Page 40 - Pundole's Auction M0015

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PROPERTY OF SUPRATIK BOSE
NANDALAL BOSE
1882?–?1966
Alpona
Tempera on paper laid down on cloth
1933
61¼ × 28¾ in. (155.6 × 73.2 cm.)
Signed, dated and inscribed ‘Nanda / Jyaistha 1340 /
Santiniketan’ in Bengali lower left and further inscribed
‘INDIAN SOCIETY OF ORIENTAL ART / TITLE Alpona /
ARTIST Nandalal Bose / PRICE Enquire office’ on an
associated label
??40,00,000?–?60,00,000
NATIONAL ART TREASURE – NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM
(Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale
at the back of the catalogue)
Nandalal Bose was first exposed to mural painting in a
meaningful manner in 1909, when he went on an artistic
excursion to assist Lady Herringham in copying the murals
of the Ajanta caves. Although he was initially reluctant to
travel to the caves, the impact of the painting on the artist
was immediate. As K.G. Subramanyan notes, ‘here he
came before a work that exceeded all that he had seen
before in scale and sensibility. In fact for one who was fired
by a desire to unearth the clues to an indigenous art
language, as he was, this looked like a whole thesaurus. Its
range, its scale, its sophistication, its life content, its cultural of the two large panels on the lower floor of the fresco, of
richness, were all overwhelming...’ (K.G. Subramanyan,
‘Murals of Nandalal Bose’, Nandalal Bose: A Collection of
Essays – Centenary Volume, New Delhi, 1983)
It was, however, not only the Ajanta caves that inspired
Nandalal to explore the mural tradition further, but equally
Rabindranath Tagore, who encouraged him to think on a
grander scale. ‘Rabindranath’s letters from Japan indicate
that he wanted the recent [Bengal School] art movement
to take a new turn. In his words, its work so far was too
much like an ordered garden, and needed to be overrun by
patches of woodland, resounding with storm and thunder.
He also wanted it to come out of the miniature format and
gain in visual impact…’ (ibid.)
Rabindranath Tagore’s instructions to increase the visual
impact of Indian modern art, and a further visit by Bose in
1921, to copy the murals of the Bagh Caves, were the final
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catalysts that inspired the artist to commit seriously to the
mural tradition. He wrote to his students encouraging them
to experiment in mural techniques, and on his return to
Santiniketan, he also experimented with his own mural by
decorating the interior walls of a room in the Old Library
building. A few years later, after Nandalal had settled in
Santiniketan, he began to encourage artisans from several
fields to come to teach his students various artistic
techniques including mural painting.
In 1927 Bose invited a Jaipuri muralist named Nara
Singhalal Mistri to Santiniketan. Singhalal demonstrated
the burnished fresco technique to Nandalal’s students on
the front walls of the upper floor of the Old Library building,
where the Kala Bhavana was then accommodated. ‘The flat
coloured areas of reds, yellows green and blacks, burnished
and shiny, broke out rather dramatically through the heavy
features of the buildings architecture and brought it to life.’
(ibid.) In 1933 Nandalal asked Nara Singhalal to return to
Santiniketan once more, to work on a mural for the ground
floor of the Old Library, but this time the design was entirely
created and painted by Nandalal, with Singhalal providing
the technical expertise for the manner of application.
The current lot is a life-size painting of one of the panels
from this 1933 mural design completed by Nandalal, before
he started work on the mural itself. Subramanyan says
of the mural ‘the result was brilliant. It still remains the
best mural in the Jaipuri fresco technique created by any
modern Indian artist… It gives proof of Nandalal’s mastery
in rigging up a dynamic composition with broad areas
of vivid colour, and his ability to make even a small-
scale composition look monumental. It also reveals his
mastery in the use of line and touch which, with great
economy... gives the whole image a gestural vitality.’ (ibid.)
Subramanyan further explains, that the style and treatment
which this Santhal girl is one, is only ever repeated by
Nandalal in the Haripura posters, which he notes should
also rightly be classified as murals, for they too were
designed to be used as ‘wall insets’ on the walls of the 1937
Congress Pavilion. It is interesting to note that the current
painting had a label attached to it printed by the Indian
Society of Oriental Art, which not only titles the work Alpona
but is further inscribed ‘Enquire office’ which suggests that
Bose was not only happy to exhibit the painting at the
Society, but had at one time offered the work for sale.