Tagore The Artist Poet

Sangeeta Gupta

Sangeeta Gupta

I must be around fifteen years old when I read Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. It was a deeply moving experience which inspired me to pen down my own little nothings. I was an extremely introvert adolescent, who mostly preoccupied herself with reading. It will not be an understatement if I say I was obsessed with books. I then read all of Tagore’s prose and poetry and was fascinated. My love for literature comes from writers of Bengal, largely Tagore.

When I was posted in Kolkata and was pursuing painting seriously I went to Shantiniketan and had the opportunity to see Tagore’s drawings and paintings there. I witnessed the creative genius of the great poet. He could excel in anything, whatever he touched became gold.

Gurudev, Tagore was one of India’s most cherished renaissance figures, who put India on the literary map of the world, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was the first non-Westerner honoured with this prestigious award. Rabindranath Tagore went on to become one of the most revered poet-philosophers of his time. A poet, author, playwright and artist, Tagore's creative output was immense.

A highly prolific artist, Tagore was best known as a poet. However, not many know that Tagore was also a gifted painter.

Tagore painted for ten continuous years from 1930s till he passed away in 1941.

What began as doodling on his working manuscripts became an obsession after 1930 and continued throughout the last ten years of his life. Tagore began painting relatively late in his career when he was in his sixties. Nevertheless he produced thousands of works and was the first Indian artist to exhibit his works across Europe, Russia and The United States in 1930 s.

His artistic adventure began with doodles. Crossed-out lines and words would take spontaneous and accidental shapes, driven by intuitive decisions emanating from the memories of art and objects he saw in museums and books. Most of them represented animals but seldom the ones we know in reality. More often his doodles represented what he described as a probable animal that had missed its chance of existence or a bird that only could soar in our dreams. His spirit of inventiveness made his works merge the known with the unknown. One can easily see the movements of an animal in an imaginary body or a human gesture in an animal’s body.

His painting style was very distinct, individuals depicted by simple bold forms in poetic rhythm which inspires many modern Indian artists till date.

His works can be broadly categorised around four themes. Animals and birds, human faces and figures, landscapes and scenes of theatre.

His initial drawings and paintings are highly imaginative generally focusing on animals or imaginary creatures full of vitality and humour.

During his entire artistic journey he painted few landscapes. Landscapes painted by Tagore emerge from this innate love for mysteries of nature. Most of his landscapes depicted nature bathed in the evening light, skies and forms going beyond the seen in the realm of unseen and unknown . His landscapes invoke mystery and a sense of tranquil silence.

There was an element of drama and theatre too in one category of his works.

This section of his paintings were deeply influenced by his experience in theatre as a playwright. The costumes, furniture, and colours used in these paintings do not reflect casual everyday life, they represent dramatic imagery. When seen in a group, these paintings are like silent, speechless theatre .Human figures are depicted either as individuals with expressive gestures or in groups in theatrical settings. In portraits produced during the 1930s, he rendered the human face in a mask or uncommon persona.

The human face is a dominantly recurring feature in his artistic works and speaks of his undying interest in human persona. As a writer, Tagore effortlessly portrayed human appearance with emotions. He executed a similar idiom and imagery as a painter too . His painted faces reveal vast human experience, inherent emotions, several moods - mysterious, brooding, dramatic, and romantic; of wonderment, fear, and melancholia. Most of the women he painted are shown covering their hands and bodies under folds of their flowing veils or saris signifying the constrained existence of the Bengali women of his time. Their eyes express deep sadness, and the dark shadows behind their faces suggest not having enough freedom of expression.

Tagore’s female figures are very well-known. Mulk Raj Anand, in a 1961 Marg essay wrote "Their gentle eyes and melancholy faces are half opaque… The pain has ceased but the pathos lingers. The pain lingered so much that this oval faced woman came back again and again with her head cloth flowing in mellow colours transmitting dream into reality of absolute pain."

In one particular painting the woman, rendered in a multi-chromatic scheme, has been offset on the left of the picture plane. The negative space consists assorted tempered hues of green, ochre and a dull pink. There is a flicker of light on her face as if emerging from darkness at the crack of dawn, a dawn which breaks over the horizon in utter silence where nothing moves except the light.

Tagore used intense colours for portraits that depict enigma which captivate the audience.Most of his individual faces engage directly with the viewer but there are some others where they seem to be looking at something beyond. There is a wordless theatre at play in some works which are simply mesmeric.

Tagore did not name his paintings, leaving them untitled he freed them from the limits of the defined. He wished his viewers to observe the paintings in their own light and admire them with their individual perspectives.

Tagore once told fellow writer and artist, Rani Chanda,

“We who have trained in lyric should know that these will not find acceptance at another time. This is inevitable. So I often think that only painting has a deathless quality.”

The appreciation for his paintings and drawings grew in leaps and bounds with time. There has been a tremendous shift in the market for Tagore’s works. In 1976, the Government of India declared his works as a national treasure because of their artistic value and prohibited the export of his works outside India. The provenance of Tagore’s work has also played a significant role in their value. Because of his stature as a noble laureate and national hero, Tagore had close association with many world luminaries who bought or were gifted his work. One such family was the Elmhirsts of Dartington Hall, England.During his second visit to Dartington in 1930, Tagore procured various coloured ink and executed a series of paintings and sketches. Tagore also had gifted seventeen of his works to the Dartington Trust.

His works achieved unprecedented record prices, highlighting the tremendous interest in Tagore's paintings in India and across the world.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in 2011, the Victoria and Albert museum in London held a display of about 50 of his paintings from the period 1928 to 1939,displayed outside India for the first time.

 The Last Harvest was an exhibition of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings to mark the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, India and organised with the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). It consisted of 208 paintings drawn from the collections of Visva Bharati and the NGMA. The exhibition was curated by art historian R. Siva Kumar. Asia Art Archive later classified the exhibition as a "world event".

The first selection was shown at Museum of Asian Art, Berlin, Asia Society, New York,National Museum of Korea,Seoul, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Art Institute of Chicago,[Chicago, Petit Palais,Paris, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, National Visual Arts Gallery (Malaysia), Kuala Lumpur, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Ontario, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.

An illustrated catalogue, titled The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, with essays by international Tagore experts was published on this occasion . The book covered Tagore's art and other aspects of his work and life.

The inclination to know and understand other cultures was innate to his personality, and contributed to his emergence as an artist. A world traveler and a creative artist with interest in cross-cultural contacts, he looked at the art of the countries he travelled to. Sometimes he did this with greater purposefulness and self-awareness, as he did during his 1916 visit to Japan. But often he merely absorbed them, and without discussion or record allowed them to sink to the bottom of his awareness, from where they subliminally guided his thoughts and rose to the surface when required. Primitive and modern art that he saw during his many travels abroad played such a role in his emergence as an artist.

R. Siva Kumar, The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore (book), 2011.

Rabindranath Tagore founded a small school at Santiniketan in 1901 and Kala Bhavan, an art school in 1919 which later became a part of the Visvabharati University founded in 1921.

Located in a small town, Bolpur in Birbhum district quite close to the city of Kolkata. Kala Bhavan was conceived as an alternative methodology of fine art training, in which instead of studio based practice learning was to be imparted through observation and living as a part of nature. The natural surrounded with bare red earth and lush green trees, the colours of the changing seasons, the animals and birds as inspiration to students who were taught by artists like Nandlal Bose, who were themselves significant figures in the development of modern Indian art.

Once Kala Bhavan was established in 1919, Tagore invited noted painter Nandalal Bose, a disciple of Abanindranath Tagore, founder of the Bengal school of art movement, to become its first principal. Nandalal Bose, Universally known as mastermoshai was brought in by Tagore himself, who had to convince his nephew Abanindranath, to let go of his protégé.

Artist, writer and educator, Abanindranath advocated the revival of classical traditions of image-making. He turned art into a tool of colonial resistance, rejecting the materialism of the West. In contrast, his uncle Tagore believed in a more cosmopolitan outlook and defied rigid formalism.

In the coming years stalwarts like Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij became associated with the college, and in time gave a new direction not just to the institution but also to modern Indian painting.

At Shantiniketan, the ideas of Rabindranath Tagore on art and teaching continued for a long time as a monumental model.Subsequently, they developed in the art arena of Shantiniketan, the three pillars of ideas – Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij.They together raised Shantiniketan to a level of unique eminence in the field of modern art in twentieth century India

Tagore knew his utopia wouldn’t last forever. In 1940, when mahatma Gandhi came to Shantiniketan to see him, the critically ill Tagore urged him to take charge of Visva-Bharati after he was gone. Tagore died the following year. Until Gandhi was assassinated in 1948, he acted as a guardian of the institution.

Funded by Tagore with his own income and money raised from friends and well-wishers, Visva-Bharati’s finances were always an issue of grave concern. By the end of the 1940s, the administrators felt it prudent to put the institution under the control of the Union government. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, who was urged by Gandhi to look after Visva-Bharati was the instrument of the transition in 1951.

Kala Bhavan, the art school founded by Rabindranath Tagore at Shantiniketan, celebrated its centenary in 2019.

On7 May,2011 joint celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore was held with elaborate programmes on the great poet, who represents much of common heritage and philosophy of India and Bangladesh. The Prime Minister of India released Rabindra ‘Chitravali’ - a distinctive compilation of around 2,000 paintings of Tagore.The National Gallery of Modern Art held an exhibition of paintings of Tagore titled ‘Circle of Art.

Rabindra Tirtha Complex; Tagore Pilgrimage is a cultural center in New Town, Kolkata, dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore and houses an exhibition of Tagore’s paintings, archives, a research centre. It was inaugurated by Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal in August 2012.

National Gallery Modern Art, Delhi displayed 102 original works of art of Rabindra Nath Tagore on 7 May 2020 to celebrate his birth anniversary.

The virtual exhibition, which is currently a format in trend across museums and galleries globally, will help viewers also know the details of the work through the day.

The range of works covered in the virtual exhibition include Tagore's landscapes, the iconic dancing figures, mythical animal figures, the famous human head studies, other sketches and the fascinating veiled faces of women. The exhibition is titled Gurudev, Journey of the Maestro Through His Visual Vocabulary. Art historian and curator R Sivakumar to back the virtual show with textual explanations of the works to mark Tagore’s contribution to Indian art by making his works reach the masses.

Victoria Ocampo the writer and muse of Tagore for seventeen long years, till he passed away is credited with uncovering Tagore’s painting talents. It was she who saw his doodlings in Buenos Aires and encouraged him to paint more seriously. She organised the first exihibition of Tagore’s paintings in May 1930 in Paris at the Galerie Pigalle by spending her own money, organising a party and using her contacts. Encouraged by the Parisian reception, he started paintings more seriously and holding more exhibitions thereafter.

Thinking of Him' the film explores their relationship.Tagore hoping for a long time to deserve the love that alleviates a man’s inner loneliness and is like a supply of water in his journey across a desert. This was reflected in his poem Shesh Basanth (the last spring) which he wrote on November 21 during his stay as the guest of Ocampo.

While walking on my solitary way

I met you at the dusk of nightfall

I was about to ask you take my hand

When I gazed at your face and was afraid.

For I saw there the glow of the fire that lay asleep

In the deep of your heart’s dark silence

Whether there was a carnal part to the platonic love. Ocampo drew a line which Tagore did not cross. But he was tempted he tried just a touch, she felt a kind of shudder of withdrawal like a horse whom his master strokes when he is not expecting it. The animal cried at once within me. Another person who lives inside me warned the animal, ‘ be calm… fool’ It is just a gesture of pagan tenderness. The hand left the branch after that almost incorporeal caress.

Ocampo's graceful and quiet but firm and cold non-response stopped him at this point.Ocampo described her emotion for Tagore as a great “love tenderness”. Tagore talked about his love and longing in poetic but subtle and suggestive ways in his notes and letters to her as well as poems.

Tagore mistook Ocampo’s excessive devotion for something more. At the time of Tagore’s visit, Ocampo was in a state of transition after the break up with her husband and the strains of keeping the secrecy of her love affairs with her cousin. The society had thrown cold water on her aspiration to become a woman writer. At the same time she did not want to upset her family by open rebellion. She wanted to bring Tagore to stay in the large mansion of her parents but they refused. At this time of mental turmoil, she looked up to Tagore as a Guru from the East who might illuminate her spirit and reveal a new path for her.This is what made her to show extraordinary and explicit expression of her excessive ardour to Tagore.

She took her destiny in her own hands. She did not let others to mess with her life beyond a line she drew. Perhaps this is the main reason she declined the repeated invitation of Tagore to her to visit Shantiniketan.

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Setu, July 2024