Osian's Auction Catalogue Creative India Series 1 Bengal | December 2011

a BanindranaTH T agore 7 August 1851 – 5 December 1951 King Watercolour and wash on paper, Mid / Late 1910s Signed in Bengali ‘Avanindra’ t.l. 10.9 x 5.5 in (27.5 x 13.8 cm) Condition Minor stains t.l. Provenance ‘Family Collection of Shoma Chatterjee. Ms Chatterjee is the daughter of Manindranath Tagore (s/o Samarendranath Tagore, the elder brother to Abanindranath Tagore).’ ` 800,000 – 1,200,000 US$ 16,000 – 24,000 National Art Treasure Non-Exportable Item 26 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 2000 Creative India BENGaL | Abanindranath Tagore 59 58 “Before opening this discourse, let me acknowledge my indebtedness to my friend Mr. Ordhendra Coomar Gangoly and to Sri Guru Swami…as well as to my pupils, K. Venkatappa and Nandalal Bose - and let me also make this little request of my readers, and especially of my friends and pupils, my fellow-pilgrims in the quest for that realization which is the fulfilment of all art, that they may not take these aesthetic canons and form-analyses of our art treatises, with all the rigours of their standards and their demonstrations, as representing absolute and inviolable laws, nor deprive their art-endeavours of the sustaining breath of freedom, by confining themselves and their works within the limits of sastric demonstrations. Till we find the strength to fly we cling to our nest and its confines...Art is not for the justification of the silpa-sastra, but the sastra is for the elucidation of Art. It is the concrete form which is evolved first, and then come its analyses and its commentaries, its standards and proportions - codified in the form of the sastras...the novice in Art submits to the restraint of sastric injunctions, while the master finds himself emancipated from the tyranny, proportions and measures, of light, shade, perspective and anatomy.” [Abanindranath Tagore, from ‘Some Notes on Indian Artistic Anatomy’, rpt. in Sen, Pulinbehari (Ed.) [1961]. Abanindranath Tagore. Calcutta: The Indian Society of Oriental Art [ISOA]; p.29] from An important family collection