National Gallery of Modern Art-Parikraman

Nandalal Bose

A Sketch from Album No. 86 9211 Nandalal Bose Pen and ink on paper

Nandalal had a strong affinity for sketching; his subjects being from the surrounding environs, people in their everyday life or anything that he found fascinating. The artist has executed this sketch of a goat tied to a tree, grazing the surrounding grass. Nandalal has used delicate lines to create the form of the goat, the tree, the leaves and the environ around. The artist emphasised on the strong delineation of line in the calligraphic style in his works which was the influence of the Far Eastern art practices.The artist developed his unique visual language using fine lines to thick contouring lines for rendering his subjects and to bring about the tonal variations using simple strokes to bring about the corporeality of form and substance. Dinkar Kowshik in his article 'Drawings and Sketches of Nandalal in the book titled "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."