Context:
Year-long celebrations marking 150 years of Abanindranath Tagore will kick off in August 2021, with a host of online workshops and talks paying tributes to the leading light of the Bengal School of Art.
Relevance:
Prelims, GS-I: Art and Culture
Dimensions of the Article:
- Abanindranath Tagore
Abanindranath Tagore
- Abanindranath Tagore was the principal artist and creator of ‘Indian Society of Oriental Art’ and the first major exponent of swadeshi values in Indian art.
- He was the First Indian artist to gain international recognition.
- He founded the influential Bengal school of art, which led to the development of modern Indian painting.
- Abarindranath Tagore was a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore.
- Popularly known as ‘Aban Thakur’, his books Rajkahini, Budo Angla, Nalak, and Ksheerer Putul are landmarks in Bengali language children’s literature.
- Tagore sought to modernize Moghul and Rajput styles in order to counter the influence of Western models of art, as taught in Art Schools under the British Raj and developed the Indian style of painting, later known as Bengal school of art.
- His work was very successful and was eventually accepted and promoted as a national Indian style within British art institutions under the epithet of Indian Society of Oriental Art.
-Source: The Hindu
