1913 Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s creative genius needs no introduction. His words have induced larger-than-life emotions and inspiration in people. Tagore’s ideas about education, naturalism and what it means to be human are a rare degree of profound.
 
Rabindranath Tagore lived in a multicultural, colonial state with a deep rooted caste system—a backdrop of racism, classism, oppression and everyday cruelty. This is probably why his work revealed the pointlessness and infantility of ideas like class, caste and nationalism; and he did so with characteristic lyrical ease, making the message universal. 
 
Being an inexhaustibly imaginative human, Tagore’s perusal of his creative instinct was vibrant. Being a master poet, writer, lyricist, playwright and composer didn’t stop Tagore from pursuing the less refined facets of his creativity—like painting; “just as a mother lavishes most affection on her ugliest son,” he once wrote about it.
 
Tagore’s life and work is proof that a creator truly holds the world in their hands, despite the confines of reality. He reminds all of us creators how, at the end of the day, to be creative is to be in love with life. 
 
This screen-printed T-shirt of Rabindranath Tagore is part of a series featuring some of our favourite creators. A ‘creator’—a person looking to influence the world through their creativity—is one of the archetypes in Jungian psychology that we use for storytelling. The creator archetype is special to us as a business because it’s one of the two primary archetypes shaping Public Works. This T-shirt series featuring some remarkable creators is for everyone exploring their creative spark.
 
* Each is printed by hand. This is why every print is unique and slightly different from all others, and each carries marks of being made by human hands.