Untitled

Ramendranath Chakravorty had trained in painting at Santiniketan as well as the Slade School of Art, London. This Untitled gouache work comes from a time when he had just completed his studies in London. It’s a refreshing bird’s eye-view of human habitation amidst lush greenery in rural Bengal, rendered with impressionist sensibility. It’s apparently a cloudy day, given the dark palette of the work. The thatched roof houses of the countryside are set amidst fruit trees, probably mango, evident through the typical canopy and the dot-like, white baur—Hindi for the flower that eventually gives way to the luscious fruit.