Sunday, January 28, 2001		Article

Kala Bhawan
The centre of art at Santiniketan
By Shona Adhikari

KALA BHAWAN, the art department of Viswa Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath Tagore, has nurtured many of India’s best-known artists — some as students and others as faculty. Among these are Guru Nandlal Bose, Benod behari Mukhopadhyaya, Ram Kinkar Baiz, Mukul Dey, K.G. Subramanium, Somnath Hore and countless others, whose works are scattered around the campus. Many of these priceless works lie open to the elements, and in need of immediate preservation.

There are many historically important buildings at Kala Bhawan. There is the hut-shaped house created by the famous Santhal painter cum sculptor Ram Kinkar Baiz, and his students. Painted a mud-colour, this may be considered among the better preserved buildings on the campus. The Design Department exterior has been painted entirely in black and white by renowned artist K.G. Subramanium and his students. With the artist’s depiction of birds and animals, making it a most striking edifice as well as a very important structure indeed.

There are also a number of murals in relief by the artist cum sculptor Somnath Hore, which lie open to the elements. With the high prices that this artist’s works command in the market, it is surprising that no effort has been made by the University to protect them. The same may be said about a group of crocodiles and tortoises created by K.G.Subramanium, in his inimitable style. However Ram Kinkar Baiz famous concrete sculptures — twice as large as life of a ‘Santhal Family’ and a group of joyous Santhal women ‘Going to the Haat’ — were earlier open to the skies, but now find shelter under corrugated sheets, on an iron frame. Aesthetically not too pleasing, but a shelter nevertheless.

A retrospective of the works of Ram Kinkar Baiz was recently held at the gallery at Kala Bhawan. A prolific painter in his early years, he turned almost exclusively to sculpture over the years. The vast repertoire of his works put up on show, from the earliest days, showed the myriad influences that his style had passed through. However it was his latter works, with their strength of line and his sculptures where the artist’s true capabilities placed him amongst India’s greatest.

The different departments are housed in different buildings. In the Fine Arts Department, I was privileged to see a series of excellently created ‘still lifes’ by the fourth year students. There were a number of different styles to be seen — traditional wash technique, bold gauche, line and wash, and modern impressionism — each student bringing in his own peculiar sensibilities in depicting the same subject.

Similarly, in the sculpture department, it was interesting to see how the subject of ‘Mother and Child’ was handled by different students in different mediums. The students at graphic department, were busy working on slabs of stone in the lithograph class. Others were busy printing out their creations, while still others were working on their lino-cuts. I watched a pot being made by a student in the ceramic section, on a traditional potter’s wheel, while others stood by to take their turn.

Outside, under a number of trees, there were cemented platforms used for classes. Tagore had envisioned his ‘Poet’s School’, as a place of learning to be held as close to nature as possible. This tradition continues to be carried out by the University, and on the day I visited, a group of students were seen in animated discussions, under the branches of a spreading tree — education being imparted just the way, Tagore had envisioned Santiniketan.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan is built on land that had earlier been given to his father by the Zamindars of Surul. Tagore’s father, the austere Maharshi Devendranath, said to have been a rather restless man found peace here in this solitary tract of land, and decided to name it Santiniketan. The Maharshi had built a guest house and laid out an orchard here — a full forty years before his son decided to build his dream school there in 1921.

A permanent exhibition of the life and times of Rabindranath Tagore is mounted at Rabindra Bhawan. Here, one can learn about all the different facets that went into creating Bengal’s Nobel Laureate. His shoes, gown, walking stick, his family and most of all his poetry penned with their quaint doodles, all come alive here. There is much more to see at the Vishwa Bharati University, and perhaps among the main reasons to return to Tagore’s Santiniketan, is to experience the feeling of unhurried peace that still prevails in the ‘Poets School.’