National Gallery of Modern Art-Parikraman

Nandalal Bose

A Sketch from Album No. 71 8850 Nandalal Bose Pen & Ink on postcard

Nandalal preferred drawing from life, often sketching outdoors with the subject being life, nature studies, landscapes, figure drawings, animals. Often the sketches were small in scale although invigorating with the rich detailing of the artist's observations, experiences and sojourns to various places. In this pen and ink drawing the artist has represented a night watchman on his night vigil holding a staff in one hand and a light torch in the other as he blows into his whistles. The night scene is also suggested by the starry night with a crescent moon and a man sleeping as visible through his window at some distance. R. Siva Kumar in the book, 'Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose' writes, "In spite of specificities of location, not all of his drawings were done on location. Nandalal used drawing as a part of his pedagogic method, as a technique to awaken students' impulses to explore experiential realities, but at the same time he insisted that they do both studies from nature and drawings from memory.