Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore is an institution in his own right, integral not only to the idea of Bengal, but that of India as it is breathed today. He was a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, composer, artist and founder of the iconic Santiniketan institution, Visva-Bharati - conceived as a meeting place for the like-minded from across the world, inspired by the Upanishadic ideals of education for the new age.
He was Asia’s first Nobel prize awardee, and for a short time, among the leaders of the swadeshi movement. Tagore was regarded as a cultural ambassador, marrying Eastern and Western philosophies, espousing a manner of universalism tethered to the natural world and embodied by the Santiniketan School of Art. A stalwart of the Bengal Renaissance, he fostered the modernist movement in India - along with Nandalal Bose - and nurtured future generations of acclaimed modernists, including Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. Tagore’s own art signalled a departure from his philosophies affirming the inherent goodness and beauty of humankind and the natural world. His paintings reflect a dark, brooding interiority - distorted or semi-expressionist faces inhabit nebulous, half-lit dreamscapes and provoke a poignant, often eerie sense of the depths of the self and subconscious.
Tagore applied the essential practice of intellectual inquiry to each of his creative endeavours, and while his vast contributions no less than revolutionised India, they also refined the intellectual and cultural axes of the world. 

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