Singing the Pictures of History
Bengali Scroll Painters Tell Stories Ranging from Ancient Myth to 9/11
By Chris Berdik
"Listen, listen, everyone, listen attentively. The story of America's accident will now be told," sings Bengali scroll painter Manu Chitrakar, and he unfolds a painted scene of planes flying into tall buildings on September 11, 2001.
The painting and song are a recent update of the centuries-old tradition of scroll painting in the Indian state of West Bengal, in which a narrative ballad is sung while a painted version of the story is unrolled frame by frame. Traditionally, the performances revolved around religion (both Hinduism and Islam) as well as community history, news, and myth. These days, they can discuss anything, from the Taliban to AIDS.
The history and evolution of scroll painting has fascinated Frank Korom, a College of Arts and Sciences associate professor of religion and anthropology, for years. He received a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship to help him finish his new book, Village of Painters: Narrative Scrolls from West Bengal (Museum of New Mexico Press), published last month.
The book's publication coincides with the opening of a scroll painting exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Korom was curator of Asian and Middle Eastern collections from 1993 to 1998. The exhibition runs through April 29, 2007.