Important Notice

Born in the village of Barbaria in rural Madhya Pradesh in 1922, Raza has always incorporated his experiences of natural phenomena and his interpretation of nature and the forces it exerts in his work. However, it was only when he came face to face with the work of artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko over the course of a short teaching stint at the University of California at Berkeley in 1962, that Raza realized how well the impulsive... Born in the village of Barbaria in rural Madhya Pradesh in 1922, Raza has always incorporated his experiences of natural phenomena and his interpretation of nature and the forces it exerts in his work. However, it was only when he came face to face with the work of artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko over the course of a short teaching stint at the University of California at Berkeley in 1962, that Raza realized how well the impulsive brushstrokes, lack of formal construction, and communicative colors of abstract expressionism would suit the themes, especially nature, that he explored in his work.

Abandoning his carefully constructed, Cezanne-like French landscapes to represent an omnipresent nature often inspired by his childhood memories of Indian geographies, and turning from oils to acrylics as his favored medium, the artist began to paint abstract expressionist landscapes in the mid 1960’s. The mid 1970’s, then, represent the zenith of Raza’s engagement with abstract expressionism, as well as the best of his mastery as a colorist.

In Climat, a large format work from this period painted in 1974, the artist uses tempestuous brushstrokes and hot, bright colors to portray his vision of nature through the passion and energy of India, the land in which he was born and raised. Here, climate is not indicative of weather, but rather the all-encompassing, nurturing and powerful character of nature and the natural environs humans inhabit.

“Nature, for this artist, is something eternally alive. It is embedded in the cosmos as a whole and actually does not refer to the world we live in today, but is open to evolutionary questions such as the ‘where from’ and ‘where to’. What we see reminds us of many regions and worlds, which exist in the mind and imagination as well as in reality, and, therefore must be recognised. Raza believes that nature moves itself rather than being moved by the beholder.” (Friedhelm Mennekes, “Soft Polarity”, in S. H. Raza – Paintings from 1966 to 2003, The Fine Art Resource Berlin, Exhibition Catalogue, 2003, unpaginated).

Inspired by Jain and Rajasthani miniatures, he uses a primary palette of red, blue and yellow, in addition to black and white to convey the five elements that he believes shape nature and the passions it gives rise to – kshiti, jala, pawak, gagan, and samira, or earth, water, fire, sky and ether. In Climat, “the sun itself seems to brighten the coloured landscape, and to liberate the colours from the black background. A ‘light’ atmosphere ensues, which reminds us of the process of birth. The colours seem to be moved by the light, and live because they are powerful and strong. Raza’s sovereign application of colour is very obvious here. In spite of the polychromatic approach, the composition of the painting depends on the colour black, the colour of the Bindu – the zero or void – which is the basis of colour in Raza’s aesthetic world. It is nothing, and yet everything. Without it, nothing is and nothing can be.” (Friedhelm Mennekes, “Soft Polarity”, in S. H. Raza – Paintings from 1966 to 2003, The Fine Art Resource, Berlin Exhibition Catalogue, 2003, unpaginated)

The bright red frame that Raza has painted around the piece, like ones he added to many other canvases from the period, can be interpreted as emphasizing “the artifice of the canvas” on which the true “passion and violence of the land” can never really be captured (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p.155). The execution of this frame is more controlled than the gestural strokes of the landscape it contains, and in its precisely constructed form we can see a foreshadowing of the artist’s next period where geometrical structures and cosmological symbolism become essential elements of his work.

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