Nihonga-Influenced Wash Technique

This wash technique refers to the atmospheric, layered application of diluted watercolour or tempera that became the signature method of the Bengal School, developed by Abanindranath Tagore and his circle in the early twentieth century. Its development was catalysed by contact with visiting Japanese painters — notably Okakura Kakuzo, and Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida Shunso, who worked in Calcutta around 1902–03 — whose Nihonga (Japanese-style) practice of soft-focus, non-linear wash and its "morotai" (vague/hazy) mode offered an alternative to the hard-edged realism of British academic painting. Tagore adapted this into a distinctly Indian wash method, repeatedly floating and blotting thin layers of pigment to build soft tonal gradations, giving works like Bharat Mata their misty, devotional, non-Western atmosphere.