DAG (formerly known as Delhi Art Gallery), New Delhi
Asit Kumar Haldar was grand-nephew of Rabindranath Tagore and he was trained under Abanindranath Tagore during his time at Government School of Art, Calcutta. He was a prominent painter and sculptor of Bengal School. He is known for his versatility as he explored and mastered mediums like oil, watercolor and tempera before he developed his own technique with coating wood with lacquer called ‘lacit’. We can clearly see the influence of Pahari and Mughal miniatures in his work depicted by fine details and recurring mythological themes. He made a series of paintings based on the rich history and cultural heritage of India, Buddhist imageries and translated Omar Khayyam's verses. This particular folio from one of the scenes from the Omar Khayyam Series, he illustrated a group of elderly men engaged in serious conversation possibly about religious scriptures or literature. He anchors the composition with ornamented architecture of late Mughal court layouts. In contrast to this, there’s a younger man looking lost in his own thoughts, walking away from the group, gazing downwards that suggests he’s contemplating his own philosophical path. Haldar utilized the architecture of the space to create various visual planes for suggesting perspective and depth into the composition. Haldar shifts the image away from a simple literary illustration into a visual essay.
The following painting is a beautiful example of how the use of the architectural space creates depth into the drawing and the paintings, in addition to his skill and versatility the artwork's narrative is visually interesting due to these characteristics.
Specially the placement of the figures is really important to understand the narrative, in this drawing the way that the older man are placed together creating a community of knowledge and in contrast how the youngest figure is searching for knowledge alone with a book in hand.
