Know your art: Ganesh Janani by Jamini Roy
This stylistic hallmark of Roy's mature practice reflect his engagement with Bengal’s folk art and his rejection of Western techniques
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Prefer us on GoogleLast Updated: Mar 21, 2026, 11:31 IST1 min
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Image and Text Courtesy: DAG
This painting by Jamini Roy depicts Ganesh Janani, the mother goddess Parvati holding the child deity Ganesha, accompanied by two female attendants bearing ritual offerings. Roy renders the figures using bold, simplified forms outlined in thick black contours, a stylistic hallmark of his mature practice. The almond-shaped eyes, flattened perspective, and stylised gestures reflect the artist’s engagement with Bengal’s folk and devotional visual traditions, particularly the idioms of Kalighat pats and rural pata painting. The palette further echoes Roy’s commitment to the use of mineral and vegetable pigments on board, materials he adopted as part of his rejection of academic oil painting techniques learnt at the Government School of Art in Calcutta.
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Through such works, Roy sought to develop a distinctly indigenous modernist language, drawing upon vernacular aesthetics and devotional themes to create images that were both accessible and rooted in Indian cultural traditions. The subject of Ganesh Janani—a tempera on paper artwork, measuring 14.5 x 20.5 inches—emphasising maternal tenderness and divine protection, was one of several recurring religious motifs in Roy’s oeuvre, through which he reinterpreted sacred imagery within a modern, stylised visual framework.
Curated By Jasodhara Banerjee; Image and Text Courtesy: DAG
First Published: Mar 21, 2026, 11:30
Subscribe NowJasodhara is Deputy Editor-Desk. She has a keen interest in global affairs, which led her to study international relations in the UK, and complete a fellowship on India-China relations from the Univer
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