Important Notice

F N Souza's landscapes offer an insight into his personal journeys, as well as clues to broader sociopolitical events in the places that he depicts and the emotions they elicit. Unlike the cityscapes that Souza painted during the war and through the postwar period in the 1960s - which often featured an apocalyptic urgency and a darker palette - the present lot features vivid colours that are in sharp contrast to his earlier sombre scenes. F N Souza's landscapes offer an insight into his personal journeys, as well as clues to broader sociopolitical events in the places that he depicts and the emotions they elicit. Unlike the cityscapes that Souza painted during the war and through the postwar period in the 1960s - which often featured an apocalyptic urgency and a darker palette - the present lot features vivid colours that are in sharp contrast to his earlier sombre scenes.

According to Richard Bartholomew, "Souza can represent the essence of nature in a small, spontaneously assembled still-life or suggest in an equally small landscape the meaning of place and time." (Quoted in Rati Bartholomew, Pablo Bartholomew, Carmen Kagal and Rosalyn D'Mello eds., Richard Bartholomew: The Art Critic, Noida: BART, 2012, p. 548) Here, the frenzied jumble of what seem to be houses, steeples and other buildings are outlined against rolling hills and vibrant foliage. Souza's brushstrokes and choice of colour palette are reminiscent of an autumnal scene ushering in change.

In 1989, four years before the present lot was painted, Souza spoke about the idiom of landscapes developed by Indian artists. "We can now look back and be surprised at how those of us from the Progressive Artists' Group... came into our own individual styles; our landscapes were not only very different from those of British painters like Turner and Constable, we were, although we were very modern, different from the French impressionists. We were bold and full of fire. Our landscapes were full of brilliant colours!" (Artist quoted in "Red Trees, Black Skies," The Times of India, 4 June 1989, p. 4) Though Souza's landscapes evolved - and became rarer - over the decades, they retained his distinctive style and deliberate use of colour.

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