5th May, 2023 – 15th July, 2023

CIMA Gallery
Kolkata

While landscapes existed as backgrounds of paintings from the times of the Greeks and the Romans, they evolved as a distinct genre from the 7th-century Tang Dynasty in China to the 17th century in Europe. Dutch artists, for the first time, explored landscapes as a central theme with substantive depth and elaboration.

Thus, over centuries, landscapes were employed in a variety of ways; occasionally to provide an idyllic vision and, at other times, to symbolically denote a balanced state of the mind and man’s inner spirit. Again, through various periods of history, landscapes were employed metaphorically to counter the repression of man’s free will. For most practitioners and viewers, though, landscapes provided a communion with Nature.

In the 20th century, however, landscapes started embracing cityscapes, warscapes, visions of devastation and destruction. Landscapes have often been reduced to near-abstraction and minimalist depictions of varying sorts.

The current exhibition endeavours to capture the multiple facets of Indian landscape art, ranging from the early 20th century to current times; from mere backgrounds to more elaborate depictions of Nature in its varied forms. From miniatures, early 19th century oils and classical watercolours to modern and postmodern graphics and paintings, the exhibition employs a variety of works from various decades of the last century and the present millennium, to unravel a brief story of landscape representation in India.