Nandalal Bose will be remembered so long as Rabindranath’s Sahaj Path and the artist’s darkly delightful linocut illustrations for this series of children’s books survive. Simple in conception and strong in execution, this is graphic art at its best. It is folk art bolstered by the artist’s imagination and his remarkable ability to draw bold, unerring lines leaving out unwieldy details. Akar Prakar’s exhibition, Postcards by Nandalal Bose (till December 24), focuses on the tiny drawings mostly in black and white, drawings that were personal notes he sent to people close to him. In spite of their size, each tiny work bears the stamp of his personality and refined workmanship.

In actuality, these are more than drawings on postcards and tiny rectangles of paper for there are some collages, prints, watercolour, mixed media and the humorous watercolour illustrations for the children’s book titled Tak Duma Dum Dum as well. These are all from private collections that belong to descendants of the artist himself and his students and are not for sale. Here, the artist could freely make critical comments on the pernicious effect of British rule on the country, which was being squeezed dry, through a satirical drawing of a giant crocodile sunning on a rock with the British flag emblazoned on its back.

The life he saw around him in Santiniketan and Bihar — not just the human beings but the microcosmic world of insects and other creatures as well — became the raw material of Nandalal’s work. Nothing escaped his keen eye. While there is a tiger here and specimens of primates, the artist is at his best when he depicts fowl and creepies and crawlies. He uses his powers of intuition to peer into their world that is not always perceptible to the naked eye. It is a fascinating world and comes as a revelation. The ink and brush crab on a postcard is as enigmatic as an inkblot in a Rorschach test.

What makes these images even more interesting is that they are leavened with humour. The picture of the snake swallowing the frog has something like a thought bubble with a mocking remark on the victim’s plight. Even more funny are the two beetles busily raking up earth to protect their precious eggs. These critters are sharply observed and look animated enough to star in a Disney film. The pair of plump and complacent quails exude an air of domesticity that only couples who have been in wedlock for ages can possibly do. The creature in the collage has the intentional vagueness of an Eeyore. The insect sitting on the stalk of a plant has the delicacy and poise of similar Chinese and Japanese watercolours. The school of tiny fish darting around in a pond like a silver streak is a perfect picture of kinetic energy. Bengalis will find the tiny drawings of various freshwater fish quite interesting. Nandalal reveals the keen naturalist in him. Unlike the English naturalist artists, however, these are not just specimens carrying labels. They are all living beings whose place in the pecking order of nature is not lower than that of man. Each has a place allotted to itself in the same way that Santhals are lords of their domain.

This is, of course, a prelapsarian universe that is idyllic and still pretty as a picture, yet to be visited upon by the troubles of the real world. Their houses are neat and simple and form a perfect cover for their poverty. Perhaps they never felt any want. After all, this is a world far removed from the violence of Jangal Mahal. Nandalal documented the instruments and devices they used for various everyday chores such as drawing water from a well. The artist’s political consciousness comes to the fore once again in his familiar print of Gandhiji on a long march, presumably on the way to Dandi, scene of the Salt Satygraha.

The biggest treat for viewers in this exhibition is the series of 10 original illustrations from Tak Duma Dum Dum written by Jnanadanandini Debi, wife of Satyendranath Tagore, and published by Visva-Bharati with multi-coloured pictures — halftone bi-chrome blocks. It tells the tale of a sly fox who cons several men and ultimately cheats a groom of his wife. These pictures of the fox who can talk like a human being are in the same class as the illustrations of Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder’s better-known Thakurmar Jhuli, classics of their kind. Sadly, their innocence is lost forever.