Lot 55

 

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“Souza sees himself as a priest of paint. His job is to show God the flawed face of men, and men the beauty and wrath of God. He is medieval in his insistence on the corrupt flesh of mankind and the fire of the divine.”
— (Andrew Sinclair, F N Souza, London: Gallery One, 1962)

F N Souza’s Catholic upbringing in Portuguese-ruled Goa, where he was born, assumed great significance throughout his career as he grappled with a... “Souza sees himself as a priest of paint. His job is to show God the flawed face of men, and men the beauty and wrath of God. He is medieval in his insistence on the corrupt flesh of mankind and the fire of the divine.”
— (Andrew Sinclair, F N Souza, London: Gallery One, 1962)

F N Souza’s Catholic upbringing in Portuguese-ruled Goa, where he was born, assumed great significance throughout his career as he grappled with a simultaneous fascination and repulsion towards the Church and the clergy in his art. By his own admission, he was fascinated by the grandeur and spectacle of its rituals and devoutly participated in its ceremonies: “The Roman Catholic Church had a tremendous influence over me, not its dogmas but its grand architecture and the splendour of its services. The priest dressed in richly embroidered vestments, each of his garments from the biretta to the chasuble symbolising the accoutrement of Christ’s passion. The wooden saints painted with gold and bright colours staring vacantly out of their niches...And the enormous crucifix with the impaled image of a Man supposed to be the Son of God, scourged and dripping, with matted hair tangled in plaited thorns. I would kneel and pray for hours. When the sacristan came around with the collection plate I would drop on it, with great satisfaction, the large copper coin given to me by my grandmother. I felt I had paid an instalment for the salvation of my soul.” (F N Souza, Words and Lines, London: Villiers Publications Ltd., 1959, p. 10)

However, even though Souza once declared, “My beginnings were small and secret, and growth was by contact with Christ,” he eventually came to view the Church’s dogma as hypocritical and repressive. He repeatedly returned to the imagery of priests, religious figures, and Biblical narratives in his art as a means to expose and fiercely criticise the institution’s subversive power. The present lot, painted in 1987, portrays the well-known Biblical episode of the Supper at Emmaus, a subject that has inspired several Old Masters, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Pontormo, and Velasquez, and which Souza himself has revisited several times since the 1950s.

Souza frequented the National Gallery while he was in London, from 1949 to 1967, and developed a great appreciation for the Old Masters, whose works he saw for the first time in person on these visits. He likely found himself in awe of Caravaggio’s 1601 painting, The Supper at Emmaus, which is part of the institution’s permanent collection and is perhaps the most impressive and most famous rendition of this particular subject. As the New Testament story goes, on the third day after the Crucifixion, a disciple of Jesus- Cleopas-and a friend are walking to Emmaus when they meet another traveller whom they invite to dine with them. When the stranger breaks bread with them, they are reminded of the events of the Last Supper, and realise that their companion is none other than the resurrected Christ. Like its predecessors, the present lot captures this moment of revelation just before Christ vanishes.

In the works of Caravaggio and other Old Masters, “...Jesus is usually shown flanked by the two disciples, framing and directing our attention towards Christ as a hierarchical figure. But Souza chooses a medieval style of composition, which aims to balance space and harmonise the energy between a single figure juxtaposed against a group of two or more. Tension in Souza’s Supper at Emmaus is strengthened by the placement of Christ in front of Cleophas and his friend who sit motionless to one side.” (F. N. Souza, New York: Saffronart and Grosvenor Gallery, 2008)

Unlike many of Souza’s malevolent, densely cross-hatched depictions of Christ from the 1950s and 1960s, he is presented here without any distortion. The thick black contours and frontal gaze invite a sense of awe, techniques that the artist borrowed from “...Spanish Romanesque or Catalan fresco paintings that gave him his style. He acknowledges that his visit to the Catalonian Museum in Barcelona was revelatory. The hieratic figures in Catalonian frescoes with their wide-eyed hypnotic gaze and ritualistic gestures are delineated with a sharp, precise line and enfolded in elaborately embroidered, richly coloured garments... Souza’s paintings [...] show that he adopted not only that peculiar transfixed aspect of the medieval image but specific details such as the manner of delineating the facial features and modelling the limbs with a faint shadow on the inside of a distinct black outline.” (Geeta Kapur, “Francis Newton Souza: Devil in the Flesh”, Contemporary Indian Artists, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1978, p. 19) The bold lines were also strongly influenced by the work of French artist Georges Rouault, a devout Catholic who often painted Christ and Biblical scenes. Souza’s Christ stares straight ahead with a piercing gaze. Yet his eyes are empty, perhaps suggesting a divinity that cannot be fully perceived or fathomed by the human mind. One figure looks on with wide eyes, while the other, with eyes closed-a detail suggestive of intellectual blindness-remains unaware of the miracle that has just unfolded.

Like Souza’s still lifes, the painting makes references to the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist taken during Roman Catholic mass. Also known as the Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper, it is a reenactment of the Last Supper-the final meal that Christ shared with his disciples before he was arrested and crucified-where he transubstantiated the wine from his cup into his own blood. A chalice is placed before Christ, with the host or Communion wafer, which represents his body, elevated above it. This position signifies Christ’s presence in the flesh and his imminent transfiguration. The white tablecloth symbolises purity; the eggs, resurrection; and the fish a reference to the Ichthys, one of the earliest symbols of Christianity.

The present lot is among a series of paintings centred around Biblical themes that Souza made in the 1980s. It was around this time that he became increasingly interested in the Redmond Theory, which suggested that the entire universe was governed by the same uncontrollable forces and referred to nature as the sole principle. It is possible that he used religious narratives during this period of his career to illustrate them as counterpoints against science.

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