Prime Minister Calls for Making Every effort to Rekindle Interest in Gurudev’s Cultural Legacy and his values, thoughts, teaching and ideals

Dr. Manmohan Singh Inaugurates “the Master’s Strokes: Art of Rabindra Nath Tagore” Exhibition to Commemorate 150th year Celebration of Gurudev

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh inaugurated “The Master’s Strokes: Art of Rabindranath Tagore” exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi today. Following is the text of the Prime Minister’s speech on the occasion:

“I am deeply honoured being asked to inaugurate this specially curated exhibition entitled “The Master’s Strokes: Art of Rabindra Nath Tagore”, on the commencement of the 150th Birth Anniversary of one of the world’s foremost cultural personalities and a great son of mother India.

As you are aware, we have set up a National Committee with several senior Union Ministers, State Chief Ministers and many eminent scholars, experts and others, to suggest, formulate and plan a number of events that will rekindle public interest in Gurudev’s rich cultural legacy and in his thoughts, ideals, teachings and values. The Government of India has also constituted an Implementation Committee headed by our Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, to work out operational details of the proposed celebrations and to ensure that the commemoration is a really befitting tribute to this great son of India that Rabindranath Tagore was.

Rabindra Nath Tagore’s genius as a poet, dramatist, philosopher, educationist and composer won him universal acclaim. His genius as a painter is however less well known, perhaps because he began painting when he was well into his 60s. I am thus happy that the National Gallery of Modern Art is commencing our national celebrations by showcasing some of these precious contributions of this versatile genius to the world of Indian art.

Gurudev hardly had any formal training in art. Yet through his own efforts, he developed a highly imaginative and spontaneous visual vocabulary. His work displayed a superb sense of rhythm and vitality and his techniques matched his highly developed and refined creative expression. For Tagore, art was the bridge that connected the individual with the world at large. What began as a poet subconsciously joining his erasures, over-writings, corrections and doodles, gradually materialized into a unique form of art. Rabindranath came to enjoy his efforts and found painting to be yet another expressive medium for his restless, creative mind.

In the last 17 years of his life, Tagore made more than 3000 paintings and drawings, and the largest part of the treasure is in Visva-Bharati. I am happy that Visva-Bharati is coming out with a publication of a prestigious set of Tagore’s paintings and drawings, called the Chitra-vali, with assistance and support from our Ministry of Culture. I am also told that the Visva-Bharati, the Ministry of Culture and the NGMA are working together on a grand exhibition of Tagore’s paintings in Paris next year. This will mark his one hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary in the very city where he displayed his art for the first time in 1930, before a discerning and appreciative audience.

Delhi has a vibrant art fraternity and several connoisseurs of art. I am sure many will visit this exhibition, which should then move on to other cities as well. Art lovers can explore and understand Gurudev’s fine sensibility, creative use of technique and artistic expression in these great works of art. We have also other celebrations in the national capital planned and an important one will be held in Rabindra Bhawan this evening.

With these words, I have the privilege of declaring this exhibition open.”

Later, The Prime Minister signed the visitor’s book at the NGMA and mentioned his observations as follows:

“I am honoured to inaugurate an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art that commemorate the 150th Birth Anniversary of one of the world’s greatest cultural personalities. On this occasion we should work together and make every effort to rekindle interest in Gurudev’s cultural legacy, and in his values, thoughts, teachings and ideals.”

The exhibition, mounted from the treasures of the NGMA is part of 150th Year Celebration of Rabindranath Tagore, and showcases a lesser known facet of the widely acclaimed multifaceted genius Rabindranath Tagore.

The visionary aspect of Rabindranath’s genius is most exemplified in his art. The poet, dramatist, philosopher, educationist, composer of a musical genre, Tagore received the Nobel prize for literature in 1913, the first Indian to achieve this honour. Born in a highly educated and affluent family of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore grew up in a very creative environment. But, he began painting very late in his life, when he was well into his 60’s. Though he had hardly any formal training in art, he developed a highly imaginative and spontaneous visual vocabulary, enhanced by a sound understanding of diverse art practices.

Beginning as a subconscious process where doodles and erasures in his manuscripts assumed fantastic forms, Tagore gradually produced a variety of images including mysterious heads, beasts, masks, mystic landscapes and whimsical birds and flowers. His work displays a superb sense of fantasy, rhythm and vitality. A powerful imagination added an inexplicable strangeness to his work that is sometimes experienced as eerie and evocative. Tagore celebrated creative freedom in his technique; he never hesitated to daub and smear colored ink on paper to give life to his disquieting range of subjects. His drawings and ink paintings are freely executed with brush, rag, cotton wool and even fingers. For Tagore, art was the bridge that connected the individual with the world. A modernist, Tagore completely belonged to the world of his time particularly in the realm of art.

Rabindranath Tagore, in the last 17 years of his life, made more than 3000 paintings and drawings. The NGMA has in its collection more than 100 of these, of which 70 will be exhibited. By mounting this exhibition, the NGMA seeks to honour and reintroduce the artist and his artworks. In Tagore’s own words, “We who have traded in lyrics should know that these will not find acceptance in another time. This is inevitable. So I often think that painting has a deathless quality”

The exhibition would be on view till 6th June.


***