The book 'Venushilpa' by Chitracharya Upendra Maharathi relates to which of the following form of arts?

Question

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Correct — C, Bamboo art. The official UPPSC key marks bamboo art, and the title itself carries the argument: in Sanskrit 'venu' means bamboo and 'shilpa' means craft or applied art, so 'Venushilpa' reads literally as 'the craft of bamboo'. The attribution also fits the man. Upendra Maharathi (1908–1981), born at Narendrapur in Odisha and trained at the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, spent his working life in Bihar, where he served as a special designer in the state's Department of Industries and became the central figure in the revival of Bihar's handloom and handicraft traditions — cane and bamboo work among them. Bihar's craft research institute at Patna, the Upendra Maharathi Shilp Anusandhan Sansthan, is named after him. One honest caveat, stated plainly because this page is read by students: the book 'Venushilpa' itself could not be traced to any independently verifiable catalogue or archive. What is documented is Maharathi's biography and his handicraft-revival work, and the key's answer is consistent both with the title's etymology and with that work.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Nothing in the title or in Maharathi's documented career points to ornament-making. He is remembered as a painter-designer who worked on Bihar's handloom and handicraft revival and on architectural design, not as a jeweller, and 'venu' names a plant material, not a metal or a gem.  (b) This is the trap, and a well-built one. 'Chitracharya' literally means master of painting, and Maharathi was an art-school-trained artist. But the honorific describes the man's standing, not the subject of this particular book. The title names the material — 'venu', bamboo — and the commission's key marks bamboo art, not painting.  (d) Marble carving belongs to India's stone-sculpture tradition. The word 'shilpa' on its own can mean sculpture, which is exactly why this option tempts a candidate reading only the second half of the compound; the qualifier 'venu' fixes the medium as bamboo, not stone.

Concept: Indian craft vocabulary is often self-describing: a compound name usually pairs the material with the act of making. 'Venu' (bamboo) + 'shilpa' (craft/applied art) is one such compound, and decoding it is the fastest route to this answer. Behind the word sits a real institutional story — the twentieth-century effort to document and revive regional handicrafts after the decline of artisan livelihoods under colonial industrial competition. Upendra Maharathi was that effort's key figure in Bihar: an artist who moved from studio painting into design for craftspeople, working through the state Department of Industries, and who also designed the Vishwa Shanti Stupa (World Peace Pagoda) at Rajgir.

State PCS 2019 Q81 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q81 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer