1920s

This postcard, painted in watercolour, depicts 7 blue vases (pillars) of increasing sizes. Each vase contains a plant form, the final three also showing an Indian head among the leaves, to represent stages in a hypothetical evolution from lotus bud in the first stage to westernised Indian academic with cigarette, wearing jacket and tie underneath a saffron-coloured robe in the final stage. This last stage is seen through a magnifying lens mounted on a table stand. The entire scene is lit under an artificial lamp marked as 'academic light' at the top. The cartoon appeared in larger scale in Modern Review. The artist inscribed on the reverse: 'My dear Roop, what do you think of this botanical cartoon? Many thanks for your postcard. It is very hot here. All well here. Your affectionate, Gaganendranath Tagore'. There is no postmark or stamp. (Roop Krishna was born in Lahore and moved to Calcutta to study painting under Gaganendranath and Abanindranath. He was involved with the Oriental Society of Oriental Art (1908). Krishna enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London under Sir William Rothenstein where he developed his own modernist style. The artist was part of Gertrude Stein's circle of poets and artists.) The cartoon presumably refers to pressure in Indian academic circles to conform to Western ideals of scholarship. The idea for this botanical treatment may have been suggested by the experiments conducted by the Bengali scientist by Jagadish Chandra Bose on plant growth. The scientist had shown that plant growth was shown to be accelerated by constant exposure to simulated sunlight.