The painting 'The Wayside Shrine' shows another Himalayan spectacle by Bireswar Sen. The artist uses small dabs of color to suggest a mule and the figure of a man, kneeling in front of a blue mountain rock. The mountain peaks in the background are seen garbed in mist. It is created by using watercolors and tempera on a card size paper. It is signed 'B. Sen' in English at the bottom-right corner of the frame with a brush in brown color. It is now an exhibit in the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
- Identifier
- ngma-01914
- Material
- Watercolour, Tempera, Paper
- Note
- Bireswar Sen, born in 1897 in Calcutta, West Bengal, is one of the most prominent landscape artists of modern India. He trained under the tutelage of Abanindranath Tagore at the Indian Society of Oriental Art and was greatly influenced by the techniques of Japanese art introduced by artists such as Arai Kampo and Taikan. Having graduated in English Literature, he taught the subject at a college in Patna, Bihar for a few years before taking up art teaching full-time at the School of Arts and Crafts, Lucknow in 1929. Bireswar Sen is eminently known for his miniature sized natural landscapes imbued with the tenets of his Bengal School training in thought and application. His love for nature dominated his paintings and was further heightened upon his meeting with the legendary artist Nicholas Roerich who had epitomised the beauty of the Himalayas in his canvases. Bireswar Sen also took to portraying the incomparable splendour and beauty of the changing terrains and environs of the Mighty Himalayas, but on a small scale. His works were executed mostly on paper and were the size of a small card yet never appearing cluttered. They rather echoed similar sentiments and details as encapsulated by larger canvases. His learning and deep interest in literature added lyricism and poetry in his landscapes. The colour schematisation contributes as the key component in harmoniously suffusing the monumental scale of the Himalayas in such compact space. The effortless application of colour and sweeping brush work adds to the glory and magnificence of nature. Sen's paintings arouse a sense of wonder: the 'adbhuta rasa' and leaves the viewer to marvel at nature's creation.
- Pages
- 8.5 X 5.5 cm
- Published in
- India
- Type
- Painting
