Word: kalighat
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...aristocratic connotations and in part for his mystical significance: his fleet hoofs are believed to bear riders safely to the spirit world. The cat is held in reverence by the Bengalis of Calcutta because it is the bahana, or mount, of Shashti, the Bengalese goddess of fecundity. Brightly colored Kalighat paintings of cats were made by street painters for sale to pilgrims to Calcutta's Temple of Kali. One of the most impressive objects is a brass figurine from Orissa; it shows the hero Krishna trying to deceive one of his admirers by assuming the head of a peacock...
...became a nun) studied nursing and moved into the slums. She organized outdoor schools and set up a dispensary, petitioned the municipal authorities for a shelter to which the dying destitute could be brought. She was given the pilgrim hostel at the gate of Kali's temple in Kalighat, the most ancient quarter of the city, named it Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) and went to work...
...name of the temple was Kalighat, and the art that developed and died in its shadow has therefore been known (to the few specialists who ever heard of it) as "Kalighat painting." Kalighat pictures covered an extraordinary range of subject matter, from divinities to profanities. They were made to sell as souvenirs to pilgrims at the temple steps. The art first came into being when British colonists brought cheap paper and the technique of painting with transparent watercolor to Calcutta. It died when machine-printed cards and chromos undercut sales...
Until recently few connoisseurs paid much attention to Kalighat painting (though Rudyard Kipling's father did buy 15 examples, which the son later presented without comment to the Victoria & Albert Museum). Fifty years ago anyone with half an eye, a few dollars and an old portfolio might have amassed a comprehensive collection of the art; today Kalighat pictures are hard to find...
What makes Kalighat art particularly appealing to moderns are its bold rhythms, clear colors and great economy of line. Actually, these qualities were dictated by necessity-the pictures had to be simple because they had to be done fast in order to make a profit. But, by coincidence, Kalighat painters advanced a long way on the road that School of Paris art was later to travel. They reduced limbs to the appearance of bent tubes, as has Fernand Leger, and delineated whole figures with two or three winding contours, as in some drawings by Picasso. The Kalighat Cat with Prawn...