Visual Art, Realism and the Issue of Taste : Marxist Cultural Debates in the 1940s

From the mid-1930s the question of ‘realism’ in art and literature was a serious issue in India. Change in the patron–client relations, especially in the field of visual art, and change in the social position of the creators of art very naturally made the issue of realism important. Moreover, democratisation of Indian politics from the 1920s, establishment of the first Socialist state in Russia, formation of Left trade unions, students’ and women’s organisations during the second half of the 1930s in India, the world economic depression (early 1930s) and rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and especially in Japan, were other important factors in making realism an important concern in the area of art and literature. The interesting fact, however, is that up until the 1940s, artists who were extremely vociferous about realism were rather uncertain about its meanings and implications. In fact, it was one of the most debated questions during the entire 1930s and even most of the 1940s, which is attested by the published writings of Samar Sen, Narayan Ganguly, Mangalacharan Chattopadhyay, Gopal Halder, Prodosh Dasgupta and Vishnu Dey.