Important Notice

Describing Jehangir Sabavala's work, art critic Edward Gage wrote, "Sabavala is a poet who distils the essence of his native landscapes and atmospheres into a semiabstract form that is actually refined, highly controlled and quite original. Within a deliberate austerity that approaches asceticism, he sums up the quality of the light, the climate, the stillness, the mystery, the whole vastness of the place…" (The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 1969). Describing Jehangir Sabavala's work, art critic Edward Gage wrote, "Sabavala is a poet who distils the essence of his native landscapes and atmospheres into a semiabstract form that is actually refined, highly controlled and quite original. Within a deliberate austerity that approaches asceticism, he sums up the quality of the light, the climate, the stillness, the mystery, the whole vastness of the place…" (The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 1969).

Sabavala first explored the subject of cascading water in the 1974 painting, 'Waterfall', and then more significantly in the 1978 series of works, 'Of Cliff and Fall'. Speaking about the former, a direct precursor of the present lot, the critic Dilip Chitre noted, "For those who have visited the Western Ghats during the monsoon, this image is not unfamiliar. The Deccan landscape is Sabavala's favourite though he transforms it into his own idiom. A great cascade of water over a cleft cliff-face, falling with stupendous force, occupies the tight, vertical frame. The sky is a narrow band at the top and it is echoed by the even narrower band of water at the bottom. In between, ripping the rock-hard brown of the cliff, is the sheer, cataracting vertical fall of water, now shaded, now white. The sprays film the continuous or broken columns of water which fall over the giant rock-face...The elemental force of water mesmerizes us by its sheer energy" (The Reasoning Vision: Jehangir Sabavala's Painterly Universe, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, 1980, p. 69).

Although the palette of the present lot is muted, and its square format does not accentuate the vertical drop of the water, Sabavala has cleverly manipulated the image such that it conveys the same force, power and wonder as his previous works. Here, swollen streams gush over a pink-grey hill, reminiscent of the Deccan landscape during and after the monsoons that the artist was so familiar with. The force with which they hit the water below sends up great sprays, their violence dramatically contrasting the calm skies above.

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