination. They explore pure form, geometric shapes, bold colour brushstrokes, untried texture and innovative techniques.
Well known abstract artists are Mark Rothko, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich among many others.
KEYSTONE OF PRE & POST MODERN ART
Pre Modern Art
Western art evolution can be distinguished from ancient times of the Greeks, the Romans and the Middle Ages.
– In ancient times, western art can be considered as collective art execution.
– When perfection of Realism was the key element of art from the Renaissance period (1350 – 1620), it was difficult to easily distinguish an individual artist’s work from others.
Eg. Among Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Raphael, it was difficult for the common man to tell apart the works of these artists.
Post Modern Art since 1860
A. Consistency of an artist’s recognizable own style
– This new era of art gave individual artists the freedom to work predominantly to display the consistency of their own style. This consistency in their works of art made it possible to identify an artist even without that artist’s signature on the painting when
– A painter artist has a consistent unpublished new style applied on canvas or bronze,
– While avoiding any repetition the painter has the capacity to work on different themes, different subjects and different series
B. Freedom of imagination
Breaking the classic art form gave multiple avenues for imagination to explore the art form in a totally non-linear direction. If you look at Monet to Pissaro, Van Gogh to Picasso to Max Ernst, you can realize the broad avenues of Modern Art which touch the subconscious mind of viewers. Eg. Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Surrealism, among others.
C. Art movements became the backbone of Modern Art from 1860 onwards
By breaking academic rules, multiple art movements became the key element of this new era of art. The birth and recognition of conceptual art forms as art movements established the backbone of this new era of post Modern Art.
D. Emergence of conceptual art forms with branding of art movements
Non-artist intellectuals came together for art: After this new art form emerged from 1860, art historians, philosophers and writers showed
great interest in the works of different living artists of that time. They conceptualized the new art forms as art movements, and branded them.
The branding names of different movement were not esoteric, but relevant to the specific style of art of the artists who created them. As imagination is endless, different art movements were created under the canopy of Modern Art.
So an artist in today’s contemporary times can either fall into an existing art movement, or can create his or her own new style. This new style can become an art movement at a later time.
E. Contemporization of the invention
Western creative thinking is always driven by platforms that have universal appeal irrespective of any country the artist belongs to. Platforms evolve with time and bring breakthrough changes. So the conceptual form of any painter’s wide series of artworks along with a branding of the movement is the catalytic substance that identifies the singularity of a painter.
FLASHBACK TO ANCIENT WESTERN INVENTIVE PLATFORMS AND THEIR CONTEMPORIZATION TODAY
Ancient Greeks have invented the clock. In today’s world the clock has taken diverse forms while the core purpose of telling the time remains the same. A watch can run with hand movement without using any other power. The Roman aqueduct without any motorization is still used in the modern system to distribute water in high rise buildings commanded by electric power.
In the age of American mass industrial revolution, the lift was created first. But evolution did not stop. Now we have the automatic walking paths and automatic elevators.
Billions of people in the world are enjoying the frequent and regular breakthrough changes in the telephone industry.
Contemporization is a big thrust for the western society. In the same way, it is extremely relevant for them to contemporize art. This inventive platform of bringing art up-to-date follows an evolution of the same structure of consistency, imagination, concept and art movement.
AMALGAMATION OF ART
The advanced stage of post modern art comprises of consistency, free-flowing imagination, contemporization, conceptual form in existing art movements or an individual creating a new style. Here are 2 examples of artist of single movement and artist of multiple movements.
Painter of a single movement: Claude Monet was the inventor of Impressionism, and remained an Impressionist artist. Many other artists later joined his art movement. French printmaker, painter and playwright Louis Leroy, first articulated the movement brand name as “Impressionism”.
Painter of multiple movements: Pablo Picasso went through painting of 5 different movements during his span of life. His early age stylized “Realistic” art work were called Blue Period and Rose Period. Next, he entered the African Period with traditional African masks style.
Along with Georges Braque, Picasso later created Cubism. This movement was branded “Cubism” by French art critic Louis Vauxcelles.
At a later stage he joined 2 existing art movements. One was “Neo-classicism”, a movement name branded by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, a German art historian and archaeologist.
The other was “Surrealism”, the movement brand name coined by the French poet Guilliame Apollinaire. He had referred to this art style as an independent reality existing beneath our conscious reality.
It is very important to note that Picasso painted in 5 different styles in different periods of his life. He meticulously respected the style of each of the different movements he followed, maintaining a consistent style in them. This has made Picasso to be the most prolific iconic painter of all time.
A PAINTER’S RECOGNITION FACTORS
How can a painter get recognized by art curators, art historians, art critics, art viewers, art gallerists, art collectors, and in the auction market?
Self discipline: From an early stage, a painter has to maintain consistency in self-discipline on the canvas. There are 2 options
– to create a new unpublished own style or
– to enter an existing movement with his/her own character of painting.
Uncommon variety without repetition: The painter has to avoid repetition while having the capacity to work on different themes, different subjects and different series.
Universal appeal: Irrespective of the country the artist originates from, the artworks of an artist has to have universal appeal so that anybody from anywhere in the world can connect to the paintings.
In this way, the painter’s artworks can create an ideology and artistry across the world without any frontier enabling these paintings to remain for an unlimited time in society.
Artists who do not follow these recognition factors may be considered erratic by the professional art world.
TIPS FOR A PAINTER’S OWN SUBSTANCE
Copy: This is an established profession in the west. These professional copy-artists copy the paintings of famous artists to sell it at a moderate price without any prejudice. Copy artists have very good skill of perspective, colour, anatomy and composition. The buyer knows he/she is buying a copy.
Making a copy could also be considered as a learning period by a painter who declares he is copying another painter. Eg. Vincent van Gogh had himself declared that he had copied about 30 paintings of other painters while he was recovering his mental health in Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
Plagiarism: This is a stolen idea from a style, colour application and/or structure and art movement of a painter. When it is done to falsely claim it is a new painting style and is the original work of a given painter, it is considered as plagiarism. There are lots of painters who practice plagiarism.
Influence: This is very authentic and pure certification of an artist to recognize his or her source of influence. This is more ideological noble influence than visual copy or plagiarism.
This is an open-ended platform for every painter to find his/her idol to get influence from and to fall into a discipline.
Singularity: A painter has to create his/her own style that had not been published earlier. Influence of some other artist, writer, philosopher or historian can be there without being visually copied. This influence in spirit can shape a painter’s thinking process. It would be considered the painter’s uniqueness of artwork which had not existed before. This should be the real objective of an artist.
MY INTROSPECTION ON THE FORM OF CONTEMPORARY MODERN ART.
Without the least bit of bias, let me humbly explain my journey of why and how I have entered the post 1860 legacy of Western European art. Different viewers can give different opinions on my paintings, either bad , good or ugly. I totally accept all criticisms. But nobody can question that I have rigorously maintained the western European art platform in every sense, while creating my own style, Abstract with Hidden Figuratives.
My mother told me that I started my art journey from the age of 3. It seems I used to draw with a stick on the wet cowdung-mud floor of our refugee camp home. When I entered the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkata at age 16, I was highly impressed by the centuries-old ancient Indian art. But I could not connect to it personally due to its lack of contemporization. India’s art culture evoked no stimulus in my mind on how to follow it.
My learning from Kolkata’s American Library and my art college library showed me that since 1860, revolutionary changes were taking place from Classic Art to Modern Art in Western Europe. This was an immensely inspiring trigger. I wanted to be a part of that. I couldn’t wait to finish my art studies in Kolkata.
My family was penniless in a refugee camp, having fled erstwhile East Bengal in 1947 during India’s violent partition. But sensing my obsession to pursue art only in France, my mother pawned the only piece of gold jewelry she had traditionally received at her wedding. She spent Rs 2,700 to buy me a Delhi-Paris-Delhi return ticket and gave me $8 she could afford. With that I landed in Paris in 1973 at age 19, armed with my Kolkata art college art portfolio. I knew no one in France, spoke no French, had no shelter, but I chased my dream of art. I worked hard to acquire vast learning on western fine art and it evolved with time.
Entering the art society of the west mesmerized me. It gave me immense freedom of expression. Subsequently, I was empowered to found a new style of my own as a contemporary modern artist. I superimposed abstraction on figuratives. I rigorously maintain “A painter’s recognition factors” while applying the irreverent usage of colours as is done in Indian society. French art critic Patrice de la Perrière has branded my style as “Abstract with Hidden Figuratives”.
My 3 influencers:
Subinoy Chatterji: I used to frequent this well crafted fine art painter in my refugee camp since I was 8. His words are still fresh in my mind, “Colour, palette, brush, canvas and imagination need to converge in one direction to become a painter”. He himself could earn no money from art, he had a simple clerk’s job at the electric supply place. He also told me to keep art as my hobby, never to depend on it for livelihood and lifestyle. But I chose to cherish his advice on converging only, not the other.
Marc Riboud: I met this eminent photographer when he came to my Paris art school as an examiner. We connected well, and on his invitation, I would frequent his workplace. He used to tell me, “For visual art, the subject is not the only critical factor. Only the right background can empower the subject.”
Henri Cartier Bresson: This globally celebrated photographer gave me a huge learning on the substance of conceptual form through his principle of capturing the “candid decisive moment.” He told me that a specific moment of nature or a social subject connects very well to the masses.
My inspiration from 3 fundamentals. When studying at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris in 1974, I was penniless, doing a sweeping job for survival.
But there were 3 fundamentals surrounding my environment at the art school that contributed enormously to my learning, much above any school study curriculum could. Within a radius of 100 meters was the home of Voltaire; this taught me the keystone of freedom of expression. The Louvre Museum, the foundation of western art, stimulated me with its legacy of master classic art painters. From Ecole des Beaux Arts where famous painters Ingres, Moreau and Matisse among others were alumni, I learned the craftsmanship of the new trend of Modern Art. I enriched my learning being amid this artistic environment of these 3 fundamentals, although I could study only for 3 years as I ran out of funds. These 3 fundamentals contributed to empowering my freedom of expression beyond the ordinary. French art and culture have since become my foundation of life.
My heritage: Colour is embedded in Indian culture, brightness is the key. My paintings define my Indian origin with a profusion of colours. I use colours with total irreverence, the way peope in India do, without any kind of colour usage discipline that’s so prevalent in Western countries. In spite of this riot of colours, my collectors find Western artistic discipline in the structure of my abstract paintings with hidden figuratives in them.
FLASHBACK TO THE ANCIENT INDIAN HERITAGE OF ART & UPTO TODAY
Artistic heritage from ancient India:
– 3300 BC in Harappa Mohenjodaro
– 2nd century BC in Udaygiri- Khandagiri
– Ajanta Ellora 600 AD
– Khajuraho 885 AD
-Konark Sun temple since 1250 AD
Ancient India had excellent collective art execution. There was the perfect balance of figuratives, ornamented consistent patterns, spiritual to sexual symbolism without anatomical skill like western art.
But this excellence has been buried since 1525 with the advent of the Mughals. It continued to deteriorate further upto the exit of British colonization in 1947.
This was a long period of suppression, subjugation, dependence and destruction of the country’s morale fibre. Indians were forced to tolerate domination and to live with discrimination. Since that time, the spirit of defeat and forbearance has subconsciously seeped into India’s art, culture, and in the collective consciousness in every social layer upto the individual level.
Even after the British gifted independence to India in 1947, the inheritance of being subjugated led to there being no intellectual drive to bring collective understanding to the common people about the 422 years of total gaps that exist in the art, culture and social systems in India.
That’s the reason no steps have been taken to transcend ancient Indian art to be in an evolving contemporary form. The result is a big gap in fine art in India.
It is possible that 422 years of subjugation from the Mughal period 1525 to 1757, and British colonialism 1757 to 1947, did not allow Indian painters to enter the realm of reforms in art, either of Indian style of paintings or western style of paintings.
Impact on Indian artists today.
Ancient Indian art, folkloric and traditional art have not seen contemporization. Eg. Jamini Roy.
About the art of Jamini Roy.
He is recognized as the Indian painting style artist who practiced to elaborate Indian folk art. I highly appreciate that he illustrated folk art with a consistent style of simplification. But where was his depth of style and imagination beyond the folk art? His art did not bring the kind of
radical change of contemporization that happened in western Europe, from Classic art to Modern art in 1860. He could not create any art movement or influence other young Indian artists who could follow a platform of his creation.
Western European art was created in Latin Europe, that is in France, Italy, Spain, and then it extended to Germany. Perhaps because England has had no real contribution to the world of Modern Art, India as a British colony, did not get any exposure to Modern Art.
In the platform of western art in particular, independent India has not seen the emergence of intellectuals in art history, art philosophy or in the critique of art. Gap analysis with a scientific approach towards Indian art and how to change it in the contemporary era has not been adequately researched to influence Indian artists.
Indian artists who practice western modern art.
Although artists in India definitely have the skills of drawing and painting, those who practice in the western art platform have no understanding or discipline of the basic platform of western modern art. Very often there is plagiarism of western artists and the “A painter’s recognition factors” are not practiced.
THERE IS ALWAYS SCOPE TO ESTABLISH A CONTEMPORARY MODERN ART PLATFORM
If Indian painters want to be a part of the western modern art space, they have to really follow the discipline of western art for creating their own style. But it cannot be a short-cut. It has to follow a trajectory as given in “A painter’s recognition factors”
For example, the Americans had not contributed anything in Modern Art. But many American artists have spent time in Latin Europe to learn and understand Modern Art since its inception.
Only from1940s, with the impact of industrialization in the US, Jackson Pollock created Abstract Expressionism. The Pop art movement, which actually generated in the UK in early 1950s, was created by Andy Warhol among others.
These movements have been hugely successful. They have also followed the fundamental ideology of the European Modern Art platform that I have outlined earlier:
Invaluable paintings do not have a frivolous expression with an erratic style. They have unlimited freedom of expression when coupled with alternative imagination with self-discipline and consistent style of execution while expressing a variety of ideas.
FINE ART CAN DECOMMODITIZE INDIAN INDUSTRY IN THE DEVELOPED COUNTRY MARKETS
All kinds of design, from fashion to industrial design, and architecture are the by-products of fine art. Western European standard works of fine art can influence lots of Indian industries. In most highly developed countries, fine art has huge valuation and has contributed to the country’s economic growth through its industries.
Similarly in India, art forms that are distinctive can break the commoditized Indian economy to enhance the country’s global reputation and bring it high added valuation.