tour 2 of 8
The Art of Peace: Paintings by the poet Rabindranath Tagore
Portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, drawing by Sir William Rothenstein
British artist Sir William Rothenstein drew a
series of portraits of Tagore during a trip to India in 1912 when
he visited the Tagore family home, Jorasanko, in Calcutta (now
called Kolkata).
Tagore
travelled widely in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and
Southeast Asia. While in London he met a number of important
literary figures through Rothenstein, including poets W.B. Yeats
and Ezra Pound. But despite being an established international
figure, he had a deep and binding affection for his Bengal
homeland.
He was a
supporter of the independence movement in India and a close friend
of Gandhi, whom he was the first person to call Mahatma or
'great soul'. Like Gandhi Tagore rejected violence
although he avoided politics and disagreed with some of his
policies such as
non-conformism.
Tagore was,
and is, a hugely influential figure across South Asia, yet his
appeal was universal and as a cultural figure he bridged the gap
between South Asia and the
West.
In 1913 he won the
Nobel Prize for Literature for his collection of poetry,
Gitanjali
('Offering of Songs').