Rabindranath Tagore’s figure paintings have been termed the “dramatic pictures” of the 1930s for their gesticulating forms in profile, grimacing figures confronting one another, and melancholic silhouettes staring out at the viewer. Other examples feature angular, geometric, or Cubist forms—such as his “zigzag figures”—and lyrical, curvilinear shapes. Tagore’s color palette is predominantly somber, with earth tones, shades of brown, and sometimes deep chasms of black. The artist himself admitted that he was partly color-blind, with red and green blending into the same colors, hence his frequent use of brown. His palette may also have been influenced by the general melancholia caused by the accumulated disappointments of his life, on both a personal and a global level.

From an early age, he experienced loneliness and loss: the death of his mother in 1875, when he was only 14; the death of a beloved sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi, who committed suicide at age 25, in 1884; and the death of his wife, Mrinalini Devi, in 1902, at the age of just 41. Three of his five children also died before him. A pacifist, he was deeply affected by the ravages of both world wars and by the brutality and bigotry of the British colonial administration in India. The somber hues of his art seem to reflect his mental state and emotions.

_{Rabindranath Tagore. Untitled, 1861–1941.}