Painting Of Rabindranath Tagore
“When at the age of five, he was compelled to learn and repeat the lessons from his text book; Tagore had the notion that literature had its mysterious manifestations on the printed pages, that it represented some supernatural tyranny of an immaculate perfection. Such a despairing feeling of awe was dissipated from his mind when by chance he discovered in own person that verse making was not beyond the range of an untrained mind and tottering hand-writing. Since then his sole medium of expression has been words, followed at sixteen by music, which also came to him as a surprise.”
On this backdrop of thought-cycle we may have a scope to estimate that relationship of human being with the universe does not arise out of material necessities or knowledge alone. Relationship evolves out of sense of creative’s. Creative form means artistic achievements of all sorts of practices and performances. Therefore, arts are not only simply steric presentations, they also cover numerous creature efforts that men make out of their mental urge of which literature is an end to form expression in verbal orders. Goethe of the west and Tagore of the East through their ceaseless activities have made us convinced of and stressed enormous importance on cultural unity and universality of creativities for fruition of a complete man. There is none on this earth so much complete. More and above, creative energies having tendencies to differ with one another, individualities evolve with variant attitudes in order to isolate mental planes of expressions. This prologue helps to cultivate our understanding of phenomena of literature and visual arts.
In his matured form, more than once, he defined the outcome of these faces of culture as all embracing literature. If we are not nostalgic towards such an approach, we are able to establish a real framework for our so much desired literary platform with so much freedom.
Tagore once said; “but one thing which is common to all arts is the principle of rhythm which transforms inert materials into living creations. My instinct for it and my training in it has led me to know that lines and colours in art are no carriers of information. They seek their rhythmic incarnation in pictures. Their ultimate purpose is not to illustrate or to copy some outer fact or inner vision, but to evolve a harmonious wholeness which finds its passage through our eyesight into imagination. It neither questions our burdens it with the meaningless, for it is, above all, meaning.”
From his saying we can proceed to a stage of analysis. We are aware that calligraphy plays a dominant role in Asian Art. In the artist, Society has a leaving reminder that despite the relentless logic of everyday life, man’s capacity of dreaming still survives. Artists of the past created images significant of the necessity of their time and place, Universal and timeless. Very few of us are gifted enough to become great artists or writers, but we can benefit by experiencing the nature of creation and by appreciating various types of works of art. The necessacities for these abilities is as great to us as it was at any time, perhaps even greater in a world where physical barriers to communication are being removed so rapidly by science. Through his art exercises Tagore tired to reflect this tendency, which may appear very much new to the modern exponents of the contemporary period.
In all their components- composition, drawing and coloring, Rabindranath’s paintings express his daringness. Starting with erasures on manuscripts. Those abstract rhythms of lines genuinely of his own, he went on to designing quite realistic forms and lat of all to mature those instead of relying merely on line movement amidst the monochromes, he adorned with rich, attractive sobers.
While setting line work in a perfect balance- his whole imaginative and suggestive processes proceed in a beautiful wandering from the written world to the world of pictorial nebula of cosmos. The rolling, quivering, heaving and fleeing shapes- get flooding out from the abundant ocean of the unknown- are playfully dreadful. Of those queerness Tagore Himself said-
“The Universe has its own language of gestures. Every object proclaims by the dumb signal of lines and colours, the fact that it is not mere logical abstraction but it is unique in itself, it carries the miracle of its existence.”
Tagore’s art, being embodied with so many complexities of expressions, may be termed broadly as creative interaction. In which rhythm of texts has a sort of their intermingling with rhythm of forms- which ultimately unites the visual and verbal courses towards ascertaining a mystic conception of the spiritual world. This creative interaction was the most dominating factor of his wonderful life. Any consideration of Tagore’s literary achievements, therefore, should be started with the study of his assimilated of his life.
The abstract forms belonging to his subjective and objective world are more or less his own personifications that embody meter psychoses and sparkling spectrum that translate the eternity into his ideas are definitely born of accompanying inquisitiveness, and isolations which did not perish at any time like unrecognizable and inaudible spirits of the other world. All this criteria danced at the centre of his life’s activity with light feat of resolution. These ushered in him a response and call towards the intricacies of his life-all silently. Thereafter, he was prevented from adding metaphor to his creations. That Rabindranath had no ulterior end in view is clear from his own statement.
“It is absolutely impossible to give a name to my pictures. I never make a picture of any preconvinced subject. Accidently some forms, whose genealogy I am totally unaware of take shade off of the tip of my moving pen and stand out as an individual. My work is done with creation of ‘rupa’ (form). It is for others to usher in the deluge of ‘nama’ (name) - this adds to my previous contention.
When Rabindranath was creating a Renaissance of Modern Indian Art in Bengal deriving his inspiration from the refined Indian Classical schools and when Jiminy Roy was turning to folk art for inspiration, a revolution was taking place in Tagore which nobody took serious notice of. He certainly left a communication gap. The reason why he has not shown any of his paintings in India (excepting a preparatory show in Calcutta in 1928) before he exhibited them elsewhere, was told to his intimate one’s, “I have not shown my paintings to this country. Here most people do not know to see a picture. First of all they look to see whether the faces are good looking or not and how to know whether it has become a work of art or not how to know that which cannot be explained or taught. One must develop that power; get instinctive insight to be able to see a picture. It cannot be done just by any one. That is why I never wished to exhibit my paintings here!”
During the 20s Tagore’s eagerness for rehabilitating his spontaneous art got some artists of the western countries. A versatile man of the east met a galaxy of versatile personalities of the west. Eg. Lionel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Kandisky etc. He was also an advocate of Automatism. In this point Tagore had affinity with him. Automatism and spontaneity are two closer terms almost with same interpretation. It was learnt that an assessment discussion was held at Bauhaus at the request of count Kesselring, who observed, ‘Rabindranath, the poet and artist impressed me like a guest from a higher and more spiritual world. Never perhaps have I seen so much spiritualized substance of soul condensed into one man: After this meeting at the request of Tagore, about 83 aquarelles, drawings and graphics of all the above artists, excepting those of Nicholas Roerich and Mahaly Nagy were brought to Calcutta in 1922 for an exhibition. A good number of people have witnessed this exhibition but a few people knew that exchange value of ideas cropped of their in. In fact, all these gave him opening as an artist cum Connoisseur on the theoretical side.
His real achievement came since his visit to European countries. His first knowledgeable appearance as an artist took place at the Gallery pigalle under sponsorship of an Argentine lady, mdme. Victoria Okampo and a French aristocrat, Countesses De Nomilles on 2nd May. About 125 paintings were exhibited there. Tagore wrote to one of his contemporaries-“I shall leave all last creations of my life in this country”.
During his visit to Germany, arrangements were made to exhibit his paintings at the Muller art Gallery in Berlin on July 11 and the exhibition was formally inaugurated on July 13. It transpired from the poet’s letter that Dr. Selig a German lady took special care of this exhibition. There were a large number of visitors at this exhibition. In that connection Tagore wrote to Smt. Nirmal Kumari Mahalanobis-‘you must have come to know long before the receipt of this letter that my paintings have gained no mean appreciation in Germany. The Berlin National Gallery has taken five of my paintings.” The next exhibition in Germany was held at the Kaspari Art Gallery in Munich on 23rd July. Extract of criticism of both the exhibitions were on the Berliner Tageblatt of July were under the heading ‘Philosophical painting’-It seems Tagore has not turned to painting discarding his pen--- Common people are more apt to understand the language of his pictures than that of his philosophy.
His exhibitions were finally shown in Boston on 25th October, in Newyork on the 3rd November with the sponsorship of Hari Singh Govil. Ananda Kumaraswamy wrote the introduction note. We have this idea that he was well received by the American Artists Circles. However, the total impression of his western tour appears to be very much gay, adequately fruitful, tolerant and exciting as much to get his recognition as the first international artist of modern India.Before his life came to the end, this versatile genius made nearly 3000 paintings and drawings.
Article By: Mohamed Ziab K. M,St.Alberts College
“When at the age of five, he was compelled to learn and repeat the lessons from his text book; Tagore had the notion that literature had its mysterious manifestations on the printed pages, that it represented some supernatural tyranny of an immaculate perfection. Such a despairing feeling of awe was dissipated from his mind when by chance he discovered in own person that verse making was not beyond the range of an untrained mind and tottering hand-writing. Since then his sole medium of expression has been words, followed at sixteen by music, which also came to him as a surprise.”
On this backdrop of thought-cycle we may have a scope to estimate that relationship of human being with the universe does not arise out of material necessities or knowledge alone. Relationship evolves out of sense of creative’s. Creative form means artistic achievements of all sorts of practices and performances. Therefore, arts are not only simply steric presentations, they also cover numerous creature efforts that men make out of their mental urge of which literature is an end to form expression in verbal orders. Goethe of the west and Tagore of the East through their ceaseless activities have made us convinced of and stressed enormous importance on cultural unity and universality of creativities for fruition of a complete man. There is none on this earth so much complete. More and above, creative energies having tendencies to differ with one another, individualities evolve with variant attitudes in order to isolate mental planes of expressions. This prologue helps to cultivate our understanding of phenomena of literature and visual arts.
In his matured form, more than once, he defined the outcome of these faces of culture as all embracing literature. If we are not nostalgic towards such an approach, we are able to establish a real framework for our so much desired literary platform with so much freedom.
Tagore once said; “but one thing which is common to all arts is the principle of rhythm which transforms inert materials into living creations. My instinct for it and my training in it has led me to know that lines and colours in art are no carriers of information. They seek their rhythmic incarnation in pictures. Their ultimate purpose is not to illustrate or to copy some outer fact or inner vision, but to evolve a harmonious wholeness which finds its passage through our eyesight into imagination. It neither questions our burdens it with the meaningless, for it is, above all, meaning.”
From his saying we can proceed to a stage of analysis. We are aware that calligraphy plays a dominant role in Asian Art. In the artist, Society has a leaving reminder that despite the relentless logic of everyday life, man’s capacity of dreaming still survives. Artists of the past created images significant of the necessity of their time and place, Universal and timeless. Very few of us are gifted enough to become great artists or writers, but we can benefit by experiencing the nature of creation and by appreciating various types of works of art. The necessacities for these abilities is as great to us as it was at any time, perhaps even greater in a world where physical barriers to communication are being removed so rapidly by science. Through his art exercises Tagore tired to reflect this tendency, which may appear very much new to the modern exponents of the contemporary period.
In all their components- composition, drawing and coloring, Rabindranath’s paintings express his daringness. Starting with erasures on manuscripts. Those abstract rhythms of lines genuinely of his own, he went on to designing quite realistic forms and lat of all to mature those instead of relying merely on line movement amidst the monochromes, he adorned with rich, attractive sobers.
While setting line work in a perfect balance- his whole imaginative and suggestive processes proceed in a beautiful wandering from the written world to the world of pictorial nebula of cosmos. The rolling, quivering, heaving and fleeing shapes- get flooding out from the abundant ocean of the unknown- are playfully dreadful. Of those queerness Tagore Himself said-
“The Universe has its own language of gestures. Every object proclaims by the dumb signal of lines and colours, the fact that it is not mere logical abstraction but it is unique in itself, it carries the miracle of its existence.”
Tagore’s art, being embodied with so many complexities of expressions, may be termed broadly as creative interaction. In which rhythm of texts has a sort of their intermingling with rhythm of forms- which ultimately unites the visual and verbal courses towards ascertaining a mystic conception of the spiritual world. This creative interaction was the most dominating factor of his wonderful life. Any consideration of Tagore’s literary achievements, therefore, should be started with the study of his assimilated of his life.
The abstract forms belonging to his subjective and objective world are more or less his own personifications that embody meter psychoses and sparkling spectrum that translate the eternity into his ideas are definitely born of accompanying inquisitiveness, and isolations which did not perish at any time like unrecognizable and inaudible spirits of the other world. All this criteria danced at the centre of his life’s activity with light feat of resolution. These ushered in him a response and call towards the intricacies of his life-all silently. Thereafter, he was prevented from adding metaphor to his creations. That Rabindranath had no ulterior end in view is clear from his own statement.
“It is absolutely impossible to give a name to my pictures. I never make a picture of any preconvinced subject. Accidently some forms, whose genealogy I am totally unaware of take shade off of the tip of my moving pen and stand out as an individual. My work is done with creation of ‘rupa’ (form). It is for others to usher in the deluge of ‘nama’ (name) - this adds to my previous contention.
When Rabindranath was creating a Renaissance of Modern Indian Art in Bengal deriving his inspiration from the refined Indian Classical schools and when Jiminy Roy was turning to folk art for inspiration, a revolution was taking place in Tagore which nobody took serious notice of. He certainly left a communication gap. The reason why he has not shown any of his paintings in India (excepting a preparatory show in Calcutta in 1928) before he exhibited them elsewhere, was told to his intimate one’s, “I have not shown my paintings to this country. Here most people do not know to see a picture. First of all they look to see whether the faces are good looking or not and how to know whether it has become a work of art or not how to know that which cannot be explained or taught. One must develop that power; get instinctive insight to be able to see a picture. It cannot be done just by any one. That is why I never wished to exhibit my paintings here!”
During the 20s Tagore’s eagerness for rehabilitating his spontaneous art got some artists of the western countries. A versatile man of the east met a galaxy of versatile personalities of the west. Eg. Lionel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Kandisky etc. He was also an advocate of Automatism. In this point Tagore had affinity with him. Automatism and spontaneity are two closer terms almost with same interpretation. It was learnt that an assessment discussion was held at Bauhaus at the request of count Kesselring, who observed, ‘Rabindranath, the poet and artist impressed me like a guest from a higher and more spiritual world. Never perhaps have I seen so much spiritualized substance of soul condensed into one man: After this meeting at the request of Tagore, about 83 aquarelles, drawings and graphics of all the above artists, excepting those of Nicholas Roerich and Mahaly Nagy were brought to Calcutta in 1922 for an exhibition. A good number of people have witnessed this exhibition but a few people knew that exchange value of ideas cropped of their in. In fact, all these gave him opening as an artist cum Connoisseur on the theoretical side.
His real achievement came since his visit to European countries. His first knowledgeable appearance as an artist took place at the Gallery pigalle under sponsorship of an Argentine lady, mdme. Victoria Okampo and a French aristocrat, Countesses De Nomilles on 2nd May. About 125 paintings were exhibited there. Tagore wrote to one of his contemporaries-“I shall leave all last creations of my life in this country”.
During his visit to Germany, arrangements were made to exhibit his paintings at the Muller art Gallery in Berlin on July 11 and the exhibition was formally inaugurated on July 13. It transpired from the poet’s letter that Dr. Selig a German lady took special care of this exhibition. There were a large number of visitors at this exhibition. In that connection Tagore wrote to Smt. Nirmal Kumari Mahalanobis-‘you must have come to know long before the receipt of this letter that my paintings have gained no mean appreciation in Germany. The Berlin National Gallery has taken five of my paintings.” The next exhibition in Germany was held at the Kaspari Art Gallery in Munich on 23rd July. Extract of criticism of both the exhibitions were on the Berliner Tageblatt of July were under the heading ‘Philosophical painting’-It seems Tagore has not turned to painting discarding his pen--- Common people are more apt to understand the language of his pictures than that of his philosophy.
His exhibitions were finally shown in Boston on 25th October, in Newyork on the 3rd November with the sponsorship of Hari Singh Govil. Ananda Kumaraswamy wrote the introduction note. We have this idea that he was well received by the American Artists Circles. However, the total impression of his western tour appears to be very much gay, adequately fruitful, tolerant and exciting as much to get his recognition as the first international artist of modern India.Before his life came to the end, this versatile genius made nearly 3000 paintings and drawings.
Article By: Mohamed Ziab K. M,St.Alberts College
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