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Lot Essay
A leading exponent of the Bengal School of Art, Abanindranath Tagore's artistic journey began when his first illustrations, which arguably marked the dawn of modern art in India, were published in Sadhana magazine in 1891. Although Tagore was initially branded a nationalist-revivalist artist due to his associations with E.B. Havell, Rabindranath Tagore, Sister Nivedita and other scholars and artists that he worked with, a closer examination of his life and career reveals his profound engagement with global, and particularly East Asian art and symbolism, positioning him as a true modernist.
Among the many teachings and influences that guided his mature style, Tagore had the opportunity to study with Okakura Kakuzo in Japan in 1902, and with his students Taikan Yokayama and Hishida Shunso at Santiniketan the following year. Compared to the staccato shapes and bold colors that characterized traditional Indian paintings, artists of the Japan Academy of Fine Arts used a brush and wash technique to soften lines and as a way to treat the midground and background. The resulting suggestive and atmospheric quality, ultimately became the hallmark of Tagore's most sensitive works like A Moonlight Music Party, painted around 1903-06. This delicately executed work, featuring a distinguished group of men and women listening to two musicians perform, was one of a few paintings by Tagore and his students like Nandalal Bose selected by the Indian Society of Oriental Art for a portfolio of woodblock prints specially made in Japan by Kokka, one of the oldest arts magazines in Asia founded by Kakuzo.
"Many of these reproductions were printed in Japan by the expert technicians of Kokka, a well known Japanese art periodical. The images were reproduced by Japanese woodblock printing method [...] Japan has a long tradition of woodblock printing, and Kokka color prints of Bengal School paintings are matchless in their beauty and technical excellence. The first thing that you would notice in a woodblock print is the total absence of those half-tone screen patterns with their constant disturbing suggestion that the image you see is mass produced by a machine. Next is the tactile sensation of the paper on which the print has been made. Unlike so-called art paper, which was almost exclusively used to print color half-tone reproductions, the handmade Japanese woodblock papers are much pleasant to touch. Combined with this was the superb skill of the Japanese printmakers, pulling each impression with perfect color registration" (S. Ukil, 'Kokka Woodblock Reproductions of Early Neo-Bengal School Paintings', Mukul Dey Archives website, accessed July 2022).
Other editions of this print are in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the National Gallery of Art, Canberra. The watercolor painting on which it is based, originally from the collection of Norman Blount, the first secretary of the Indian Society of Oriental Art along with Abanindranath Tagore, is now in the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. Another watercolor of a similar scene, titled A Music Party, dated circa 1905 and originally from the collection of Sir E.B. Havell is also in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Among the many teachings and influences that guided his mature style, Tagore had the opportunity to study with Okakura Kakuzo in Japan in 1902, and with his students Taikan Yokayama and Hishida Shunso at Santiniketan the following year. Compared to the staccato shapes and bold colors that characterized traditional Indian paintings, artists of the Japan Academy of Fine Arts used a brush and wash technique to soften lines and as a way to treat the midground and background. The resulting suggestive and atmospheric quality, ultimately became the hallmark of Tagore's most sensitive works like A Moonlight Music Party, painted around 1903-06. This delicately executed work, featuring a distinguished group of men and women listening to two musicians perform, was one of a few paintings by Tagore and his students like Nandalal Bose selected by the Indian Society of Oriental Art for a portfolio of woodblock prints specially made in Japan by Kokka, one of the oldest arts magazines in Asia founded by Kakuzo.
"Many of these reproductions were printed in Japan by the expert technicians of Kokka, a well known Japanese art periodical. The images were reproduced by Japanese woodblock printing method [...] Japan has a long tradition of woodblock printing, and Kokka color prints of Bengal School paintings are matchless in their beauty and technical excellence. The first thing that you would notice in a woodblock print is the total absence of those half-tone screen patterns with their constant disturbing suggestion that the image you see is mass produced by a machine. Next is the tactile sensation of the paper on which the print has been made. Unlike so-called art paper, which was almost exclusively used to print color half-tone reproductions, the handmade Japanese woodblock papers are much pleasant to touch. Combined with this was the superb skill of the Japanese printmakers, pulling each impression with perfect color registration" (S. Ukil, 'Kokka Woodblock Reproductions of Early Neo-Bengal School Paintings', Mukul Dey Archives website, accessed July 2022).
Other editions of this print are in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the National Gallery of Art, Canberra. The watercolor painting on which it is based, originally from the collection of Norman Blount, the first secretary of the Indian Society of Oriental Art along with Abanindranath Tagore, is now in the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. Another watercolor of a similar scene, titled A Music Party, dated circa 1905 and originally from the collection of Sir E.B. Havell is also in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.