Foreign & Indigenous Influences in Indian Printmaking

The art of modern printmaking in India dates back less than a century.However,printing,in which lie the origins of contemporary printmaking,was introduced to India as early as 1556 by the Portuguese settlers in Goa and became a flourishing industry by the mid-18th century under colonial British rule.It thus follows that the medium of printmaking,lithography and etching in particular was alien to India and was introduced and taught to Indian artisans by European artists,printers and printmakers. With the passage of time,the face of printmaking in India has undergone vast changes.From a medium that was essentially a printer’s tool and later the exclusive domain of the European in India to its existence as an indigenous bazaar art in the 19th century and finally,its emergence as an artistic entity in its own right in this century,the journey has been long and arduous.Much has gone into shaping the birth of contemporary printmaking in India.The influences were many,the medium foreign and the circumstances indigenous – of this was born what we today call ‘Indian Printmaking’.