Important Notice

One of the most revolutionary of India’s modernists, Jagdish Swaminathan spent his career fighting hard to promote the artistic ideals that he believed in, and honing his own idiom towards their realization. Along with other likeminded members of Group 1890, the short-lived but radical artists’ collective he founded in 1963, Swaminathan rejected the academic, nationalist, and pastoral leanings of the Bengal School, as well as similar movements... One of the most revolutionary of India’s modernists, Jagdish Swaminathan spent his career fighting hard to promote the artistic ideals that he believed in, and honing his own idiom towards their realization. Along with other likeminded members of Group 1890, the short-lived but radical artists’ collective he founded in 1963, Swaminathan rejected the academic, nationalist, and pastoral leanings of the Bengal School, as well as similar movements in modern European art that originated in the Ecole de Paris.

Describing Swaminathan’s unique polemic against modern painting in India following independence, fellow artist Krishen Khanna writes, “[Swaminathan] talked and wrote about the importance of the numenous image at a time when most artists were dealing with phenomena. He emphatically stated again and again that the obsession with the phenomenal world was Western and no matter how elegant and efficient its art, it was too self-evident and immersed in the practical day-to-day – nor did he think that the manner in which it was painted could retrieve it. By the very nature of its concerns it failed to gain access to the regions of mystery which were central to Art. He had little patience with narrative and didactic paintings no matter how well they were painted. For him they lacked the mysterious realms of poetry” (Krishen Khanna, J. Swaminathan, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1995, unpaginated).

These ‘mysterious realms of poetry’ come alive in Swaminathan’s conceptual landscapes of the late 1960s, like the present lot, from his Mountain, Bird and Tree series. Here, the artist attempts to represent nature in its most virginal and tranquil state – an oasis of calm in which the tribulations of day to day life may be forgotten and the true potential of the universe discovered. A deeply spiritual painter, Swaminathan believed that it was nature alone that could lead man out of his maze of worldly concerns. This composition, then, serves as a pictorial map, designed to uncloud the viewers’ vision and lead them to discover the entirety of their existence. Drawing a lot from the Pahari miniature tradition, Swaminathan’s clean composition, use of flat planes of deep red and fine detailing of the autumnal tree in this work, all contribute to its simple and noble purpose.

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