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Artist and Teacher - Nandalal Bose

Nandalal Bose was an Indian artist and teacher born in 1882 in a middle-class Bengali family. Despite his passion for art from a young age, he struggled to convince his family to allow him to study art. He eventually enrolled in the Calcutta School of Art where he excelled. Bose was deeply influenced by Abanindranath Tagore's paintings and became his disciple for five years, developing his own unique style blending Indian techniques with influences from Europe, China, and Japan. Bose's style focused on depicting Indian subjects and daily village life in a way that was accessible to villagers. He had a significant influence on reviving Indian art traditions.

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824 views2 pages

Artist and Teacher - Nandalal Bose

Nandalal Bose was an Indian artist and teacher born in 1882 in a middle-class Bengali family. Despite his passion for art from a young age, he struggled to convince his family to allow him to study art. He eventually enrolled in the Calcutta School of Art where he excelled. Bose was deeply influenced by Abanindranath Tagore's paintings and became his disciple for five years, developing his own unique style blending Indian techniques with influences from Europe, China, and Japan. Bose's style focused on depicting Indian subjects and daily village life in a way that was accessible to villagers. He had a significant influence on reviving Indian art traditions.

Uploaded by

Deb Bon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Artist and Teacher – Nandalal Bose

Childhood and Early Life


Nandalal Bose was born into a middle class Bengali family to Kshetramonidevi and Purnachandra
Bose. His father worked as a manager under the Raja of Dharbhanga. Hhis mother was a
homemaker and also an amateur craftswoman who made toys for her children. Nandalal grew up
along with his four siblings –two sisters and two brothers. Being exposed to his mother’s craft skills
and the works of other craftsmen like potters and idol makers around his locality, a young Nandalal
developed an interest towards modeling images. Right from his childhood he showed little interest in
his studies but his parents forced him to focus on his education.

Education
Nandalal was sent to Calcutta in the year 1898 to pursue his high school education at the Central
Collegiate School. He was then enrolled at the college which belonged to the same institution.
Despite his efforts to convince his parents to enroll him in an art school, he was made to continue his
studies at the college he was enrolled at. Quite naturally, he failed to clear his examinations at
college and had to change colleges. He then attended Presidency College to study commerce,
based on his father-in-law Prakash Chandra Pal’s advice. While at Presidency College, he secretly
learnt various painting forms like still life, model painting and sauce painting from Atul Mitra, his
cousin. He even emulated some European paintings and came up with some of his own. But he
hardly could focus on his academics. Finally, he was able to convince his family members after
making them understand all about passion and how strong its influence can be on a person’s life. He
then enrolled himself at the Calcutta School of Art and now began to excel in his academics.

Influence

Nandalal Bose was deeply influenced by the paintings of Abanindranath Tagore and wanted to learn
the nuances of painting from him. But he was also scared to approach the eminent painter, so he
took his friend Satyen along in order to speak on his behalf. He had also taken some of the paintings
that he had created till then. Abanindranath, who was accompanied by E.B. Havell, was surprised to
see such magnificent paintings by an amateur painter. In fact, Nandalal’s ability to emulate some of
the European paintings came across as a great surprise to both Abanindranath and Havell.
Abanindranath then gladly accepted Nandalal as his disciple. As per the biography and life history of
Nandalal Bose, he remained under the tutelage of Abanindranath for the next five years. Eventually,
Nandalal went on to become one of Abanindranath’s favorite students.

Life
Nandalal Bose married Sudhira Devi in the year 1903. Sudhira Devi, who was the daughter of
Nandalal’s mother’s friend, was 12 years younger to him. The couple was blessed with a daughter,
whom they named Gauri. Gauri’s birth was said to have brought good fortunes in terms of
materialistic values to her father. Nandalal Bose breathed his last on 16th April 1966.
Style
As a young artist, Bose was deeply influenced by the murals of Ajanta Caves. In the backdrop of the
Indian freedom struggle, Bose along with other artists of the Bengal School (including his mentor
Abanindranath Tagore) worked towards reviving the Indian style of art, moving away from European
techniques that had become prevalent in art-schools at the time.

In 1909, Nandalal Bose spent months copying the 5th century murals of Ajanta Caves. Later, he
would borrow from these very murals, the borders & motifs for the pages of India’s Constitution.
Everywhere he traveled, he paid close attention to popular forms, urban and rural, Hindu and
Muslim, from woodblock prints to palm-leaf paintings, to ephemeral designs drawn in rice powder
directly on the ground. He went to China and Japan to study ink and brush painting, and in some of
his earlier works you can see the influence!

Though he incorporated several techniques including European paintings into his art works, he
never moved away from projecting Indian subjects. In fact, more often than not, his paintings were
loved by the villagers as they often depicted the day-to-day lives of the villagers. In other words, his
style of painting reflected the historic artistic tradition as well as the contemporary practices of Indian
art form.

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