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Lot 82

 

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“Women as sex, life and nature are a continuous strain in most of Souza’s works and he invests them with age-old powers of fecundity” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 92).

Unabashedly conscious of their immodesty, Souza’s nudes are, in all likelihood, intended to subvert the morality and norms of the Catholic Church to expose and defy its inflexibility... “Women as sex, life and nature are a continuous strain in most of Souza’s works and he invests them with age-old powers of fecundity” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 92).

Unabashedly conscious of their immodesty, Souza’s nudes are, in all likelihood, intended to subvert the morality and norms of the Catholic Church to expose and defy its inflexibility and the self-righteousness of its representatives. As the artist explained in his 1992 article “Naked Women and Religion”, published in Debonair magazine, “As a Roman Catholic youth, born in Goa, I was familiar with priests bellowing sermons from pulpits against ‘sex’ and ‘immodesty’ particularly addressed to women, making them stricken with guilt. The Catholic men stood cocky in their suits and ties agreeing with the priests, lusting for naked women inwardly. Hypocrites!” (as quoted in Ibid.).

Although it always defied convention, Souza’s treatment of the nude and the erotic was greatly varied, particularly during the early 1960s, arguably his most prolific period. Some of his women were rendered as dark and disfigured goddesses, lashing out with claws and fangs. Others, with their legs unnervingly splayed out, put their hyper-sexuality on flamboyant display, and still others were graceful and reticent, seeming full of innocence. This variance mirrored the artist’s multiple sources of inspiration, which included the voluptuous forms of ancient Indian temple art, the early works of Gauguin and Picasso, and the perspective and stance of Spanish Romanesque portraits.

This 1961 nude is one of Souza’s more sedate works. The bejeweled queen, suggestively brushing her hair off her face seems introspective, contemplating herself in a mirror rather than brazenly confronting the viewer. The artist’s definitive black line effortlessly creates and contains his subject’s simple, yet voluptuous features. Although her confident frontal posture and blank stare make her seem almost sculptural, her flowing hair and simple gesture suggest a very human vulnerability.

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