Study on the selected paintings of Abanindranath Tagore, 1871-1951, Indian painter; includes reproduction of the original paintings.

This volume provides a revisionary critique of the art of Abanindranath Tagore, the founder of the national school of Indian painting, popularly known as the Bengal School of Art. The book categorically argues that the art of Abanindranath, which developed during the Bengal Renaissance in the 19th–20th centuries, was not merely a normalization of national or oriental principle, but was a hermeneutic negotiation between modernity and community. It establishes that his form of art—embedded in communitarian practices like kirtan, alpona, pet-naming, syncretism, and storytelling through oral allegories—sought a social identity within the inter-subjective context of locality, regionality, nationality, and trans-nationality. The author presents Abanindranath as a creative agent who, through his art, conducted a critical engagement with post-Enlightenment modernity and regional subalternity.

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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is one of India's best known cultural icons. He was, and still remains, one of the most influential national figures of India, whose genius has transcended boundaries. Besides being a poet, he was a novelist, a writer of short stories and plays, a composer of songs, an essayist, and a philosopher. Painting was the last art form to enter his rich creative life. This publication is produced in conjunction with the travelling exhibitions of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings, as part of India's National Commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Since the whirlwind, 10-city international show that the poet-painter had undertaken in 1930, this is the first time that such a large body of Rabindranath's work is travelling internationally. Published in association with National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Trends in Modern Indian Art is a study of Indian Art from the end of 19th century to 1990. Indian Art started with academic realism of Raja Ravi Varma at the close of the 19th century. Abanindranath Tagore who was trained by Samuel Palmer and Japanese artist. Okakura, established the wash process of water colour painting known as the Bengal School in the beginning of the 20th century. His disciples like Nandalal Bosa and Ventappa further elaborated the style of the Bengal School later known as the Oriental Style.

The tumultuous last decades of British colonialism in India were catalyzed by more than the work of Mahatma Gandhi and violent conflicts. The concurrent upheavals in Western art driven by the advent of modernism provided Indian artists in post-1920 India a powerful tool of colonial resistance. Distinguished art historian Partha Mitter now explores in this brilliantly illustrated study this lesser known facet of Indian art and history. Taking the 1922 Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta as the debut of European modernism in India, The Triumph of Modernism probes the intricate interplay of Western modernism and Indian nationalism in the evolution of colonial-era Indian art. Mitter casts his gaze across a myriad of issues, including the emergence of a feminine voice in Indian art, the decline of “oriental art,” and the rise of naturalism and modernism in the 1920s. Nationalist politics also played a large role, from the struggle of artists in reconciling Indian nationalism with imperial patronage of the arts to the relationship between primitivism and modernism in Indian art. An engagingly written study anchored by 150 lush reproductions, The Triumph of Modernism will be essential reading for scholars of art, British studies, and Indian history.