Untitled

Nandalal Bose is one of the most significant Indian artists from the twentieth century, associated with the contextual modernism that was developed in Santiniketan, Bengal, where Rabindranath Tagore had established a university. Nature came to be a strong draw for Bose once he relocated to head the art department in Santiniketan, and it formed an overwhelming majority of his subjects. The equanimity it posed to him is strongly realised in his landscapes, seen to great effect in his postcards where he captured vast expanses of land or hilly terrain in the small pictorial area with consummate skill. The pre-dominant influence for such works were Chinese and Far Eastern art and Indian miniatures. He eschewed the washes for short, quick brushstrokes that seemed to suggest the artist’s choice of subject rather than rendering it realistically. In instances such as these, Bose indicates the landscape but leaves it to the viewer to grasp its vastness as well as the blustery wind and the travellers seeking a sanctuary from it.