Le clan des Tagore, de l'École du Bengale au Groupe de Calcutta

The contribution of the Tagore's family in the intellectual and artistic field was extremely important. In the domain of visual arts, the work of Abanindranath, Gaganendranath, Rabindranath and Subho Tagore, from the colonial period to the post-colonial one, contributed greatly to the construction of Indian modern art. Abanindranath Tagore was the pioneer in the field of national art. He proclaimed in the name of Indian "authenticity" and allowed himself to be influenced by the court paintings of North India. From this time, the wish to break from the western academic illusionism by rediscovering the artistic patrimony of the Indian subcontinent, was openly called for. Gaganendranath and Rabindranath Tagore found another way to express this rupture. They chose to open the Indian cultural world to the foreign influences. This was a far cry from the nationalist principle of returning back to the "vedic age", Gaganendranath and Rabindranath Tagore expressed their artistic Indianity by being influenced by the Japanese art, the Aztec art, as well as the cubist, the expressionist and the fauvist forms. With the Independence, the tension between art and national identity had become less. Subho Tagore, founder-member of the Calcutta Group, was among the first Indian artists to proclaim openly the desire to belong to the international modernity.