Lot No. 5: BOSE, NANDALAL

BOSE, NANDALAL

UNTITLED (SARASWATI)

Image Size: 23 x 40 cm (9 x 15.7 inches)

Mount/Sheet Size: 33.5 x 50.6 cm (13 x 19.9 inches)

Signed by the artist
Signed in Bengali (lower right)

This early rendition of Saraswati is a significant work that anticipates Nandalal Bose’s celebrated 1941 Saraswati, now in the NGMA collection. While simpler in its treatment, this version already demonstrates the artist’s evolving command over a decorative visual language that would later culminate in the 1941 masterpiece.

Rendered with flowing contours, stylised floral motifs, and a gracefully poised figure, the work reflects Bose’s exploration of how the iconic, the symbolic, and the narrative could be absorbed into a unified decorative structure. The soft tonal harmonies, the rhythmic sway of the veena, and the enveloping field of stylised lotuses reveal his early search for a pictorial syntax rooted not in dramatic expression but in the orchestration of line, proportion, and space.

Seen in relation to the NGMA Saraswati of 1941 where these ideas reach their fullest articulation this earlier study assumes particular importance. It reflects Bose’s process of refining the figure, the drapery, the ornamental environment, and the overall compositional rhythm that later define the 1941 work. In both, he affirms a conviction similar to that expressed by Matisse: that a painter’s thought is inseparable from his pictorial means, and that expression resides in the entire arrangement of the picture rather than in overt emotional gesture.

This piece therefore stands as an essential step in Bose’s pursuit of a distinct decorative modernism, an exploration through which he transformed a traditional icon into a harmoniously patterned, deeply expressive visual composition.

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Provenance : Collection of a Gentleman

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NON-EXPORTABLE NATIONAL ART TREASURE

About Artist

Nandlal Bose (1882 – 1966)

Born in Kharagpur in 1882, Nandalal spent his early life in the Kharagpur and Darbhanga area where he learnt to love nature and the simple ways of country life. He would spend hours watching the local artisans in their craft of making toys out of…...Read More

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