Divine Color: Hindu Prints from Modern Bengal

Author: Laura Weinstein, Mark Baron 

Format: Hardcover | 144 pages

Dimensions: 21.49 × 1.70 × 27.00 cm

Publication date: March 3, 2026

Luminous and kaleidoscopic, these rare prints from colonial Calcutta helped shape the visual identity of modern India

During the British Raj, Bengali artists adopted European methods not to copy the West, but to create a distinctly local visual style that spoke to a wide and varied public. Divine Color brings this story into focus by tracing the surge of popular religious art made through lithographic printing in 19th- and early 20th-century Calcutta (today Kolkata), which was then the capital of British India. These bright, affordable, mass-produced images brought the sacred into daily life, gave worshippers fresh ways to connect with their deities, and transformed religious experience in colonial India.

Created in a fast-changing, cosmopolitan city, these prints arose where local tradition met colonial influence. Their lively style, spiritual force, and frequently political imagery made them potent vehicles for cultural expression and a sense of identity. The visual vocabulary developed by Calcutta's lithographers laid the groundwork for modern India's visual culture, and its legacy can be seen in advertising, political posters, and the decorative arts alike, highlighting the ritual, commercial, and political influence of these works. Divine Color returns these religious lithographs to their proper place in the story of Indian art, inviting readers to discover not only the sacred realm of the Hindu gods but also the making of a modern visual India.