Explanation

Sister Nivedita (Margaret Noble), the Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda, famously hailed Abanindranath Tagore's 'Bharat Mata' (1905) as the 'first masterpiece of Indian art'. Painted during the Swadeshi movement, the work depicts the motherland as a saffron-robed woman holding a book, sheaves of paddy, a garland and white cloth — becoming the defining icon of the Bengal School of Art. The Bengal School deliberately rejected European academic realism (the style of Raja Ravi Varma, option B) in favour of indigenous Indian aesthetics drawn from Mughal miniatures and Ajanta. Neither 'Sita in Captivity in Lanka' (option C) nor Nandalal Bose's 'Sati' (option D) was described in these terms by Nivedita.