The Magic of Baluchari Weaves of Kolkata

 

Women smoking hookahs, British officers on shikaar, Nawabs with their favourite birds, and East India Company’s steam powered trains and boats... 

The history is woven in bright mulberry silks that have come to be known as the famous 'Baluchari sarees'. A show dedicated to this handicraft, The Woven Art of Baluchar, is on at Art Konsult Gallery in Hauz Khas Village.

On display are 30 pieces of “90-100-year-old rare saris that are fragile, but admired for their beauty”, notes collector Siddhartha Tagore, who procured them from various dealers and collectors in Kolkata and Delhi.

The saris range between `2 lakh to `6 lakh, and were expensive even back then when the art was thriving, says Siddhartha. Their motifs, he adds, were borrowed from the existing socio-cultural situation, and the sheen comes from the use of indigenous mulberry silk.

 He was exposed to this art form when he was 4-5 years old, courtesy his father, Subho, who had a large collection of Baluchari textiles. The love affair grew stronger with time and he finally became a collector.

Siddhartha has dedicated The Woven Art... to textile art historian Jasleen Dhamija for her contribution to the history of textiles and costumes. “She did a lot of pioneering research on the handloom and handicraft industry, especially the history of textiles and costumes. In the 1950s and 60s, Dhamija also worked on reviving the Baluchari sari in Varanasi along with Kamla Devi Chattopadhyay,” he says.

In the 1970s, Subho, who was the first Director of the Regional Design Centre in Calcutta (now Kolkata) of the All India Handicrafts Board, also tried to revive this intricate art. He helped develop the technique of jacquard weaving, which simplified the process and reduced weaving time.

 This new era of Baluchari weaving featured motifs from epics and religious texts (Vaishnava imagery) that the weavers of Bishnupur replicate even today. This is in stark opposition to the first era of Baluchari weaving wherein themes revolved around the lives of the Nawabs and European officers of the East India Company.

“The style change does not leave the same visual impact that the 1920s Baluchari sarees had. Just as artists today cannot replicate the aura of Kalighat paintings of the 1900s. Moreover, original mulberry silk is difficult to procure,” says Siddhartha, who plans to hosts talks on Baluchari art after the show ends on September 18