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Lot Essay
The light of the setting sun is like a lotus
The petals close in the darkness
But will bloom again like new verse
Not fatigued but imbued with hope
As the sun rises anew...
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
This short poem was originally written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1926, during a brief stay at Balatonfured in Hungary (poem 142 in Rabindra Bhavan manuscript no. 8, p. 53), and published the next year in the poet's only bilingual collection of verses titled Lekhan.
In this piece, dated 1937, Tagore has handwritten the epigrammatic poem on one of his letterheads from Uttarayan, his home in Santiniketan, probably as a gift. As Tagore noted in the introduction to Lekhan, almost all its short poems originated as 'gifts' or autographs during his travels in Japan and China, where he was often asked to write a few works on pieces of silk or fans for his many admirers.
Here, the poet's words have been illuminated with a delicate watercolour rendering of flowers, and inset in a specially designed and painted mount. The illustrations around the poem, likely completed by one of Abanindranath Tagore's students at Santiniketan, underscore the tone of the Nobel Laureate's words. Against a twilight sky, the last light of the setting sun reveals a pair of birds settling down for the night on the branches of a finely rendered tree. Above the poem, a translucent, wraith-like figure seems to dance in the sky, celebrating the close of one day and the imminent beginning of a 'new dawn'.
The petals close in the darkness
But will bloom again like new verse
Not fatigued but imbued with hope
As the sun rises anew...
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
This short poem was originally written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1926, during a brief stay at Balatonfured in Hungary (poem 142 in Rabindra Bhavan manuscript no. 8, p. 53), and published the next year in the poet's only bilingual collection of verses titled Lekhan.
In this piece, dated 1937, Tagore has handwritten the epigrammatic poem on one of his letterheads from Uttarayan, his home in Santiniketan, probably as a gift. As Tagore noted in the introduction to Lekhan, almost all its short poems originated as 'gifts' or autographs during his travels in Japan and China, where he was often asked to write a few works on pieces of silk or fans for his many admirers.
Here, the poet's words have been illuminated with a delicate watercolour rendering of flowers, and inset in a specially designed and painted mount. The illustrations around the poem, likely completed by one of Abanindranath Tagore's students at Santiniketan, underscore the tone of the Nobel Laureate's words. Against a twilight sky, the last light of the setting sun reveals a pair of birds settling down for the night on the branches of a finely rendered tree. Above the poem, a translucent, wraith-like figure seems to dance in the sky, celebrating the close of one day and the imminent beginning of a 'new dawn'.