The Craft Movement in Santlnlketan * Itg Success

saaJSatissaa*

V

K*G* Subramanyan

Santlnlketan Is now well-known as the seat of a unique

educational experiment Initiated by the poet Rabindranath

Tagore* nead. y eighty years ago* With an educational philo­

sophy of a progressive kind, even by today*s standards, its

main purpose was to offer a human alternative to the established

educational system which he observed was limited, brutal and

uncreativej by getting young people to live together with their

teachers in a kind of rural academic commune, and letting them

Interact freely with their environment and each other, and

their traditions of learning and culture, he wanted to build

here a fountain-head of learning and creativity which would

be the cynosure of the whole world* He spelt it out in 1V21 by naming it 1 Vi sva-Bharat i*, a world university*

He succeeded in doing so to a large extent, it attracted

many distinguished processors and scholars and creative men

from within the country and outside, and built a body of activity

that had a decisive impact on the educational thinking and art

and design concepts of latter-day India, But Rabindranath

died in I S M and in the succeeding years the Institution under­

went various changes in organisation and objective* Kow it

is no more an active cauldron of experiment it used to be; it

is RoxmaKHxanxxKtlvff a centrally-funded University with certain

specialities of structure and orientation* But it is sti-1 on the rural campus it started with (the nearest Flailway Station,

Bolpur« being three Kilometers away) and still has a kind of

local charisma that attracts visitors and tourists throughout

the year*

The road from Bolpur to Santlnlketan is flanked on both

sides by a number of shops that sell what are- called 'Santlnlketan1

t! * w

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a trade namri here) the goods they sell are not nade at

Santlnlketan (or its Crafts Unit at Sriniketan) ; they are

mostly made by private entrepreneurs In the surrounding

villages, 1ndependantly• The items Include shoulder bags,

batik^s, woven drapes, bed and table covers, decorated leather

bags, leather-trimmed 'modas1 or bamboo stoojks, simple ornaments

and trinkets; most of these are pedestrian in look and Quality,

though, occasionally, you do come across a pleasing item or

two • fly and large, they suffer fron functional infelicity

and ovcr-ornaraentationj the controlled good taste that Santlnlketan

was once famous for is hardly in evidence today* But the shops

do reasonably good business*

,kyy do tbe^e shops, one may ask, carry names that relate

them to Santlnlketan V And wiiy are certain items referred to

as * Santiniketan1 bags, or ,3antiniketan* leather' work ? The

main reason is that Santlnlketan had at cne time an influential

craft movement which popularised and gave currency to certain

types of designed objects, though the vulgarity and bad taste

of the goods that earx> its name to-day hardly do it any

credit or reveal ita influcnca* a look at hoif this movement

built up at cne time and, later, became ineffective may have

some useful lessons for us*

In the educational programme Rabindranath envisaged, he

attached a lot of importance to personal creativity and the

cultivation of nanual aillo and laid special stress on art

and crafts activity, something vary rare in the early years

on the twentieth century, at least in this country* He wanted

to bring tills activity *is much into the everyday routine as

possible in an effort ix> ueve-ujp the jtudents* sensibilities

through how they kopt their rooms and surroundings, observed

their festivals, enacted their plays, and got into eopathic

contact with their environment; tc dramatise this contact he

filled their working calendar with various seasonal festivities

making them sing the songs and stage the plays Jhe wrote for

T IA ; t

©ach occasion and design the properties and paraphernalia

necessary for each, with local expedients* Through these

he tried to build an atmosphere of creativity and aesthetic

refinement*

An organised craft programme, however, started with the

establishment of a craft Department in KalarBhavana (the

College of Fine Arts) and Silpa-flhavana ( the Hall of industries)

at Sriniketan* In the beginning a Graphic art and craft workshop

named Vichltra studio was set up at Kala-Bhavana where teachers

and students learned and practiced various decorative arts and

crafts like ,Alpona*, Lacquer-work* Calico-Printing, Batik-work,

Book-binding and illumination in addition to V od graving and

Mural* Pratima Devi, Tagore's daughter-in-law took special

interest in these, a i'rerich artist Itae Andre Karpele helped

and Smtl Sukumari Devi brought to it her knowledj-e of the hcuse-

hold arts of Bengal like AOpona & Etabroldery* But a solid body

of craft activity of professional excellence could not be build tr

up in the Vichltra Studio as the art programme always over-shadowed

It; so these activities were moved eventually to Silpa-Hhavana In

Sriniketan*

Sriniketan, a sister campus housing Visva-Bharatl1 s

institutions related to rural development* education and organisa­

tion, was in Rabindranath's words a necessary complement to

Santlnlketan and Silpa Bhavana's programmes were planned within

its objectives - to train rural folk in various industries and

crafts and organise them into professional groups as needs

arose* Its training programme fanned out to 3erve the needs of

different categories of people - school children* teacher trainees*

grown up men and women, with different slants in purpose* The

teaching of crafts to sh school children was meant to refine

their sensibilities and develop their hand-skills on the one «»ve-

hand and ̂ manual shills the respectability and status they badly

needed* The village men and women were trained' to become adept

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professionals in one or more crafts and find new? avenues

of employment* The craft-training of teacher trainees was

meant to open their eyes to the use of ctfaft-skills as an

effective and versatile educational tool*

Rabindranath entertained at one tirao a keon desire to

bulxd a craft-based educational system in Sriniketan, modelled

on the •sloyd1 system in Sweden* Towards this he .even deputed

one of his most gifted craft educationists, Sri Lakhiavar Slnha

to Sweden to study the system in 1928 and again, in 1932 • to

collect the necessary resources and equipment* In the years

193** and y-j two Swedish weavers came and taught in oantiniketan

and Sriniketan* although Sri Slnha and the resources both

arrived, for some reason or the other the 'Sioyd* Centre never

got off the ground in Sriniketan*

When Silpa IS la vena started in 1922 it already had well- organised Weaving and Carpentry Sectlon6x* To these other

craft specialities were added through tine* A catalogue

brought out in HB3 mentions Weaving* Dhup'i* Carpet and Asana making, Dyeing and Printing* Batik work, 5fcr>roidory, lacquer-

work* Leather-work, Book-binding* Gold-smlthy and. Snamelling,

Carpentry and Hotal-wark* Xb this Pottery and Paper Making

were added in later years* By the raid-thirties the Silpa Bhavana

started going into production and marketing in a big way; it

not only supplied and sold various craft Items* it also took

orders to design and supply a complete scheme of goods, like

furniture* upholditaery, carpets, drapes and other necessary

itans for a planned interior* By the end of the thirties it

had about 1 $0 selling outlets in India and had to extend its

procfc otion from the workshops to the village homes) in the

year it employed more than 3^0 cmftsnen of whom more

than 220 worked in t he villages* During the years of the

Second World ..far its business fLourishud and reputation grew*

The kind of goods it made and marketed were - Textiles,

which included /Varies, bed-covers* table covers, tray cloths,

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towelsf embroidered scarves* blouses and pelmets; Leatj^r work,

which included - handbags, money-bags, portfolios, book covers,

letter pads, fancy boxes, shaving cases, sandals, slippers,

•modahs' and the like; Lacquer-work which included toys, flovervases,

ashtrayst larap-stands, boxes, tableware, picture frames and

trays*£old and camelled jewellery; and Ceramic ware* A look at

this list will show that barring certain traditional items

like sarees, all the others are non*traditional, answering the

needs of the newly educated upper class or middle class consumer,

who patronised imported goods at one time but in the new

atmosphere of nationalism and u wades hi looked for indegenous

equivalents, cross-cultured to suit his rim ec^eytic tastes.

Batiks which became immediately popular, were at ont- time not

known to such a consumer; Pratiraa ♦DevA*^ learnt the process ofQj

batik painting and dyeing in a foreign country and introduced

it in Santlnlketan* Her husband, -Rathindranath, says that

leather work too was unknown before she learned the technique

in Europe in 1930, brought the knowfeew to Santlnlketan and

taught it brothers; earlier to that all fancy leather goods

were imported* I«o wonder then that the market eagerly took

whatever was produced indigenously and decorative leather work

came to be known as 'Santlnlketan* leather work*-* Woven drapes,

bed covers and table cloths fax too were non-traditlonal items,

to produce which the simple Swedish loom techniques came very

handy; the heavy cottons with sitiple cross borders and muted

colour schemes that S ilpa- £h avana produced corresponded to the

tastes of the educated urbanites of that time*

The influence that Silpa-Bhavana products wielded in the

thirties and the forties was partly for the above reason, that

they answered a ready market demand and were kind of import

substitutes* It was also partly because its design solutions

met the tan taste of the newly emerging upper and middle classes;

the distinctive 'Art Wouveau* flavour discernible in the

aesthetic of the Tagores reconciling i&st with West art with

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craft» personal creativity with cass production and In certain

features of their own work (their mannered painting, their

massive furniture, and the linear excesses of their decorations),

,6repod Into the Silpa-Bhavana products through Rathlndranath

and Pratloa Devi and their associates and struck a sympathetic

chord In the sensibilities of the cultivated elite o£ that time;

within this general trend, considered reapplications traditional

ornamental devices on various craft forms, as Kandalal Bose

and his followers initiated, also ̂ ound acceptance vith them*

The decline and stagnation that get in Slpa-Havana In

the If late forties and early fifties should be understood In

the light of this* By then the movement had outlived its

contoxt* In the thirties 5.t was the cnly unit that sought to answer the new demands and marshalled Its available taa talents

to do so* But in the 'fifties, In an independent India 4 the re

was a concerted effort to jtsigxic re-equip the traditional

handicraft sector to meet the new demands* Shis took the wind

out of its sails, as the traditional units were more resourceftil

than it was to make cpality products and had greater technical

range* mother reason was that they lost the feeder line that

nourished them with Ideas and devices*after the forties the

umbilical chord that connected K&la-j3havana and Silpa Bhavana

anapnGd cr at lea?rt b senrn? tenuous* ^'trdly the of

the Indian d i t s had changed in the twenty years, the linear

extravagance and chromatic T*fcJc p « / e W of the Sillpa Bhavana

pood? no more satisfied the®} they wanted a range of gooda

which were simpler, loss ornamental and more functionally

appropriate•

If 3 5. Ip a- Bhavana had (heater resourcefulness in the line of visualisation and technical capability it could easily have

come to terras with new daaands and cenbintied its initial

sueces* But unfortunately this was lacking’its sU.gnu.ted

with the few forms and motifs it had come into in the time of

its growth, and did not have the kind of desiJn talent as

could take it forward^ * Nor did it enlarge its capabilities

by developing li/fte contacts with the traditional handicraftsmen

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around« It was always content with the limited skills and

expertise it started with* So it did not have the weavers or

wood-worker 3 or lacquer era or leather-workers who could

match their wits and workmanship with traditional craftsmen

nor the kind of visualisers and designers who could meet the

new market trends with new product images* In fact its

relative Isolation from the traditional handicraft scene of

this country and its wealth of design, range of expertise ana

inexhaustible resource^i'uiness to come to terms with changes

in demand and patronage, kept Its role always minor - ^ O j

although it did, in Its heyday, Introduce certain new craft

specialities and some design trends its impact on the larger

design scene in India remained small*

In a sense the impact that Kala-jEhavana made on this

scene through its training programmes was more far-reaching,

whatever*** may have been Its limitations* The perspectives

that Nqndalal Bose, its director Jgjlgg receptor, brought to the

planning of its art programme were^and^coraprehensive; he did

not just want to prepare a few art professionals for new

India, he wanted to activate a new art movement, that encompassed

the fields of art and design, major and minor arts* He found

the necessary support for this in llabindranath’s objectives and

Rabindranath,in turn, found in him the width of vision and

the genius to activate his concepts* Nandalal gave these a

new definition and specificity* Ills contacts with Anon da

Coomaraswaml and Okakura Kakuzo, both advocates of traditional

iti~ i Am values, convinced him that any art movement ̂ should take Into

consideration the whole, especially in this country, activity

spectrum comprising of household and non-professional arts,

crafts and functional arts, fine and creative arts* And he had

the kind of versatility necessary for this*

Even from the beginning his Interest In fine arts was

equally matched by a curiosity far arts in everyday life, be

they mats or baskets, ladders or fences, gar^nds or festoons,

u X fabrics or furniture or even the ephemeral art&raj&a related/.

4 * ^ W1 to understand their structure and fabrication and their aesthetic

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nieetles? in his system of values a well-crafted object

got the same pride of place as a wellj^Texecuted painting or

sculpture; he also believed that cultivation of hand-skills

augmented the sensibility and reach of a creative artists

vision*

in its early days K&La-Bhauana*s training programme had

a freedom an! pliancy that accomodated craft and art

exercises with equal stress; some of the old students

retnetnbei* how once Kandalal had put them on a project of

designing and making garlands for over a fortnight* He involved

then in flour decoration for festivals, designing of stage

and costumes for plays, side by side with painting or sculpture*

Even in later days when the Institution's educational objectives

were more pointed and academic routine more rigid, Kandalal

kept craft as an Inalienable part of an artist's training in

Kala-Bhavana; and though the training did not always rise to

the level of excellence ho would himself have effected) with

his exceptional understanding and sensitivity, this did wtten^rr^A

the perspectives of the trainee* ilecause of this kind of

broad exposure the graduates of this institution were in

at demand at schools and designing unitst as the other art

schools produced nore limited specialists* And these young

men, in turn, made an impact on the national scene*

An increase of interest in tr&dL tlonal art forms and

•p7*001 ct imajetJior the u s e ^ o w level furniture and indigenous

craxt products in the decor of interiors, & new dlrocteijess

and simplicity in stage design, a greater use indigenous

calligraphic forms and illustrative techniques in graphic design;

all these* can oe attributed, to some extent, to the influence

of these young people* • They brought some colour and variety

to the art and oraft programmes of the schools which were till

the forties unimaginative cfn'& -houses far academic drawing;

and they gave the design units, sc far taken up with copying

western prototypes) a counter-orientation*

♦

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But not all of the Impact was as positive and laudable*

Although Rabindranath and Randalal wanted to put thenew artists Into a live contact with the Indigenous art and

craft traditions - even made expensive sample collections to

rouse their interest • nost of the young non and women did not

cultivate this contact in sufficient depth for whatever reason*

They were content to acquire a United Tr^pat^v% of ornamental

devices during their tutelage, and juggle around with these*

Their vision rarely went beyond these., Into innovations of

value* This incapacity crippled their impact; worse still

it crippled the Initiative of people who worked with them; they

taught them their limited formulae and built with these a

hypnotic wall around then, hiding fron their vision the artistic d>cr<iA/»v

riches that were saown around*

What were these formulae ? And how did these come out of

a well-intentioned effort to reestablish traditional roots f

Nandala^ as Aban&ndrannth bon before him, was greatly impressed

by the graphic niceties of *Alpena* or ritual floor decoration

and made its practice a necessary part of his design programme*es

His intentions were Unexceptionable* He wanted to unfroze the

graphic facility of his students by this exercise and aud to

their understanding of surface division, coverage and stress*

He even outlined his intentions in explicit work books* But<3U

his Assistants and followers did not have the sensitiveness

enough to construe his intentions in the right J-icht* So the

opposite happened; the *alpona( tradition that ltcv froze

their graphic facility, made them slavish repetitors of stereo*

typed units and symmetrical arrangements and led then into a

kind of thoughtless linear extaavagance* Worse still, these

*alpona' designs moved on to other objects, be they textiles

or pottery, or eovcgiftg, like a parasitic weed without any

regard to their shape, te;;ture or functional specialities the

same invariable and undulations on floors, on batik^s,

on prints, on pots, on even architectural details*

This unfortunate sequel was largely due to their ldnsensitiveness

to Nandalal's message* He did not put t£iem into contact with

traditional forms to plagiarise them and nauseum, but to analyse

then, understand their rationale and innovate on their basis* So

the good beginnings made by Kala-Bhavana (as in Si -pa-bhavana)

in the field of design got tragically bogged down by a lack of

alertness and initiative among Nandalal*s successors*

Nandalal, himself, had larger ambitions. He wanted to put in

motion a likely art - movement to erase the hierarchical

dt fference between creative artists and craftsmen» He even took

steps* in the twenties* to make an artist.-’ craftsmen's settlement

in :;antiniketan called the * Xuruf .Jang/ia* where artis ts will stay

together and oar a their bread by making craft goo da for sale and

do their creative v/ork undisturbed by the vagaries of the market#

Like many good ideas ,'Karu Sangha* idea never got off the ground

in Gantinii.etanj thirty years later a group cf artists in

'^holamandal' in Madras set up a settlement processing the same

aims* Whether they are anywhere near realising those aims is

another matter*