Journey's End

A camel has gone down on its front knees under a heavy load. Its hind legs are still straight, its head is lifted, its eyes half closed. The whole sheet is washed in red, orange and brown, with a touch of blue; there is no other figure.

Abanindranath Tagore made it around 1913 with the Japanese-influenced wash he brought to the Bengal School. The lines are precise but light, and the colour is misty.

Critics have often read the camel as India under colonial rule, patient and overburdened. The painting does not insist on it. What it shows is an animal at the limit of its strength, and it leaves the rest to the viewer. It is in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.