Celebrating Light:
A JOURNEY THROUGH THE ORGANIVERSE WITH WORKS BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE ("Gitanjali") AND
HENRI VAN BENTUM
Celebrating the International Day of Light 2023-
Gitanjali / Organiverse:
A Journey Through the Organiverse With Tagore, featured in the latest issue of "Gitanjali and Beyond" (the annual journal of The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies).
It comprises a series of ten sequential video and audio chapters, embracing one hundred mandalas and one hundred poems in total.
Each chapter features 10 mandalas from Henri van Bentum's “Organiverse” series and 10 poems by Rabindranath Tagore from his work "Gitanjali" (Song Offerings).
In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "Gitanjali".
"Organiverse" is a series of pointillist paintings created by van Bentum in 1972.
In total there are 100 mandala paintings and over 100 poems.
Here is the link to the full set of narrated videos and 100 mandalas in "Gitanjali and Beyond", Issue #7.
Organiverse was created in Morocco and on the island of Madeira in 1972, by Netherlands born international artist Henri van Bentum.
All 100 mandalas, only 8.5 cm in diameter, are done in pointillism, dot by dot.
"The work of Henri van Bentum reminds us of organic processes on the cosmic and microcosmic levels.
His work helps me understand the vastness, complexity and beauty of the cosmos.
van Bentum's work is executed with a fine sense of colour and other elements.
I see his work as a paradigm for enduring works of art in the future." Former Professor Leslie Mezei, Computer Sciences, U of Toronto.
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"Organiverse" Mandala #57 of #100,
Henri van Bentum, 1972 (C)
We begin with poem # 57 by Tagore
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Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.
"Henri van Bentum’s 100 Organiverse mandalas, with their perfect circular pattern, encompass and visualise worlds that unfold from the first blue representation of the pondering universe and go on to explore
and explode in colours that come together like the rising sun, the colours of the rainbow, unfurling petals, swirling dreams, bursting stars, crystallising shapes which are infinite in their possibilities and suggestiveness, till the final ones that speak of life’s fulfilment
reflected in the image of the rising sun, meditative and expectant in its promise of life’s continuity."
Dr.Bashabi Fraser, Director of The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies.