Gold Art Patrons Hunting for Students
BY: STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Oct 15, KOLKATA, INDIA (SUN) — Concerned over the dwindling popularity of the ancient gold art form of Benaras, patrons of this rare skill are scouring the country to find students who can carry on the tradition and save the traditional Indian school from dying.
The heritage Kanhai Art, named so after its divine muse Lord Krishna, and made irradiant by the use of pure gold ink, 24 carat gold foils and swarovski stones, has very few takers today.
"This is primarily because of the tough technique used, the long completion time and hefty investment required for each painting," says the founder of the school Kanhai Chitrakar who was awarded the Padma Shri for his contribution to Indian art.
The genre, that evolved with the use of gold ink and semi-precious stones in the medieval miniature paintings, had practically gone out of vogue before Vrindavan-based Kanhai successfully revived it half a century ago.
Today Kanhai and his two sons -- Krishn and Govind (the former also a Padma Shri) -- are making all out efforts to woo students into learning the art form as they move from one town to the other organising workshops and training nimble fingers free of cost.
"The oldest surviving specimen of the art are illustrated manuscripts of 14th century Jain Kalpa Sutra now housed in the National Museum in New Delhi. We certainly cannot let the exquisite form fade into oblivion again after putting in so much efforts for its survival," Krishn Kanhai says.
Assimilating a plethora of folk, traditional and artistic influences, the Kanhai School of Art has created over 15,000 gold and gem paintings of Krishna in the last 50 years.
Each painting using imported colours and glitter alongside the exorbitant material could mean an investment of Rs 30,000 to over Rs 1.5 lakhs.
All three propagators of Kanhai art have their unique strengths. While Kanhai shows his undying devotion to the Lord by painting him in gold, elder son Krishn, excels in the depiction of rural Braj and in pastoral paintings.
Govind, on the other hand, has mastered the figure work and 'bhav darshan' (emotive depictions) and specialises in the embossing and gem-setting techniques.
"It has been a long innings. And a lot of painstaking labour. My grandson is not very keen to restrict himself only to this vocation. So, we realised that unless we take the skills to the masses, this is going to be the end of the road for gold art," Kanhai says.
At the workshop series, which began in Kolkata, the trio chose students, housewives and amateur painters with a flair for painting and encouraged them to devote their lives to the art form.
"If we have to go around physically and spread the word, we will. This is the only way we can let the art live after we are gone," Govind Kanhai says.
The family has acquired four acres in Benaras to create a Kanhai Art Academy which will teach the art form along with traditional dance and music and has actress Hema Malini as faculty.
As an ode to the Lord, they are now busy creating a series of paintings inspired by the description of Krishna by legendary Hindi and dialect poets like Surdas, Bihari and Raskhan.
