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Lot 4

 

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Beginning in the late 1970s, S.H. Raza turned to ancient Indian symbolism and its logical language of colour and shape, as a vehicle for his interpretations of the universe and its processes. Centering the unique idiom he developed on the bindu, the simple dot that he was introduced to by a school teacher as a concentration aid, Raza soon built an entire non-representative vocabulary with which he could reach out to the world. “…the Bindu... Beginning in the late 1970s, S.H. Raza turned to ancient Indian symbolism and its logical language of colour and shape, as a vehicle for his interpretations of the universe and its processes. Centering the unique idiom he developed on the bindu, the simple dot that he was introduced to by a school teacher as a concentration aid, Raza soon built an entire non-representative vocabulary with which he could reach out to the world. “…the Bindu represents the indivisible unity of the static female principle and the male kinetic principle, which together in their unity create the entire universe of matter and spirit. Therefore, it is the smallest unity beyond which energy cannot be condensed. In cosmological terms, it is the creative matrix of the universe, the visva-bija – the world-seed – the central energy from which all things originate and return. The root forms from which yantras or sacred diagrams are constructed are the circle, the triangle and the square. The circle is an expanded Bindu within which lies the notion that time has no beginning or end. The triangle is a primary enclosure since space cannot be bounded by fewer than three lines. Hence, it is feminine power while the triangle, with its apex upwards, denotes the male principle” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p.162).

The present lot, executed in 2006, is steeped in Raza’s non-representative geometric symbolism, and resonates with a powerful energy which is doubled by the artist’s strong blue-black palette. Aptly titled Genesis, this canvas celebrates origins and birth, which occurs through the union of the feminine and the masculine principles, denoted by the series of alternating inverted and upright triangles on the surface. Birth is further emphasized by the black bindu and large inverted triangle at the center, symbolic of the womb, as well as by the cool colour scheme indicating the element Water – the site of the first life.

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