Meeting at the Staircase

Gaganendranath Tagore, older brother of Abanindranath Tagore, was not a professionally trained artist but painted for personal pleasure. He drew his inspiration from diverse sources, one of them being European modernism. In the early ’20s of the twentieth century, he had embarked on a so-called cubist phase, which had little to do with European cubism. He broke down the forms in the painting into geometric planes. This painting contains some of the favourite tropes in the artist’s visual language. Through the use of dark tones Gaganendranath builds up an atmosphere of mystery. The architectural elements often used by Gaganendranath heighten the sense of fantasy. The figures in the architectural setting achieve a theatrical effect.