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Lot 28

 

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"In my opinion, colour in Rajasthan represents ecstasy. The Jain and Rajput miniatures have always been a source of inspiration for me."- S H RAZA

Painted in 1976, the present lot is a rare depiction of the Rajasthani city of Jodhpur, and has an important place in the artist's oeuvre, representing a shift in style, medium and subject. At the heart of S H Raza's art is the celebration of nature, which manifests in his early... "In my opinion, colour in Rajasthan represents ecstasy. The Jain and Rajput miniatures have always been a source of inspiration for me."- S H RAZA

Painted in 1976, the present lot is a rare depiction of the Rajasthani city of Jodhpur, and has an important place in the artist's oeuvre, representing a shift in style, medium and subject. At the heart of S H Raza's art is the celebration of nature, which manifests in his early expressionist watercolour landscapes from the 1940s, the Cubist compositions during his time in Paris, as well as his later abstract works characterised by the fusion of geometric forms with principles of spirituality.

By this time, in the 1970s, Raza had moved towards a more fluid style. In the previous decade he was invited to teach at Berkeley University in California, where he encountered the burgeoning American Abstract Expressionist movement through the works of artists such as Mark Rothko. Raza saw greater freedom in this particular form of expression, and he gradually abandoned all figuration and the carefully constructed compositions of the 1950s, and moved towards the unrestrained forms of gestural abstraction. In his choice of medium, too, he switched from oil to the more versatile acrylic, as seen in the present lot. "Inevitably, freedom is accompanied by remembrance, and for Raza this brought home the hot, burning colours of miniatures from Mewar and Malwa, the searing sensations of his own land. Even as the acrylic medium lends the painting a fluid vibrance, Raza's tempestuous gestures, the tongues of flame in paintings like Rajasthan, will be immortalised." (Yashodara Dalmia, "Journeys with the Black Sun," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 154155) Raza's canvases from this period were emotional essays, full of colour and vibrant movement. "... colours were not being used as merely formal elements they were emotionally charged. Their movements or consonances on the canvases seemed more and more to be provoked by emotions, reflecting or embodying emotive content. The earlier objectivity, or perhaps the distance started getting replaced or at least modified by an emergent subjectivity - colours started to take the light load of emotions more than ever before." (Vajpeyi, p. 78)

Raza began to concentrate on a few selective colours, assembled and reassembled to simulate the passion and warmth of India's tropical climate. At the same time, he turned to the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of nature, and began incorporating these principles into his work. Raza's compositions became more structured, with geometry, framing and panels separating forms within the canvas, as seen in the present lot. In Jodhpur, Raza employs a palette of red, green and black-which evoke the warm colours of the Rajasthan landscape--and encloses them with a broad border, a style reminiscent of Jain and Rajput miniature paintings, which were a major source of inspiration for him. According to Geeti Sen, the treatment hints at "figures and the interiors of palaces which you find in Rajput narratives." (Sen, pp. 102103) By doing so, Raza captures the essence of the place gesturally, as well as thematically. "Rajasthan becomes a metaphor for the colours of India... Rajasthan is the mapping out of a metaphorical space in the mind... The image becomes thus enshrined as an icon, as sacred geography." (Sen, p. 98)

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