cover image: Face

20.500.12592/vgsw9b

Face

This painting is created by an Indian artist Rabindranath Tagore. Art historian R. Siva Kumar dates this strongly delineated portrait to c. 1931 - 32 and descriptively titles it Head of an Old Woman. He notes the medium as 'coloured ink and water colour on paper'.
artwork modern painting
Identifier
ngma-01261
Material
Watercolour, Paper
Note
Rabindranath Tagore was primarily known as a writer, poet, playwright, philosopher and aesthetician, founder of a unique educational institution, Visva- Bharati, music composer and choreographer. Tagore's emergence as a painter began in 1928 when he was 67 years old. Beginning with scratching and erasures on the pages of his manuscripts during the mid-20s of the 20th Century, he slowly moved towards drawing and painting independent images. Between 1928 and 1940, Rabindranath painted more than 2000 images. He never gave any title to his paintings. Fed by memories and the subconscious, Rabindranath's art was spontaneous and dramatic. His images did not represent the phenomenal world but an interior reality. Rabindranath veered towards abstraction in his figuration. Expressionism in European art and the primitive art of ancient cultures inspired him. Fantasy, wild imagination and an innate feel for the absurd gave a distinctive character to his visual language. The National Gallery of Modern Art has a representative collection of his imagery.
Pages
18 x 25 cm
Published in
India
Type
Painting