India, in its long history, embraced all forms of arts from the early cave arts (Ajanta Ellora & Sittanavasal,Tamil Nadu), classical art forms (the medieval Tanjore paintings, Mughal miniature paintings), the modern art (Tayeb Mehta, M F Husain and the Cholamandal artists of Madras), the calendar art, lorry/truck art, tribal art and many more.
Sittanavasal cave paintings
Tanjore Painting
M F Hussain's Horses
Truck art
Tribal art
Classical art scene in Tamil Nadu:
Indian art began with the ancient Indian art of rock carving dates back at least 30,000 years followed by the rock painting ( https://www.harappa.com/blog/prehistoric-rock-paintings-and-ancient-indus-motifs-0). The rock shelters of Bhimbetka (UNESCO world heritage site),in Madhya Pradesh, has the oldest known rock art in India.
Bhimbetka Pre - historic art (Madhya Pradesh)
Once the civilization emerged over the period of time, organically, classical art and architecture emerged simultaneously. Tamil Nadu the cradle of classical arts, architecture and culture in India contributed immensely to these fields. Tamil trinities, Cheras, Cholas, and Pandyas are connoisseurs of art and architecture and in their reign, classical arts and architecture were encouraged and flourished. This artistic tradition is carried over to the modern world by the ' Cholamandalam art village artists (KCS Paniker, S P Jayakar and others)
Subrahmanya, Kazhukumalai
Painting by S P Jayakar
Emergence of Calendar art in India:
Calendar art, the little-known cousin of the classical art, democratized the classical art scene and given the power to the common people to worship their own gods in their home ambience.
It emerged as a mass medium in the late 19th century after the establishment of lithographic printing presses in India.
European printing techniques were amalgamated with Indian artistic sensibilities resulting in a unique style that catered to a diverse and large Indian population. According to one writer, the calendar art is one and many things: ' commodity, business gift, sacred object, decoration, advertisement, keeper of secular and sacred times and commuter on pan-national, transnational and varying local circuits', that summarizes all.
The credit for popularizing this art form goes to Raja Ravi Varma, an artist of aristocratic lineage (Kilimanoor palace) to the Princely State of Travancore (present day Kerala state). Raja Ravi Varma is considered as the father of Indian Calendar art, is also recognized for giving faces to Hindu gods, goddesses and mythological characters in canvas/lithograph, printed his art works (mostly mythological paintings) from his lithographic printing press set up in Ghatkopar, Mumbai in 1894, that led to a revolution of Indian classical fine arts reaching masses.
To preserve and promote the artistic legacy of Raja Ravi Varma, 'Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation' was established in Bangalore in 2015 apart from Kerala Government's Raja Ravi Varma Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram.
Note: Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted images of Hindu iconography are in the market, which are much different than the images painted by Raja Ravi Varma. A link to AI animated paintings of Raja Ravi Varma is provided below.
Portrait of Raja Ravi Varma (1848 - 1906)
Kilimanoor Palace
Hamsa Damayanti (Raja Ravi Varma)
Goddess Saraswathi (Raja Ravi Varma)
Other Indian artists like Hem Chander Bhargava, B.G Sharma, Yogendara Rastogi and others contributed to spreading the Calendar art by their popular art works. The calendar culture which started in the late 1900's revolves around mainly four themes: religious, patriotic, filmic (pin-ups) and landscapes, of which religious themes took the lion's share.
Sensing the growing popularity of the Calendar art, early Indian industrial corporate brands such as Sunlight Soaps, Woodwards gripe water and other corporate companies commissioned calendar artists to produce custom made calendars to distribute to their clients as compliments.
A typical calendar selling outlet in Delhi
Calendar art in Tamil Nadu:
If you were a kid in the early/mid twentieth century, you might have seen colorful and vibrant calendars in your home, in your puja rooms, shops, offices and even in schools. Have you ever thought about the artists who have toiled to bring out this calendar revolution? Ok, together we will find out now.
It all started in a small industrial town, Kovilpatti (famous for sweet groundnut candy - கடலை மிட்டாய்) in the Thoothukkudi district of Tamil Nadu, considered as the cradle for the calendar art having national impact, by an artist named Kondiah Raju. He was born in Madras (present day Chennai) in1898 in a family of traditional artists and had his college education from Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai.
He was a prolific and very talented artist, worked as a backdrop artist for a drama troupe in his initial formative years. When the drama troupe was disbanded in 1942 at Kovilpatti, Kondiah Raju decided to stay there and established 'Devi Arts studio' to further his art works.
Kondiah Raju (1898-1976)
Devi Art Studio, 1946, Kovilpatti
Along with his talented disciples, T.S Subbiah, MU. Ramalingam, T.S Arunachalam, Sreenivasan and others, Devi Art Studio generated many famous paintings including Meenakshi Kalyanam and Gajendra Moksham.
Among the disciples, MU. Rumalingam, is the most prolific of all and some of his paintings had print runs of more than one lakh at a time and is one of the most published painters in the calendar art history. An art exhibition to showcase the calendar arts tradition of Tamil Nadu has been established at Chennai in the name of 'Chithiraalayam Art Gallery' (https://chithiraalayam.art/paintings/)
Meenakshi Kalyanam ( MU.Ramalingam)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyc_Xi7gd7E - கடவுளுக்கு உருவம் கொடுத்தவர் யார்?
The proximity of Sivakasi, the print town, in which the early lithographic printing presses were established around 1920s, helped the calendar artists, Kondiah Raju and his disciples to print their calendar art works in large numbers. Along with the calendar art, Kondiah Raju and his disciples painted portraits for their customers. One such portrait, exhibited below, is the portrait of my father in his youth.
Portrait of my father (by Kondiah Raju)
The calendars in India are printed mainly as pocket sized calendars, daily calendars, monthly calendars and desk top calendars. The daily calendars which informed the masses about the holidays, festivals and auspicious times for various activities were a huge success. If you happened to be a kid/youth in the early/mid 20th century in India/Tamil Nadu, you might be remembering praying the motifs of religious iconography in the daily/monthly calendars that might have adorned your puja rooms. Such was the influence of calendar arts at that time.
Daily calendar
Monthly calendar
Desk top calendar
A monthly calendar of 'The National Litho Press', one of the earliest lithographic presses in Sivakasi
The influence of the printed calendar art forms started declining by the arrival of digital media/printing and as a result, only a handful of calendar artists left at present in Tamil Nadu to carry on this art form. Artist Murugakani in his late eighties, is one such artist, still carrying on the tradition of calendar art keeping alive the movement started by Kondiah Raju. As per him, 'a calendar painting attains divine qualities when the artists paint the deity's eyes'.
Artist Murugakani
Lord Ayyappan ( Murugakani)
Calendar arts around the world:
Though calendar arts around the world are not as visible and vibrant as that of in India, but almost all countries in the world were/are having calendar arts of their own style and design. Few vintage calendars around the world are provided below:
Monthly calendar,1908, USA
Daily Calendar , California , USA
Monthly calendar,1927, Coca Cola Company
Wall Calendar, 1936, Ireland
Monthly Calendar - March,1959, Vietnam
Wall calendar, 1969 - Transistor radio advertisement
Monthly calendar1983, Sanyo, Japan.
Wall tear off calendar, 1993, Russia
Desktop Calendar, 2015, USA
Pin - ups in calendar art:
The most glamours of the genres of calendar art is the filmic/pin-ups, which exhibits sensuous women with attractive posture and/or famous film actresses of yester year silver screen to promote one or more products of the corporates/industries.
Do you know a corporate house in India released their calendars every year for 19 years from 2003 to 2021 with pin-up girls to promote their camouflaged brand(s) successfully. Yes - you got it right - Kingfisher. It was so successful that every year they could change most of their models and the calendar was in high demand in the market.
yester year actress Padmini
Yester year actress Vaijayantimala
Yester year actresses Meena Kumari
Hindi actresses
Kingfisher Calendar 2017
Research and Books on Calendar Art:
Dr. Stephen Inglis, Professor, School for Studies in Art & Culture, Carleton University, Canada, has carried out extensive field research during 70s and 80s and has curated many exhibitions and discussions about calendar art, especially about the 'Kovilpatti group'. He has delivered an online talk on the occasion of the 125th anniversary celebration of Kondiah Raju's birthday and the link for that is provided below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftj_k-s8U_0 - 'Filling the gaps' by Dr. Stephen Inglis, Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University, Canada.
Various academicians, scholars and writers have written many scholarly books on Calendar art and a few of them are listed here.
Gods in the bazaar - The economies of Indian calendar art by Dr. Kajri Jain - Professor, Department of Art History, University of Toronto, Canada
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian author of more than 50 books and over 1000 columns.
Good presentation well organized and ttouched up all evolution in calendar art forms. Many information I got from this for the first time.
I don’t have much knowledge on arts. As a layman whatever comes to my mind now, I am jotting down here. Forgive me if it is all wrong,
There are many Temple painting in TN you may include them, which also gave faces of our God. Silpi made a unique style of presentstion of our temples and God.. Now the stereotype faces of our God is changing - like that of Ganesha.
Also Pallavas made lots of contributions in temple paintings and followed by Nayakers and most of them are in good shape.
Mamallapuram sculptures also could…