Samikshavad

Description

Samikshavad is the first indigenous art movement in modern India, which started in North India in 1974. It has a different identity from the western movements of art. It attempts to be neither affected nor inspired by western art. Read more ↗

Key Artists

Ram Chandra Shukla
Professor at Banaras Hindu University who founded and inspired the indigenous Samikshavad movement in 1974 to reject Western influence and expose Indian socio-political corruption.
Raghuvir Sen Dhir (R.S. Dhir)
Prominent BHU painter featured in the historic 1979 AIFACS Delhi manifesto exhibition whose satirical compositions challenged societal decay.
Santosh Kumar Singh
Key original BHU painter whose oil canvases exhibited at the 1979 AIFACS debut critiqued political bias and class inequality.
Ved Prakash Mishra
Core BHU painter of the 1979 AIFACS exhibition deploying satirical and symbolic motifs rooted in North Indian social reality.
Gopal Madhukar Chaturvedi
Leading Aligarh painter and scholar whose writings and paintings helped expand Samikshavad across university art departments nationwide.

Famous Artworks

Samikshavad First Exhibition Manifesto & Oil Paintings
Ram Chandra Shukla and R.S. Dhir · 1979
All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) Gallery, New Delhi - 26 oil paintings and printed manifesto
Vulture (Giddha)
Kamlesh Dutt · 1980
Banaras Hindu University Art Collection / Private Archives - Oil on canvas
Satire on Political Corruption
Ram Chandra Shukla · 1976
Banaras Hindu University Department of Painting Archives - Oil on canvas
Social Reality and Bias
Santosh Kumar Singh · 1979
AIFACS Gallery Exhibition Archives, New Delhi - Oil on canvas
Symbolic Critique of Modernity
Gopal Madhukar Chaturvedi · 1981
Aligarh University Art Exhibition Archives - Oil and mixed media on canvas

Fun Facts

Samikshavad derives its name from the Sanskrit word 'Samiksha,' meaning the rigorous philosophical criticism of life and society, purposely rejecting Western modernism's inward psychological abstraction.
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org
The historic 1979 AIFACS Gallery exhibition in New Delhi that published the first formal Samikshavad manifesto was personally inaugurated by prominent 'Young Turk' politician and future Prime Minister of India, Chandra Shekhar.
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org

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