Lithograph, reproduction of watercolour, elephant, by Rabindranath Tagore, ink on paper, Bengal. ca. 1930-1940

Reproduction of a watercolour painting, printed in coloured inks on paper, in this painting we see the artist explore his interest in movement and semi-abstract compositions. He has used hard and angular lines to draw the figure of a elephant in motion. The elephant has all its feet off the ground, an arched trunk, pointy tusks and large eyes in the shape of a rhomboid. The grotesque concern with the 'unbeautiful', a constant characteristic throughout the artist's work, may also be as a result of contact with 'primitive' art. The artist has created a stark white contour around the figure by drawing the image and then filling the colour within and outside. He has used a very dark background and left it uncovered around the contour in order to let the figure stand out from the ground. He has applied paint in an expressionistic style characteristic of his mature work.

Elephant, reaching for a tree.

Given by B. Baer Esq., 1961.

RF No: 61/1768. Given by B. Baer. The reproduction made by Ganymed Press, was commissioned by the Government of India for the 'Poet's Pictures: The Drawings of Rabindranath Tagore' exhibition held at the Commonwealth Institute from 5-28 May 1961 in connection with the centenary celebration of Tagore's birth in May 1861.
This is one of a set of 40 reproductions given to the V&A by the Ganymed Press in return for mouting and framing them for the above exhibition. The catalogue for the exhibition is held in the RFs. The last page of the catalogue gives a list of the owners of the original paintings from which the reproductions were made.

Historical significance: His own deep feeling for ugly subjects is revealed in the following statement: 'I love to look on these over grown beasts (referring to elephants), with their vast bodies, their immense strength, their ungainly proportion, their docile harmlessness. Their very size and clumsiness make me feel a kind of tenderness for them-their unweildly bulk has something infantile about it. Moreover they have large hearts. When they get wild, they are furious, but when they calm down, they are peace itself. The uncouthness which goes with bigness does not repel, it rather attracts.' (Quoted by Archer in India and Modern Art, London, 1959.)

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali polymath, being a poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist and composer. His work reshaped Bengali literature and music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature and was knighted by the British Crown in 1915.

Rabindranath was born in Calcutta and grew up into a family whose exceptional creativity spearheaded the city's cultural scene. In 1901, he set up the Santiniketan School (later known as Visva Bharati University) on the Birbhum family countryside lands (outside Calcutta). The institution, conceived as an alternative to the educational system set up by the British, was modelled after the forest schools of ancient India. In 1919, Rabindranath founded the art wing Kala Bhavan at Santiniketan and invited the artist Nandalal Bose to paint frescos on the walls.

Rabindranath was involved with the Indian independence movement for independence but maintained throughout, the role of the enlightened poet who champions the universality of artistic expression. His earliest visual work appeared in his manuscripts of poems (eg. Purabi) and comprised of doodles, scribbles and erasures made out of unwanted words and lines.

Towards the end of his career, aged 67, striving to create a universally accessible art, Rabindranath took up painting more consistently. In 1924 he travelled to China and Japan with Nandalal Bose and experimented with brush and wash techniques.
The artist developed a style characterised by simple bold forms and a rhythmic quality. The subjects depicted often involved animals, figures and statuesque women.Around 1928, Rabindranath made thousands of sketches and drawings using brush, pencil and pen. The artist’s work has been exhibited in India and internationally.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali polymath, being a poet, playwright, novelist, composer and visual artist. His work reshaped Bengali literature and music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

Rabindranath's earliest visual work appeared in his manuscripts of poems (eg. Purabi) and comprised of doodles, scribbles and erasures made out of unwanted words and lines. Towards the end of his career, Tagore aged 67, striving to create a universally accessible art, took up painting more consistently. Around 1928, the artist made thousands of sketches and drawings using brush, pencil and pen. The artist developed a style characterised by simple bold forms and a rhythmic quality. The subjects depicted often involved animals, figures and statuesque women.

In this painting we see the artist explore his interest in movement and semi-abstract compositions. He has used hard and angular lines to draw the figure of a elephant in motion. The elephant has all its feet off the ground, an arched trunk, pointy tusks and large eyes in the shape of a rhomboid. The artist has created a stark white contour around the figure by drawing the image and then filling the colour within and outside. He has used a very dark background and left it uncovered around the contour in order to let the figure stand out from the ground. The artist has applied paint in an expressionistic style characteristic of his mature work.The grotesque concern with the 'unbeautiful', a constant characteristic throughout the artist's work, may also be as a result of contact with 'primitive' art. The artist is the first Indian painter to have been aware of the qualities of 'primitive' art and to have absorbed some of them in his imagery.

IS.88-1961