Untitled (Bird on Tree)

Abanindranath Tagore figures prominently in discussions about the beginnings of modern Indian art. Tagore started as a nationalist-revivalist artist, a categorisation that is largely due to his relationship with E.B. Havell, Rabindranath Tagore and Sister Nivedita. On closer examination one discovers that Abanindranath Tagore assimilated much from oriental art and relied heavily on symbolism, but most of all he was an artist of his own time, articulating new content in his art through new ways of expression, simultaneously capturing the ephemeral quality of change and that which is eternal and immutable. K.G. Subramanyan explains, "At a time when one kind of educated Indian was getting progressively alienated from his antecedents and facing the prospect of rootlessness and another kind was trying to fossilise some of these and preserve them unchanged for prosperity, [Abanindranath Tagore] was one of those few who wanted to save them from both extremes and demonstrate that in a dynamic society, the past and the present exist in organic community." (R. Siva Kumar, Paintings of Abanindranath Tagore, Kolkata, 2009, p. 16)