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“...It took many long years before I could realise in successive stages of my development the real significance of the bindu as a primordial symbol of energy, the still centre or the seed. The concept has pursued me as a lodestar, guiding my life and my work as a painter, all through my life.”

S H Raza’s art underwent a pivotal transformation in the late 1970s as he moved away from the gestural brushstrokes that characterised his... “...It took many long years before I could realise in successive stages of my development the real significance of the bindu as a primordial symbol of energy, the still centre or the seed. The concept has pursued me as a lodestar, guiding my life and my work as a painter, all through my life.”

S H Raza’s art underwent a pivotal transformation in the late 1970s as he moved away from the gestural brushstrokes that characterised his works of the previous decades. His awareness of his Indian identity, after having lived in France for over 20 years, was reinvigorated during visits back home in the 1970s and 1980s. He discovered the works of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh and other poets, which heightened the elements of spirituality and Indian metaphysical thought and cosmological concepts of his own art. He transitioned from representing his perception of nature to examining the very elements that made up its essence.

Embracing geometric abstraction and a symbolic use of colour, Raza became increasingly focussed on the “pictorial logic of form”. (Artist quoted in Geeti Sen, “Bindu: The Point”, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia Ltd, 1997, p. 134) His compositions explored variations of lines, diagonals, triangles, and squares, all centred around the circle or bindu-a motif that would come to define his career. Reflecting on his process he once explained, “...I started from scratch, in a state of darkness (with the) eyes closed. Yes, darkness. And gradually, from almost a vacuum, from nothing, forms started emerging [...] the entire research of thirty years or more brought me to the conclusion that the most significant form was a point; a point which can be enlarged to a circle; a circle divided by two lines, one horizontal, the other vertical; the intersection of these two lines creates energy.” (Artist quoted in Sen, “Tam Shunya: Black Void”, p. 107)

Raza was first introduced to the image of the bindu by his teacher Nandlal Jharia, in his native village of Babaria in the Mandala district of Madhya Pradesh. He was encouraged to concentrate on the small black dot drawn on the wall of his school verandah to quell his restless young mind. This formative image later briefly resurfaced in his art during the 1950s as the “black sun” but took on a deeper emotional and philosophical significance from the 1980s onwards. The bindu became a cornerstone of Raza’s later works, appearing in various forms ranging from a small, concentrated dot to a large black orb that envelops the pictorial space. It was more than just a graphic device to him; it embodied multiple meanings beginning with the Indian philosophical concept of shunya, or a void, similar to the point from which the universe was created. It also symbolised the beej or seed of creation “bearing the potential of all life… It is also a visible form containing all the essential requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space. The black space is charged with latent forces aspiring for fulfilment.” (Artist quoted in Sen, p. 134)

At the heart of the present lot, the bindu forms the nucleus of the canvas, radiating immense concentrated energy. “Within this space, the radiant image becomes a sign: an icon for meditation. We centre our minds upon this single form, upon the epicentre [...] The inherent paradox of this image which is at once motionless, dense and opaque, and yet in movement- imbues the single form with mysterious powers.” (Sen, p. 131)

Raza’s approach to colour was just as deliberate as his focus on the pictorial form. Black, in which the bindu is most often rendered, held deep importance to him as the colour from which all colours emerge. Drawing on the Rasa theory, he also carefully employed primary colours such as red, blue, white, and yellow, not only for their emotive value but also to represent the fundamental elements of earth, water, wind, and fire, which constitute the essence of nature and the universe. As he once remarked, “The heartbeat of a painting depends on the right orchestration of these elements, and their variations [...] The highest perception is of an intuitive order, where all human faculties participate, including the intellect- which is ultimately a minor participant in the creative process. Whatever direction the expression may take, the language of Form imposes its own inner logic, and reveals itself with infinite variations and mutations. The mind can perceive these mysteries only partially. This stage is total bliss, and defies analysis.” (Sen, p. 109)

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