Nandalal Bose (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism.
A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his "Indian style" of painting. He became the principal of Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan in 1921. He was influenced by the Tagore family and the murals of Ajanta; his classic works include paintings of scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life.
Svayaṃvara (Sanskrit: स्वयंवर lit. 'self-choice') is a matrimonial tradition in ancient Indian society where a bride, usually from Kṣatriya (warrior) caste, selects her husband from a group of assembled suitors either by her own choice or a public contest between her suitors. This practice is mainly featured in the two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, though its prevalence and portrayal vary significantly between them.
Origins of Svayaṃvara can be traced back to the Vedic period and few scholars suggest that it emerged from the Gāndharva marriage tradition, diverging from more ritualistic and arranged forms of marriage, and developed as a narrative device within the epics to highlight the heroism and valor of protagonists, aligning with the Kṣatriya ethos of competition and martial prowess. Despite being closely associated with the epics, Svayaṃvara is not listed as a form of marriage in the Dharmaśāstra, a collection of Sanskrit texts on law and conduct. Due to this, Svayaṃvara is sometimes regarded as the ninth form of Hindu marriage.
Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism was an exhibition curated by R. Siva Kumar at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.
The exhibition, through bringing about a hundred works each of four modern Indian artists, namely Nandalal Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Kinker Baij and Benode Behari Mukherjee on the centre stage, put the Santiniketan art movement into focus.