A METAMORPHIC ANALYSIS OF FEMALE FORMS IN INDIAN PAINTINGS: MODERN & CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

A piece of art, if analyzed comprehensively, is built with the amalgamation of its formal and conceptual facets. These formal and conceptual aspects are intertwined so intimately that one cannot exist without the other. Since time immemorial, 'Women' is one of the most acclaimed concepts in Indian art. Female body has been represented and identified through various forms and concepts with the shift in time and space. The present research paper is an analytical study of those transformations through which female forms in Indian paintings have undergone. It also focuses on how a finite concept 'Women' has been indigenously explored in creative forms by numerous artists, which encompasses a wide range of visualizations of women, from Abanindranath's fragile depictions to voluptuous nudes of Souza with enlarged genitals, from tranquility in images of Ara to blank-faced images of Hussain. The adopted methodology for this paper is descriptive and observational with an aim of exploring the different approaches in the depiction of the female body and its formal evolution with time. The paper primarily considers the female impression by Abanindranath Tagore, Amrita Shergill, F N Souza, K H Ara, M F Husain and Gogi Saroj Pal and few other artists. The research favorably concludes that there has been a great role of artistic trends, personal psychic tendencies of artists as well as concurrent socio-political situations that prompted artists to characterize women in varied forms.