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Lot 49

 

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Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde, for the most part, lived an isolated, spiritually inclined life. In his enigmatic pursuit of abstraction, he preferred silence and solitude-the essence of which is reflected palpably in his paintings-prompting critic Richard Bartholomew to call him "a quiet man and a painter of the quiet reaches of the imagination." (Bartholomew, 1959, quoted in Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi,... Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde, for the most part, lived an isolated, spiritually inclined life. In his enigmatic pursuit of abstraction, he preferred silence and solitude-the essence of which is reflected palpably in his paintings-prompting critic Richard Bartholomew to call him "a quiet man and a painter of the quiet reaches of the imagination." (Bartholomew, 1959, quoted in Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1983)

Born in Nagpur, Maharashtra, in 1924, Gaitonde spent his early childhood in Goa. Shortly after, the family moved to Bombay, living in a chawl in Girgaon, Mumbai. From these humble roots, Gaitonde went to study at the renowned Sir J J School of Art, and after graduating in 1948, won a two-year fellowship at this prestigious institution. Apart from the academic style of art that was taught at the school, Gaitonde was also trained in mural painting, and introduced to traditional Indian aesthetic theory and compositional techniques in Indian miniature paintings. "Gaitonde's formal initiation into the fine arts came at a momentous time, for India stood on the brink of independence, poised to throw off the yoke of British colonialism. The curriculum at the arts college largely followed the same pattern as the Royal Academy in London." (Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 48)

In these immediate post-Independence years from 1947 to 1952, most artists in Bombay rejected this pedagogical style of art, and sought to form a new "modern" vocabulary of Indian art. During this time, Gaitonde-invited by M F Husain-was loosely associated with the influential Bombay Progressive Artists' Group. However, even in these collectives, Gaitonde charted his own course, "consciously choosing not to pay banal homage to the social and political causes of the time. The social relevance of art was of no particular interest to him, Gaitonde's kingdom was not of this world. Abstraction, with its emphasis on the autonomy of the aesthetic, liberated him from depicting matters temporal, and he was highly conscious of its emancipatory potential. He chose to focus instead on light and line, texture and tactility, opacity and translucence and on the evocative possibilities of colour." (Menezes, p. 27)

In his early works, Gaitonde adopted the bold colours and fine lines of the Basohli and Jain schools of painting. From 1948 to 1959, he experimented with various forms of figurations, space and abstraction, and eventually gravitated towards Western Modernism. He was particularly inspired by the works and writings of Swiss German artist Paul Klee, whose whimsical forms, luminous colours and exploration of mixed media opened up a new language of expression for Gaitonde, as seen in lot 49.

Painted in 1953, it is a significant work that is poised at a pivotal moment in Gaitonde's oeuvre, when "the need to establish a meaningful relationship between line and painted surface," according to critic Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, was one of the artist's primary concerns. The expressive line, harmony of colour and spirit of lightness-characteristic of Klee's works-are visible. Writing of Gaitonde's works between 1952 and 1954, Meera Menezes states, "The richness of the background, whether in watercolours or tempers, now forms a perfect foil to the finely delineated geometrical shapes that populate his works. Circles, crescents, triangles and rectangles speak of the newfound love of all things geometrical." (Menezes, p. 81) Lot 49 contains the germs of the abstractions and deeply philosophical simplicity that was to reveal itself in the artist's later work.

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