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Lot 43

 

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S. H. Raza first painted the bindu in the late 1970s; a single, solid black dot that lay unmoving at the center of a field of muted colour. Since these early engagements, however, the bindu has taken on several different layers of meaning in Raza’s work. Sometimes a bija or seed, bearing infinite generative potential, and at others a large black orb, surrounded by concentric rings of multiple primary hues, the bindu has generated an iconic... S. H. Raza first painted the bindu in the late 1970s; a single, solid black dot that lay unmoving at the center of a field of muted colour. Since these early engagements, however, the bindu has taken on several different layers of meaning in Raza’s work. Sometimes a bija or seed, bearing infinite generative potential, and at others a large black orb, surrounded by concentric rings of multiple primary hues, the bindu has generated an iconic non-objective idiom for the artist, “...a language, a genre unto itself that allows Raza and his art to interpret the complexity and depth of ancient philosophy. Raza comments: By very simple means, I am convinced, one can attain infinity!” (Geeti Sen, “The Seed and the Fruit; Metamorphosis in Raza’s Paintings”, S. H. Raza, Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2005, unpaginated).

In the present lot, one of Raza’s larger canvases from the period, the artist has turned to yet another interpretation of the bindu, executed in an almost abstinent palette of whites and grays. Titled Sheveta, literally meaning ‘white’, the rings that radiate from the spherical white core of the painting transmit its white light, spreading serenity and clarity. Here, “Raza’s central image is no longer a pulsing black orb. The Bindu has a gentle quality…It is as if the repeated painting of the Bindu has denuded the symbol of its more sinister, even violent, implications to transform it into and image of almost ethereal calm” (Zehra Jumabhoy, Ibid.).

Likening these recent monochromatic works to a new step in his spiritual journey towards significant form and the infinite, Raza notes, “I have found a divine quest in me to come to the essentials. Less is more. And I thought, that to express my aspiration to the divine, I would use fewer colours, to create a sacred feel” (in conversation with the artist, 2005).

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