Observe the image and answer the following question.
What is the significance of the open-air sculpture in the image?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → It is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India.
Option (1) It replaces the notion of portraits of kings or British dignitaries on a high pedestal. — Incorrect. This is said of D. P. Roy Chowdhury’s Triumph of Labour, whose group of workers stands on a high pedestal. The work shown is placed on a low pedestal.
Option (2) A socialist poet, Mulk Raj Anand, wrote movingly about it. — Incorrect. Mulk Raj Anand wrote about Amarnath Sahgal’s bronze Cries Un-heard. It is not the work shown.
Option (3) It is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India. — Correct. The sculpture is Ramkinker Baij’s Santhal Family (1937), outside Kala Bhavana, Shantiniketan. It is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India.
Option (4) Its originality and boldness of imagination have recently attracted a lot of attention. — Incorrect. This is said of Mrinalini Mukherjee’s fibre works such as Vanshri, which were long dismissed as craft. It is not the work shown.
NCERT (2026-27): “Santhal Family This is an open air large-scale sculpture created by Ramkinker Baij in 1937. It is made out of metal armature and cement mixed with pebbles, and placed in the compound of Kala Bhavana, Shantiniketan, India’s first national art school. … It is placed on a low pedestal, making us feel as if we are part of the same space. The significance of this work is that it is regarded as the first public modernist sculpture in India. We do not need to go to a museum to see it as it is placed outside Kala Bhavana.”
|
