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Primary sourcePaintingundated

Mask-like Pastel Drawing

Rabindranath Tagore · undated

An undated ink drawing by Rabindranath Tagore showing a stylized, mask-like head, part of his late experimental visual art.

This is one of Tagore's own late-life drawings, showing his lesser-known work as a visual artist.

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Black-and-white drawing of a stylized head resembling a mask, with a large oval eye and a curved beaked outline, set in profile on a long neck above shoulders filled with dense dark hatching. A face in profile appears at the right edge.
Rabindranath Tagore, mask-like ink drawing, undated.

About this source

What it is

This is an ink-on-paper drawing by Rabindranath Tagore, showing a stylized head that resembles a mask, with a large oval eye and a beaked profile. The date is not recorded.

Why it matters

Tagore began drawing and painting seriously late in life, developing a distinctive style influenced by doodles and corrections in his manuscripts. This mask-like image reflects a primitivist strain in his art, showing he was not only a writer but also a visual experimenter who explored strange, dreamlike forms.

Look closer

  • What feelings does the mask-like face suggest to you?
  • Why might a famous poet turn to drawing faces instead of words?
  • What is left out or distorted compared to a real face?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Rabindranath Tagore on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Rabindranath Tagore sources

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Title page of the book Gitanjali (Song Offerings) by Rabindranath Tagore, a collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats, published by Macmillan and Co., London, 1913.Book

Primary source

Song Offerings

Rabindranath Tagore · 1912

Black and white photograph of Rabindranath Tagore leaving a building, Sigtuna, May 1921.Photograph

Primary source

Tagore Leaves the Sigtuna Foundation

Bertil Waldén · May 1921

Title page of Gitanjali (Song Offerings) by Rabindranath Tagore, a collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats. Macmillan and Co., Limited, London, 1913.Book

Primary source

Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore · 1910

Black and white photograph of Rabindranath Tagore standing with K.B. Westman and M. Björkqvist, Sigtuna, May 1921.Photograph

Primary source

Tagore with K.B. Westman and M. Björkqvist

Bertil Waldén · May 1921

Piano sheet music score titled 'Jana Gana Mana' by Rabindranath Tagore, in D minor/F major key with 4/4 time, tempo 96, two staves (treble clef) with dynamics like f, p, ff and a fermata at the end.Document

Primary source

Jana Gana Mana

Rabindranath Tagore · 11 December 1911

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