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Lot 38

 

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Raza’s artistic identity underwent a radical transformation during his time spent at École de Paris - his command over colour and medium took precedence over formal structure. His pivot into non- figurative expression was heavily influenced by European expressionism and abstraction. This shift was invigorated by the artist’s fondness for the French countryside - he also travelled to Spain and Italy, while adhering to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s... Raza’s artistic identity underwent a radical transformation during his time spent at École de Paris - his command over colour and medium took precedence over formal structure. His pivot into non- figurative expression was heavily influenced by European expressionism and abstraction. This shift was invigorated by the artist’s fondness for the French countryside - he also travelled to Spain and Italy, while adhering to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s advice to ‘study Cezanne’. Deeply enamoured by French landscapes, Raza “moved out to the countryside; to Cezanne’s Provence... and to the Maritime Alps where the French landscape with its trees, mountains, villages, and churches became his staple diet.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 151-152)

The 60s, however, brought with it a new wave of emotional subjectivity, fuelled by European and American expressionist and abstract movements. This shift “signified a fundamental change of attitude. The scholar, who had measured and calculated, burst through the confines of a limited understanding of colour and space-created-by-colour into a sphere of full realisation.” (Rudolf von Leyden, Raza, Bombay: Sadanga Publications, 1959, p. 19)

The present lot, titled Paysage Nocturne, is an ode to Raza’s preoccupation with French landscapes and architecture, and his desire to immortalise his impression of likeness on canvas. “The landscape with its trees, mountains, villages, and churches became his staple diet.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, p. 152). The present lot serves as a telling example of Raza’s intuitive exploration of colour relationships, presented through broad gestural strokes, thick with impasto. “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”. (Geeti Sen, “The Seed and the Fruit: Metaphors in Raza’s Painting”, S H Raza, London: Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery, 2005, p. 79).

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