GS F242 Cultural Studies

BITS Pilani Dr. Muhammed Afzal P

Pilani Campus
 BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus

Visual Culture: Calendar Art

Why Study Visual Materials?

• Are they mere reflections?

• What is the role of representation?

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Calendar Art

• “‘Calendar art’ is a generic name for a style of popular print

that takes several forms and performs varying functions” (P.
Uberoi)
• Mass-produced colour prints

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• “Cinema and advertising hoardings, and electioneering
iconography; cut-outs of film stars, and religious and
political leaders; match-box, fireworks, and bidi wrappings
and other forms of packaging; religious tableaux in
domestic shrines, temples, and wayside stalls, stylized
pictures printed on trucks, rickshaws, and auto-rickshaws;
computer screen savers; backdrops to TV religious
discourses, postcards and greeting cards; key-rings and
magnetic stickers.”

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• Why called calendar art? : The pictures are often
overprinted with calendar date-sheets
• How are these circulated?: Sold or distributed by
businesses to favoured clients
• When?: During Diwali

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Other terms used

• Indian kitsch (what is kitsch): mass production, lack of

technical sophistication, low-brow taste
• Bazaar art: calendars are sold on pavements, bazaars etc
particularly during festival season
• God-posters: iconic use of the prints as objects of domestic
and temple worship
• Framing pictures

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Couple in a Calendar Image

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Colonial Photograph of a
Monument

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Photograph of a historical monument.

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Pilgrimage map from Varanasi
entitled “Map of the Real Kashi”.

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus