An Art Work As A Metaphor To The Human Body
The Mirage


Gaganendranath Tagore
Watercolour on paper


This Painting deals with abstraction( not as a separate entity) but as an extension of the human body. The painting seems to attempt to connect abstraction with physicality by the method of perception by the physical entity.
The dark figure , centrally located represents the physicality of the human body. The grey portion seems to represent the abstract body-that invisible body that is never static. Its meandering lines and images representing constant movement and flow…the flow of thought and emotion that constitutes its very nature.
The overlapping portion of grey and black reveals the connection between the two entities that make up the human body-the physical and the non-physical. It reveals the undeniable interdependence of thoughts and actions. This overlapping portion states the symbiotic connection where one cannot exist without the other.
This frame of the human body depicts the duality of the human body. It represents the essentially static physicality and the dynamic spirit merging together to constitute the human body. Thereby revealing that the human body can never be only static or only dynamic. There can only exist a static dynamism or a dynamic static state.
The different shades of grey could represent the multilayered nature of human consciousness. The underlying layers are masked by the visible layer. The white of the paper being masked by the grey and the grey portion being masked by darker shades of grey, physicality being the strongest and thickest mask of them all-the dark figure.
The grey concentric circles on the black figure seem to convey the cyclic nature of physicality while the cyclic nature itself is abstract as the rest of the grey portion surrounding the figure. The two caterpillars and the butterfly forming a sort of triangle on the figure seem to depict the larger cycle of birth growth and rebirth of the physical.
The two roses springing out of the figure in two opposite directions represent the cyclic nature within and outside the figure as a unity- the unity of thoughts and physical changes.
There seems to be a dance of natural elements around the figure that is stirring it into motion……representing the dance of mind over matter. It is this energetic dance that seems to stir the resistant, unyielding figure(physicality) to dance with it and through it. The abstract force seems to manifest itself through the physical.
The side posture of the body is another depiction of the duality of the human body by being neither frontal nor dorsal. Infact it is quite ambiguous, thereby depicting another aspect of the human body- deception of appearance performed by the duality of the human body.
Therefore, in this picture, the human body is an interplay of abstraction and physicality. The movement of the physical body brought about by the dance of abstraction.
Finally , this is only a “mirage” as the title suggests. An illusion created by the mind of the one looking at it. Actually it is only black colour on white paper representing the thought , the breadth and the action of the movement of the human boby that did it. It represents all those actions and movements that took place during the time span of putting the black colour on the white paper.