What is in news : Year-long celebrations marking 150 years of Abanindranath Tagore was started recently

About :

• Born in 1871
• Nephew of Rabindranath Tagore
• One of the most prominent artists of Bengal school of art in India
• First major supporter of swadeshi values in Indian art
• He first created the ‘Indian Society of Oriental Art’ and later went on to establish Bengal school of art.
• He believed that Indian art and its art forms gave importance to spirituality as opposed to the West which stressed on materialism, thus rejecting it.
• His idea of modernizing Mughal and Rajput paintings eventually gave rise to modern Indian painting, which took birth at his Bengal school of art.
• Most of his works revolved around Hindu philosophy.
• In his later works, Abanindranath started integrating Chinese and Japanese calligraphic traditions into his style. The intention behind this move was to construct an amalgamation of the modern pan-Asian artistic tradition and the common elements of Eastern artistic and spiritual culture.
• Famous paintings are: Bharat Mata, The Passing of Shah Jahan (1900), My Mother (1912–13), Fairyland illustration (1913), Journey’s End (circa 1913).
• Literature:
  • Abanindranath is also regarded as a proficient and accomplished writer.
  • Most of his literary works were meant for children. Some of his books like ‘BudoAngla’, ‘KhirerPutul’ and ‘Rajkahini’ are best examples of Bengali children’s literature.

Bengal School of Painting:

• It is also called the Renaissance School or the Revivalist School, as it represented the first modern movement of Indian art.
• It rediscovered the glories of Indian art and consciously tried to produce what it considered a truly Indian art inspired by the creations of the past.
• Its leading artist was Abanindranath Tagore and its theoretician was E.B. Havell, the principal of the Calcutta School of Art.
• They broke away from the convention of oil painting and the realistic style, and turned for inspiration to medieval Indian traditions of miniature painting and the ancient art of mural painting in the Ajanta caves.
• They were also influenced by the art (wash technique) of Japanese artists who visited India at that time to develop an Asian Art movement.