D Tapati Guha Thakurta The Making of a New 'Indian' Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, 1850-1920, Cambridge, 1992. This image of Abanindranath, invoked in the artist's own corpus of writing and reminiscences, is reasserted in most later evaluations of his work and talent. I can pick a prominent example from the artist Benode Behari Mukherjee's article ('Abanindra-Chitra', in Chitrakatha, Calcutta, 1983), which emphatically underlines 'whimsical spontaneity' and 'emotional urges' as the factors 39 dominating Abanindranath's entire work. These reminiscences, narrated by the artist and transcribed by Rani Chanda, were published in the 1940s and are now compiled in Abanindra Rachanavali, Vol. 1, Calcutta, 1973. The painting particularly strikes attention for the way it illuminates the figure from within and breaks with the western neoclassical conventions of introducing an external source for generating a dramatic shaft of light in dark compositions. However, such innovations got sidelined — and it was mainly the combination of a delicate naturalism, contoured body lines, elongated fingertips and gesticulating pose in the Abhisarika which became the standardized form of the new 'Indian-style' of painting of the Bengal School. Abanindranather Shilpacharcha Sambandhe Smriticharana, handwritten draft, Abanindranath Tagore papers, Rabindra Bhavan Archives, Santiiniketan. Abanindranath Tagore, Priyadarshika, Calcutta, 1921, p. 8. For an extended discussion on this theme, see The Making of a New 'Indian Art, chs. 5 and 6. Benode Behari Mukherjee, 'A Chronology of Abanindranath's Paintings', Visva-Bharati Quarterly, Abanindra Number, May-October 1942. A.K. Coomaraswamy, 'The Present State of Indian Art', pp. 107-10. Sister Nivedita, "The Function of Art in Shaping Nationality", I, II, The Modern Review, January, February, 1907. Abanindranather Shilpacharcha Sambandhe Smriticharana. Abanindranath Tagore, 'Shesh Bojha', Prabasi, Phalgun 1320/1913. I have used as one of the main sources on Nandalal Bose and the early activities of the Santiniketan Kala-Bhavan, the three-volume compilation of material by Panchanan Mandal, Bharatshilpi Nandalal, Vol. 1, Bolepur, 1982; Vol. 2, Bolepur, 1986; Vol. 3, Bolepur, 1988. The largest number and full range of Nandalal's works are now in the National Gallery of Modern Art at New Delhi. For a rich corpus of illustrations, see Nandalal Bose, Centeriary Exhibition Volume, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 1982. His father was the estate manager of the maharaja of Darbhanga, and Nandalal spent his childhood and had his early education at Kharagpur, in Monghyr district. This milieu of Abanindranath Ta gore's art movement is described in The Making of a Neiv 'Indian' Art, ch. 7. This is clear from the writing of a fellow student-artist on the same Ajanta tour: Asit Kumar Haldar, Ajanta, Calcutta, 1913. This vision is eloquently invoked in Rabindranath's lecture, 'Kala Vidya', Santiniketan Patrika, Agrahayan 1326/1919. K.G. Subramanyan, The Creative Circuit, Calcutta, 1992, p. 65. Quoted by Benode Behari Mukherjee in 'Abanindranath', Chitrakatha, p. 256. Referred to in K.G. Subramanyan, 'Nandalal Bose: A Biographical Sketch', in Centenary Exhibition Volume, p. 21. Rupavali, Parts I-III, Indian Society of Oriental Art, Calcutta, 1932. Rabindranath Tagore, Sahajpath, Parts 1-4, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, Baisakh 1337/1931. See, for instance, the articles by Prabhatmohan Bandopadhyay ('Nandalal: Karusangha o latiya Andolan') and Manoranjan Guha ('Gandhiji o Nandalal') in Desh, Nandalal Janma-Shatabarshiki Sankhya, Binodan 1389/1982. These posters — with images of heroic flag-hoisting agitators and caricatures of the British Ra j — all perished in the course of the agitation, with no traces left of either the originals or the prints. For a detailed account of the exhibits, see Prabhatmohan Bandopadhyaya, ibid., pp. 43-47. Numbers 27-28