Keya Sarkar: Appreciating art

Besides art historians or true aficionados, not many are aware of Tagore’s art portfolio. Except for a few well known paintings, Tagore’s genius in art has remained largely under-appreciated.

For Soumik Nandy Majumdar, lecturer at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan this was actually an advantage when he set out on his research. Conceptualised and edited by Sharmishtha Duttagupta and published by Visva Bharati Publications , his book Chhabi Dekhchhi (seeing paintings) in Bengali is a chronicle of his experiences of Tagore art appreciation classes that he held in three schools in and around Santiniketan.

The second of a series on School-e Rabindranath (Tagore in schools) this is a true eye-opener. More so, because art appreciation for children in our country is almost unknown, and certainly for children who were Soumik’s target audience. The fact that Tagore’s art is relatively unknown and not easily recognised made it easier for him to initiate discussions in what he calls ‘muktanchal’ or an environment where children did not have pre-conditioned responses to the exhibits.

For his survey, Soumik had chosen three schools: Patha Bhavana, the school run by Visva Bharati itself and the usual destination for kids of all those associated with it and of the middle to upper class residents of others in and around Santiniketan; Shishutirtha, a school for under privileged children on the outskirts of Santinketan and Suchana, a school for tribal children in village Khanjanpur, five kilometres from Santiniketan.

While the general response of students in all three schools were the same (those of students being wary of the new, to begin with, and then asking for more at the end), it is the specific responses to particular paintings that are insightful. Although the discussions were free flowing with only a very loose framework in the moderator’s mind, the responses did synthesise around a few themes.

Besides expected differences in responses because of varying social backgrounds, Soumik’s survey even brings to focus the gender difference in art appreciation. Amongst the boys, he perceived a certain sense of competitive spirit. Every time he displayed a painting it was as if they had to guess the ‘right’ answer and be the first to do so. Whereas for the girls, it was more a spirit of cooperation, as if they were together in trying to unravel a mystery. They were less keen to hit upon a ‘right’ answer, more content to exploit possibilities.

Mystery in Tagore’s paintings: The dark tones in Tagore’s art together with the use of scratches to draw and redraw create a mood of mystery in many of his paintings. While these seemed ‘natural’ to the tribal children who said he captured twilight tones because “he probably liked that time of day”, they seemed like settings for detective novels to the older children of more urban Patha Bhavana.

The bizarre: By Tagore’s own admission, he seldom set out to draw anything; it was in his doodling that a form would emerge. Maybe that is the reason why in many of his paintings we see bizarre forms, often animal-like. In these distorted animal forms, many student of Patha Bhavana with access to books and televison, found their familiar forms of Jurassic park, dinosaurs or pterodactyls. The children who lived in the villages could relate the bizarre forms in their mind’s eye to moving forms of birds or animals in their familiar settings.

Portraits: Equally interesting were responses to portraits, especially his own. Since almost all the children were familiar with how Tagore looked, his self portrait belied his handsomeness. Responses varied from “he couldn’t really draw” to “maybe he did not wish to reveal himself”. But the comment which stayed with me much after I shut the book was that of a nine year old tribal girl who said in all innocence “maybe he did not have a mirror in his house”.