Human Figures in Rabindranath Tagore’s Paintings

Rabindranath Tagore began painting relatively late in his career when he was in his sixties. Nevertheless he produced thousands of works and was the first Indian artist to exhibit his works across Europe, Russia and the United States in 1930. His painting style was very individual, characterized by simple bold forms and a rhythmic quality, and later served to inspire many modern Indian artists. Tagore painted landscapes, animal figures and human faces. The human faces are a prominent constant in his artistic works. This motif shows his infinite interest in human persona. He turned the faces into a mask or a hieratic symbol of a social type in his paintings. His faces are varied in appearance and social stature and they encompass within their own lineaments of vast human experience.