19th century

Shiva Carrying the Dead Sati

In 1809, a temple honoring the goddess Kali was built on the Ganges River near Calcutta (now Kolkata) and soon became a major center for pilgrimage. Drawn by this new sales opportunity, village painters of narrative scrolls came to Kalighat and began producing individual souvenir paintings on paper depicting religious subjects and, later, satires of contemporary life. To appeal to urban audiences and to speed production, they overlaid their line sketches with transparent color washes adapted from European art. Kalighat painting lasted into the 1930s when it could no longer compete with brightly colored, inexpensive oleographic prints.