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Why does the camel look exhausted?
The contrast between the camel’s lowered head and the load still high on its back suggests exhaustion. NCERT reads the collapsed camel against dusk as the end of a journey arriving with the end of a day. [2]
Look at the whole figure before taking collapse literally. A front leg is folded beneath the animal, while its rear legs remain extended. The front of the camel is low, but the load has not come down with it. The head, legs and burden pull our attention in different directions.
NCERT dates the work to 1913. [2] The National Gallery of Modern Art’s record classifies it as tempera on paper and records 21 × 15 cm, without labelling the dimension axes. [1] The NGMA in New Delhi catalogues it under accession ngma-01832. [1]
Follow the neck, then look back at the load
These two details come from the displayed reproduction. The small whole-image locator shows where each crop sits. NCERT draws attention to fine lines and delicate tones in the camel. [2] Use the details to test that description.
Look 1 of 2
Start with the head
The mouth appears open, and a rope runs from the head across the dark forms below. Follow the neck towards the upper right edge of the detail. It carries the eye upwards even though the head points down.
Look 2 of 2
Then look back at the burden
The rounded grey-green load fills the upper part of this detail. Below it, the body and rear legs remain raised. Compare this with the head: the two parts of the picture give us height and lowness at once.
Return to the whole composition and compare the lowered front with the extended rear legs.
Is the camel a symbol?
NCERT connects the camel, dusk and the end of a journey. [2] The same entry describes wash painting’s atmosphere as a way to suggest an end of life. [2] They ask us to consider how posture and colour can carry a story beyond the animal itself.
The title gives an ending to a posture that might otherwise suggest rest. The image holds those possibilities together: the lowered head can be read as a temporary pause or as the end of the traveller’s strength. The extended rear legs keep that uncertainty visible.
Compare two responses to the camel
In the 1916 New York edition of his book about Rabindranath Tagore, Ernest Rhys quotes an unnamed writer he calls an educationist. The writer describes an exhausted camel kneeling against a sunset in a painting called The End of the Journey. [4] The passage names Abanindranath as the painter and describes a camel at sunset, but uses a different title and gives no accession to identify the NGMA sheet. [4]
| Detail | NCERT textbook | Writer quoted by Rhys |
|---|---|---|
| Posture | A collapsed camel. [2] | An exhausted camel kneeling. [4] |
| Setting | The red field is dusk, the end of a day. [2] | The camel is against a sunset. [4] |
| Why it matters | The camel personifies the journey’s end through the ending of the day. [2] | The small picture reveals a world and is offered as evidence of vitality in the new Calcutta school of painting. [4] |
The historical account makes more of the picture than an image of fatigue: it places the camel painting within an argument about new life in Indian art. [4] NCERT interprets dusk as an ending. [2] The writer quoted by Rhys describes sunset as the setting and praises the picture’s power. [4] Only the textbook makes that setting an explicit metaphor.
The camel within the Bengal School
NCERT explicitly describes Journey’s End as drawing on Mughal and Pahari miniatures within an effort to create an Indian style of painting. [2] The museum’s artist biography dates Taikan and Hishida’s arrival to 1903 and records that they taught Abanindranath the wash technique. [1]
In the essay on Bharat Mata, Dr Aparna Kumar describes his wash brushwork as emphasising colour and mood, drawing on Mughal manuscripts and Japanese ink painting. [3] Iftikhar Dadi’s account of the Bengal School brings together Mughal miniatures, Japanese wash and Art Nouveau line and symbolism. [5]
The catalogue and textbook also use different material terms. The NGMA records tempera on paper. [1] NCERT calls the work watercolour. [2]
Return to the two details and compare the thin rope with the broad rounded load. Those small lines and large shapes give us different routes into the same animal’s posture.
Common questions
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When was Journey’s End painted?
NCERT dates it to 1913. [2]
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Where is Journey’s End catalogued?
The National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi catalogues it under accession ngma-01832. [1]
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Does the camel symbolise the end of life?
NCERT connects the collapsed camel with dusk and the end of a journey, and reads the atmospheric effects of wash painting as suggesting an end of life. [2]