Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore, many exhibitions spotlighting Tagore’s life and career had been planned by the National Committee for Commemoration, launching in all parts of the world. Amongst all, Korea has launched an exhibition of Tagore’s paintings in the National Gallery of Modern Arts. The exhibition will last from September 20th to November 27th.
-Tagore, his Life
Born on May 7th, 1861 in a wealthy and cultured Brahmin family of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest of the thirteen children. Even from a young age, Tagore showed his love for literature, spending most of his childhood reading biographies. His life as a writer began as early as 8 years old, when he wrote his first poem. Shortly after, he made his debut as a short story writer.
Renowned for his poem “The Lamp of the East”, Rabindranath Tagore is remembered mainly as the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Thus, we mainly recognize him as a poet, but in fact he had immersed himself in the fields of poetry, novel, music, and painting. Of all, his expertise in painting played a major role in his life, for it was something he tried in the most latter period of his life. His paintings effectively portray his notions of life and point of view as a painter.
Tagore also traveled a lot during his life, traveling to over thirty countries on five continents. Such extensive travel and hectic life left him weak and ill, eventually leading him to his death on August 7th, 1941.
-Tagore, an Artist
Painting was a late hobby of Tagore’s, as he started painting in his mid-60s. Throughout his life, he had never received formal art training. But as he learned the history of Asian, Ancient, and also a part of Contemporary Art, he discovered the artist that had been sleeping within him. His long practice in the use of language greatly contributed to forming his own art technique. He interpreted art as a means to visually portray the flow and the written context of literature. Rhymes and rhythms he used in literature were expressed into a form of visual arts, which even the illiterate, could understand. Such consideration reflects his view as a philanthropist.
Tagore never chose a subject for his painting. He drew and painted relying on where the strokes of his brush and pen would take him. Although he left a total of 2500 drawings and paintings, most of them are left untitled. He believed that his paintings didn’t need a title, and that it was the viewer’s job to explore the world he wished to paint. He believed that words couldn’t fully describe the essence of what each painting held inside. Thus his paintings speak to themselves, in a language that cannot be orally explained. Currently, over 1500 of them are preserved in Viswa-Bharati, Santiniketan, and 60 paintings are being displayed in the ongoing exhibition, all of which are untitled.
Tagore’s artistic life is quite different from his literary life in terms of what he wished to express. As he started painting and exploring colors and lines, he started to see the world in a different view. Unlike the peace and enlightenment he sought in his works of literature, he seemed to immerse himself in the world of darkness and mystery as an artist.
The dark portraits, odd postures, imaginary creatures, and haunting faces show a side of Tagore that could not have been easily interpreted in his early works of literature. His latter life as an artist shows a part of Tagore which pleasantly surprises viewers and critics alike.
-Tagore, his Exhibition
The title “The Last Harvest” was coined as the theme for this exhibition in a sense that could represent the drawings as the last harvest of Tagore’s life. Paintings were of great meaning to Tagore, as they could be interpreted by all classes of people. Tagore hoped that the barrier that stood between the illiterate and the literate would give way when his paintings were introduced. For Rabindranath Tagore, songs and writings were for Bengal and India, while paintings, which were free from the barrier of languages, were for the world.
The exhibition of Tagore’s paintings is mainly divided into 4 parts. Below are the explanations of each part in detail.
Part 1: IMAGINARY ANIMALS
This section allows viewers to look into the world of creativity Tagore lived in. The paintings feature animals with odd and striking physical features. It is said that the origins of the imaginary animals were from the lines he used to cross out parts of his poem that he didn’t like. Mainly inspired by ancient art, the paintings displayed in this section portray the raw and creative mind that captured Tagore in his early painting years.
Part 2: LANDSCAPES AND FLOWERS
The paintings in this section portray nature seen through the eyes of Tagore. Stepping away from the imaginary animals, Tagore explores the beauty of nature and focuses on the visual form of nature. In some paintings, there are also drawings of people, which take him to draw the themes introduced in the following section.
Part 3: GESTICULATING FIGURES AND DRAMATIC SCENES
Tagore’s interpretation of nature led him to discover the movement in human body. Many paintings in this section portray people with dramatic poses. The lines and curves form a rather odd and striking portrayal of people were mostly inspired by nature. Through these paintings of distorted people, Tagore expressed his thoughts on human body. He believed that all humans were open to drama. Each human body carried a different drama that could visually be portrayed with movements.
Part 4: FACES
Various paintings of faces comprise this section, all of which hold different emotions. Some faces seem mysterious, haunting, sarcastic, and even terrifying. His pieces were mainly drawn by converging masks of ancient priests and individual portraits of different people.
-Tagore, on Tagore
Tagore himself, in his article “My Pictures,” explains his paintings as follows:“The world of sound is a tiny bubble in the silence of the infinite. The Universe has its only language of gesture; it talks in the voice of pictures and dance. Every object in this world proclaims in the dumb signal of lines and colors, the fact that it is not a mere logical abstraction or a mere thing of use, but it is unique in itself, it carries the miracle of its existence. In a picture the artist creates the language of undoubted reality, and we are satisfied that we see. It may not be the representation of a beautiful woman but that of a common place donkey or of something that has no external credential of truth in nature, but only in its own inner artistic significance.”
He once even said, “The world speaks to me in colors, my soul answers in music.”
It can be inferred from the quotes that Tagore lived, breathed, and created in his own world of art. His emphasis on lines and colors can also be seen throughout the paintings in his exhibition. Most of the colors he used in his painting are dark and neutral. Some seem to be expressing rage and mystery. His use of colors lets viewers to escape their prejudices and social norm of beauty.
Tagore was 63 years old when he started his life as a painter. Many of his paintings are drawn without a definite plan or sketch. The lines and curves unintentionally intertwine to form pictures that characterize Tagore’s artistic view. Just as his paintings are untitled, same can be said for his life. It is under no specific title that Tagore lived his life, taking his time and fulfilling his potential to the fullest.
Perhaps students reading this article may take after Tagore’s view of life. Sometimes, it’s okay to take some time off from the hectic schedule and relax. Let your hands and feet take you on a journey to Tagore’s exhibition this weekend, just as Tagore’s brushes and pens led him to discover a new stage in his life.