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Lot 2

 

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S.H. Raza’s relocation from Mumbai to Paris in 1950 brought on a transformation in both his medium and his subject. According to critic Rudy Von Leyden, while Raza’s carefully constructed gouaches of the early 1950s comprised a period of ‘crystallization’ for the artist, “…the new phase which was to break in about 1953, was one of melting down and fusion. In the furnace of an entirely new passion for color Raza’s new style was born that was to... S.H. Raza’s relocation from Mumbai to Paris in 1950 brought on a transformation in both his medium and his subject. According to critic Rudy Von Leyden, while Raza’s carefully constructed gouaches of the early 1950s comprised a period of ‘crystallization’ for the artist, “…the new phase which was to break in about 1953, was one of melting down and fusion. In the furnace of an entirely new passion for color Raza’s new style was born that was to bring to him international fame in a few short years…The change of medium and manner were not merely technical but 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-color into a sphere of full realisation. The transformation created such passion that one could best describe this age of Raza as the age of the Lover. This triumphant handling of paint, this living in paint can only be understood as an act of love” (Raza, Sadanga Series, Vakil, Feffer & Simon, Bombay, 1959, p. 19).

Although Raza’s canvases from the mid and late 1950s display the technical skills he gained during his years as an apprentice at the École de Paris, the artist used what he learnt about style and technique there as a means rather than an end. His command over colour and medium had become masterful, and as formal structures receded, these elements took center stage in his paintings from the period, communicating the artist’s unique vision of land and sky.

In the present lot, titled Terre Jaune or Yellow Earth and painted in the year that Raza won the Prix de la Critique in Paris, the artist offers his viewers a hillside village scene from the South of France, where he frequently travelled. Here, however, the small group of houses that forms the village has been almost engulfed by the wild, golden grass that spreads diagonally across the frame. In the mottled light of dusk, not only is the underbrush luminous, but the trees have also become a rich blood-red shade, and the sky is a jewel-like blue. Emphasizing the natural over the man made, this painting foreshadows the path Raza’s career would take in the 1960s and 70s, when the intangible mood or experience that a scene provoked, expressed through palette and brushstroke, replaced its tangible, physical elements in his work.

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