CHITTOPRASAD BHATTACHARYA

Artists can not be reformers but they can express their reformist concerns through their work. We can also express our helplessness and frustration by reaction. Chittoprasad Bhatttacharya did just that through his portrayals of Bengal Famine of 1943 and succeeding events in the world. He is reactionary painter with deep concern for his society. His paintings are a satire on the society.


Famine is the main theme of his caricatures and sketches and it provokes us. His sketches are not silent but they remind us of a time when people plunged into moral decay and while some were making money, poor people and peasants died of hunger and starvation. On the one hand there were traders who were minting money and supplying grains to the military as prices soared. Famine led to other evils as people sold their near ones and corruption made its way into the lives of the people. His impressions are real and he himself visited from one place to another enquiring about the people. He was deeply pained after witnessing the catastrophe and used canvas to communicate this pain, which has found its place in text books and are the one of the few reminders of the bygone time.

Like many great artists, he was a self-educated and did not have the luxury to attend a formal school of art. His creations are simple and easy to understand. We do not come across unwanted exaggeration in his works. He has deep sense of history and great understanding of events as is reflected in his works. He was a great artist and adopted himself to the needs and subjects. People may find some similarities between his works and those of Picasso, yet Chittoprasad’s creations are more influenced by Indian art and paintings of Jatakas which tell stories. Like ancient Indian paintings, his sketches are tell us stories and they are communicating. His lines are simple and forms near to nature in appearance as he presents human suffering.

Like other intellectuals of his time, he was under the influence of Communism. A keen observer of events he has also made communalism, colonialism and events related to world war his subject.

However, Chittaparsod has become synonymous with his sketches of human suffering from the Bengal Famine. And if we know the depth and nature of the famine today, we owe a lot to him and his moving images of the suffering.