From Tagore to Shergil: A brush with Navratna
Singh, curator and vice-president at DAG. “They represent the finest practice of late 19th and early 20th century art. The idea is to highlight each artist’s distinct practice.”
While Varma’s mythological and historical paintings depict his realistic style, Sher-gil’s works capture vignettes of village and street life. Gaganendranath Tagore’s caricatures on the other hand, poke fun at the anglicised Bengalis of the time. The exhibition also features his watercolours that showcase his mastery of cub- ism. Rabindranath Tagore’s landscapes and portraits, with a haunting presence, are among the earliest instances of expressionist art in India.
The show also traces a common thread among the artists. “They defined a new aesthetic and a new visual identity for India at a critical moment in our history,” says Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and honorary director of the museum. A rare, old print of Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharat Mata (1905), which visually inspired the concept of Mother
India in India’s independence movement, will be on display, along with a copy of the Constitution, featuring handpainted pages by Nandalal Bose. “It is important to revisit an artist’s works and explore their meaning and value in a new context,” says Mehta. “These are powerful symbols of our struggle for freedom. That struggle is still alive, though the meaning of freedom changes in different contexts.” The show also includes rare items such as some letters penned by Roy, Rabindranath Tagore’s mortgage deeds and paint brushes that Gaganendranath Tagore used.