Rabindranath Tagore’s vocabulary of art came from all the places Tagore visited. Tagore started painting in life and produced modernist pieces that changed how art was made in the country. The picture is a side view of a woman’s face. It has no clear details. Tagore painted it with dreamlike colours and strong brushwork that capture the whole mood of the work. Tagore’s paintings had almost expressionist faces of men and women in a twilight world and a hazy dreamland. They showed feelings and a deep moody inner life. These works did not belong to any country; they were part of the global modern art language. Tagore’s paintings broke away from Tagore’s work as a poet and thinker. Tagore believed in harmony, good and beauty for all people and the world.. The paintings felt at odds with those ideas and the images pushed against them. Tagore’s work marked a break from the Indian classical style and the Bengal School started by his nephew Abanindranath Tagore and other family members. Tagore’s paintings and sketches show the influence of artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Gerhard Marx, Georg Muche, Nicholas Roerich and Gropius and of psychoanalysis. The faces are badly hurt, twisted and look into their own endless selves showing pictures from the mind’s hidden parts. Tagore’s first shows were in Paris. They did well but people in India did not like them much at first. Tagore founded Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. Helped create Kala Bhavana, the university’s art department with Nandalal Bose, as the director. Tagore’s art was named a National Treasure by the Antiquities and Art Treasure Act of 1972. Tagore died on 7 August 1941 in Calcutta.
Tagore, apart from being a renowned poet, playwright, author, was also an impeccable artist. He rendered many paintings in colonial India. This artwork depicts the side profile of a woman’s face, rendered in vivid oil pastels. She has no expressions or features. Perhaps this symbolizes the struggles women face in a patriarchal society, grappling with issues such as identities, desires, and the constraints imposed by tradition and society.
