National Gallery of Modern Art-Parikraman

Nandalal Bose

A Sketch from Album No. 83 9141 Nandalal Bose Pencil, pen & ink on paper

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 ink drawing the fluid handling of the line and their delineation in the calligraphic style has resulted in the realistic representation of the pair of birds against the backdrop of a shrub. Dinkar Kowshik in his article 'Drawings and Sketches of Nandalal in the book, "Nandalal Bose - A collection of Essays" has elucidated about the sketches of Nandalal in the words, "Nandalal's sketches in fact provide a moving record of a humble life and natural environment in which he lived. These are not in any way preliminary studies for his larger finished compositions in black and white or in colour. They are finished and self-contained in themselves like a Japanese 'Haiku'. Their spacing, their distribution of black and white, their linear or tonal accents and the signature all form a part of a single unit."