The prior substantiating the current:
miniature
Bhoomika Jain

Anindita’s Bhattacharya’s works are a personal
interpretation of a collective experience woven in and
around the traditional consort of miniature paintings.
Having lived and studied in Baroda and witnessing the
perpetual communal tension in the state, she was drawn
to explore Mughal history as an attempt towards not
ghettoing art as Hindu or Muslim. Visually what drew
her to Mughal and later Persian miniatures was the
incorporation of the patterns within the composition:
the compartmentalized spatial structure, the fine
line renderings and the way at times the composition
moves out of the rigid structure of the frame in the
latter. She began with incorporating Mughal patterns
in her works which later got infused with everyday and
mundane objects such as immersion rods, scissors,
gynecological instruments, slippers, irons etc. mostly
woven into a vine-like pattern in the centre of her
composition making them the protagonist of the
painting with the narrative constructed around the
central image as a frame or the margin.
We can also give Arpana Caur’s example in the
context. While her subjects remain firmly rooted in
the quotidian world of the woman showing women
engaged in the commonplace acts such as daydreaming
or typing. The literature and philosophy of Punjab
contributed to the strains of melancholy, mysticism
and devotion that may be felt in her work while the
Pahari miniature tradition provided inspiration for
Caur’s manipulation of pictorial space. The repeated
motif of clothing in Caur’s work both confirms and
subverts the traditional picture of femininity and in
a way is liberated by Arpana, as the woman is placed
outdoors, embroidering larger destinies. Instead of a
feminine, income-producing function, it becomes a
political comment on women’s productivity.