Art district · Bolpur, West Bengal
Santiniketan
The university town Rabindranath Tagore built in Birbhum, about 150 km north of Kolkata, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2023. Its sculpture, murals and houses are art in the open.
See first
- Ramkinkar Baij's Santal sculptures, set in the landscape
- Kalo Bari, the decorated house of mud and coal tar
- The Uttarayan complex: Tagore's five houses
- Rabindra Bhavana
- Poush Mela and Nandan Mela
Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur in Birbhum district, about 152 km north of Kolkata, and the home of Visva-Bharati, the university Tagore founded. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2023.
Unusually for an art town, much of the best work is outdoors. Ramkinkar Baij (1906–1980) filled the campus with large figures of the Santal people who lived and worked around it, and left them in the open. When he made Sujata, a tall, slender disciple of the Buddha, he set her a little way from a seated Buddha, and Nandalal Bose planted eucalyptus saplings around the spot, knowing the trees would one day frame her.
Kalo Bari, the black house, is built of mud and coal tar and covered in decoration. Shyamali, a mud house in the Uttarayan complex, has its outer wall in relief by Kala Bhavana students working under Nandalal Bose, with Santal figures by Ramkinkar beside the door.
The Uttarayan complex holds five houses Tagore built, Udayan, Shyamali, Konark, Udichi and Punascha. Rabindra Bhavana, founded in 1942, just after his death, is the focal point of the university. Go in December for Nandan Mela or Poush Mela.