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You will be surprised to hear that I am sitting with a sketchbook drawing. Needless to say, the pictures are not intended for any salon in Paris, they cause me not the least suspicion that the national gallery of any country will suddenly decide to raise taxes to acquire them. But, just as any mother lavishes most affection on her ugliest son, so I feel secretly drawn to the very skill that comes to me least easily." Thus wrote Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in 1900 to his friend and scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, aptly describing his sudden interest in fine arts. A prolific poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright, Tagore was the first non-European recipient of Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 and later established the Visva Bharati, bringing in learned men from different parts of the globe to make it a "common institution for the East and the West." Interestingly, Tagore put his baby steps in drawing and painting at the ripe age of 40 but gave it up. When Argentine writer and intellectual Victoria Ocampo chanced upon Tagore’s doodles while penning his manuscripts during the latter’s stay in Argentina, Tagore, then 60, took it up seriously. Founder and publisher of the magazine Sur, the most important literary magazine of its time in Latin America, Ocampo wrote, "He played with erasures following from verse to verse with his pen, making lines that suddenly jumped into life — prehistoric monsters, birds, faces." That is when his tryst with the world of coloured ink and poster colours began. What started as doodles on his manuscripts suddenly turned to be a passion for work of art. His nephew Abindranth, credited with the Bengal School of Art, said, "It was as though suddenly a volcano erupted." Within a span of 13 years, Tagore did some 2000 works. And it is from this body of work that Prof. Raman Siva Kumar of Visva-Bharati University has curated a show titled, The Last Harvest, to commemorate 150th birth anniversary of Tagore. The show was exhibited and received tremendous response at nine major museums across three continents of Asia, Europe and America. In India, too, at major art galleries like National Gallery of Modern Art at Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata showcased his work. Certainly not a master of brush and pen, Tagore’s work speaks in volumes of silence and is a window to his sublime thoughts for he gave expression in a media which he was still mastering. Seen in a group, his works show a complete essay of emotions, events in his life, or even the reflection from the characters of his plays. Avoiding paints, he was exultant with the medium he was most conversant with — ink — red, black, blue, brown and green ink — limiting himself to pencil and poster colours. His lines — neat, rhythmic and clean — the works are the outpourings of a child trapped in a man’s body. One who has been witness to scores of summers but just become familiar with the alphabets. His paintings of nature, animals, or faces don’t show hesitation in his thoughts. Tagore’s paintings express coherence of thought. For example, in the painting of a family, all are sitting desolately with a child kneeling on his mother’s lap. Painted at the end of First World War, it depicts the pain, anguish and helplessness of the times. In another painting a lady is leaning on the shoulders of her man. Her faith in him reminds one of a scene from his play. His paintings of animals show a sort of playfulness, mischief and enjoyment of nature. Tagore never named his paintings, just a mention of the year. About his works, Tagore once said, "One thing which is common to all arts is the principle of rhythm which transforms inert materials into living creations." His lines definitely leap up and whisper to the audience, in a gentle way as a poet would.
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