Who was the main artist of Bengal school?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 1:
Abanindranath Tagore is universally recognized as the principal founder and torchbearer of the Bengal School of Art. Active in the early 20th century, he spearheaded a nationalist art movement in Calcutta that sought to revive traditional Indian artistic values and techniques as a direct opposition to Western academic painting styles taught by the British. He pioneered the famous 'Wash Technique,' which blended influences from Indian miniature painting (Mughal and Pahari) and Japanese wash methods, consciously rejecting the European medium of oil. Through his work and his influential role at the Calcutta School of Art, he fostered a spiritual, literary, and revivalist artistic style that established the first major school of modern Indian art, making him the movement’s main artist and ideologue.

The incorrect option is 2:
K. Madhava Menon was a notable artist, primarily associated with the state of Kerala. While he contributed to the broader landscape of traditional and folk art in India, he was not a foundational figure, key leader, or main artist of the Calcutta-based Bengal School movement. His focus was generally centered on the regional art traditions of South India and a slightly later, more independent contemporary style. His work does not represent the core principles of the Bengal School's early 20th-century artistic revolution.

The incorrect option is 3:
M. F. Hussain (Maqbool Fida Husain) is celebrated as a key founder of the Progressive Artists' Group (PAG) in Bombay, which was established much later in 1947. The PAG was an important post-independence movement that actively championed an Indian form of modernism, explicitly moving away from the revivalist ethos of the earlier Bengal School. Hussain's distinctive style, characterized by bold, post-Cubist forms and expressionism, is entirely separate from the delicate wash technique of the Bengal School.

The incorrect option is 4:
Raja Ravi Verma was a highly influential painter of the late 19th century, preceding the Bengal School movement. He is renowned for using Western oil painting techniques and academic realism to depict mythological and religious subjects. In a pivotal moment of art history, the Bengal School, under the leadership of Abanindranath Tagore, emerged as an aesthetic and ideological reaction *against* the Europeanized style of painting that Raja Ravi Verma had popularized. Therefore, he represents the very artistic trend the Bengal School sought to counter and reform.