Divine Color explores a transformative yet often overlooked chapter in South Asian art history: the explosion of popular devotional art through lithographic printing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Calcutta (now Kolkata). These vibrant and accessible mass-produced images brought the divine into everyday life, offering devotees new ways to engage with their gods, and reshaping spiritual experiences in colonial India.

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernizing and cosmopolitan Calcutta—then the capital of British India—these prints emerged at the crossroads of vernacular tradition and colonial exchange. Bengali artists embraced European techniques not to mimic the West, but to forge a uniquely local visual language that appealed to a diverse, multi-class audience. The prints’ spirited aesthetic, devotional power, and often political symbolism made them powerful tools of cultural expression and identity. 

The visual language pioneered by Calcutta lithographers played a foundational role in the formation of modern India’s visual culture. Their influence is visible in everything from advertising and political posters to decorative arts, underscoring the ritual, commercial, and political power of these artworks. Divine Color restores these religious lithographs to their rightful place in the history of Indian art and invites readers to experience not just the divine world of Hindu gods, but the shaping of a modern visual India.