For centuries, royal patronage made art a way of life for the inhabitants of Vadodara. Besides commissioning royal portraits from painters such as Raja Ravi Varma, the ruling Gaekwads set up a museum to display their stunning collection of rare works sourced from around the globe. But it was only later-in 1949 with the setting up of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA) as part of Baroda University-that it became the nursery of Indian art.
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Over the next few decades, FFA earned a reputation of being a liberal, progressive institute that encouraged artistic experimentation. It provided students space in which to dream and create and encouraged a healthy exchange of ideas as well as a spirit of inquiry. The faculty was supportive of experimental efforts, working with new and unusual mediums, and exploring a new visual language. Art students from across the country vied for admission, for a chance to learn from teachers such as Laxma Goud, Nasreen Mohamedi and Sankho Chaudhuri. As other art schools in the country struggled to make a name for themselves, FFA was far ahead of its contemporaries.
Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, 75, artist and former professor who taught art history and painting at the institution for years, says, "FFA was the first fine arts college in the country to start full-fledged degree courses. The institution had a unique cosmopolitan nature.
It belonged to everybody and yet to nobody; its gates were never closed."
Rekha Rodwittiya, 53, an alumnus of the college between 1976 and 1981, says, "FFA in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a space of intense learning that inculcated, quite rigorously, a theoretical and art historical framework of teaching visual arts. A political consciousness was also prevalent that enabled individuals to contextualise personal positions of affiliation by which to define self-representation."
But somewhere around the late 1990s the institute went into a slump. For the next 15 years FFA found itself beset by controversy, attacked by religious fundamentalists and overrun by petty politics. "FFA's standards have been on the decline for over a decade. Today, its reputation only exists because of its golden past. Because all the other visual arts colleges in India are equally pathetic, Baroda continues to hold the distinction of being considered the best," says Rodwittiya.
Despite this, FFA is beloved to many. Over 1,600 artists practise and reside in the city, while close to 130 students take admission each year in a graduate or postgraduate programme and enter the hallowed portals of the Faculty of Arts-designed in Indo-Saracenic architecture style by Robert Fellowes Chisholm in the 19th century.
Sculpture is one of three major studio disciplines apart from painting and applied arts taught here. But the department of painting rules supreme. In the six decades of its existence, FFA alumni have gone on to participate in exhibitions worldwide, such as the Paris Biennale, the Sao Paulo Biennale, and the Tokyo Biennale. Many of India's best known and respected artists can thank FFA for teaching them the basics, reason enough why it has been ranked the finest fine arts college in India in the 2012 India Today Nielsen annual colleges survey.
Art patrons from across the world descend on the university campus in search of a new star every year at the annual students' exhibition. "Vadodara is a laidback city and just an overnight train journey from Mumbai and Delhi, the two commercial centres of the Indian art market," says Shailendra K. Kushwaha, 60, dean in-charge, FFA, since 2009. Struggling art students can take hope in the knowledge that at FFA, their dreams of attaining glory someday are within reach.
Source: India Today