Doodles on the page

Rabindranath Tagore,the painter,was playful and fun,says artist Akbar Padamsee
Rabindranath Tagores heads and figures keep echoing in my mind. He was a formidable painter,though he is mostly celebrated as a writer. Those who can read and write Bengali can enjoy his verse and poetry much better than those who have to read the translated versions. Painting,on the other hand,is a universal language and can be understood by all. Tagore had enough exhibitions in India and the UK to lend his work critical acclaim.

I particularly love Tagores heads. I absolutely adore a self-portrait he had painted in 1935. The strokes,in watercolour,are so bold and free and the form appears out of nothingness. I say this because Tagore never made preparatory drawings or sketches. He never did any studies of the human head in the European academic style but allowed his inner knowledge to guide his hand,thus allowing the image to come from memory,what is known as the inward eye. Very often,he would create his forms out of the scribbles he made as a writerin fact thats how it all started,he called them causalities in my manuscripts. There is a playful spontaneity to his work. Though each of his brothers painted,he was never tempted to emulate any of their styles,carving his own path,choosing the ink pen over the brush. When I see those heads,I am inspired.