Important Notice

Lot 42

 

Quick Zoom

“Colours can reveal innumerable human sentiments that we are capable of and I am trying to make them live on the canvas.” - S H RAZA

The present lot, titled Route de Chomerac, was painted around the time S H Raza visited the USA, where he was a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Drawing inspiration from the works of American Abstract Expressionists such as... “Colours can reveal innumerable human sentiments that we are capable of and I am trying to make them live on the canvas.” - S H RAZA

The present lot, titled Route de Chomerac, was painted around the time S H Raza visited the USA, where he was a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Drawing inspiration from the works of American Abstract Expressionists such as Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, Raza’s work began to exude a new sense and fluidity and dynamic energy. “In California, I found that I shared affinities with the work and ideas of Hans Hofmann. Then I discovered the works of Sam Francis and of Mark Rothko, which came as a revelation… But ... I wanted to aim at something more mere technical command. I realized that my eyes were focused outwards, and there was an imperative need to look within myself. Thereafter, visual reality, the aim to construct a ‘tangible’ world receded. In its place there was a preoccupation with evoking the essence, the mood of places and of people ... expressed through emotive colors and forms, which became increasingly gestural.” (Artist quoted in Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision, New Delhi: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 1997, pp. 57-59)

While it was likely that Raza painted Route de Chomerac while he was in the USA, his penchant for the French countryside was evident. It is what likely prompted him to paint the present lot out of memory, allowing him to portray the landscape of Route de Chomerac as seen within his mind’s eye.

“Be it village, town or church, the world according to Raza was aflame. It was being forged anew through the crucible of recollection – baptized through fire.” (Sen, p. 66) Thick with impasto and executed with broad gestural strokes, the present lot is a fine example of Raza’s intuitive exploration of colour relationships and the sense of balance that pervades his oeuvre. “ What is created in Raza’s fragmentation of forms are analogies – not the outward manifestation of reality as in his earliest works, or the imaginary landscapes in his early gouaches – but “the real thing”, through the substantial realm of colour. There is vigour here, and there is an irrepressible rhythm; but it is no longer nature as “seen” or as “constructed”, but nature as experienced”. (Sen, p. 79)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site