Important Notice

"The heartbeat of a painting depends on the right orchestration of...elements and their variations" - S.H.Raza

For Raza, colour, composition and structure are tightly interlinked to imbue meaning in a painting. The elements he refers to are pure geometric forms which are distilled to relate to Nature. This situates his art in centuries-old practices and beliefs shared across cultures, as art critic Geeti Sen observes. She goes on to... "The heartbeat of a painting depends on the right orchestration of...elements and their variations" - S.H.Raza

For Raza, colour, composition and structure are tightly interlinked to imbue meaning in a painting. The elements he refers to are pure geometric forms which are distilled to relate to Nature. This situates his art in centuries-old practices and beliefs shared across cultures, as art critic Geeti Sen observes. She goes on to note that "Geometry, number and harmony are part of the 'objective' language shared by several religions, used in the sacred art of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Shintoism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism...In almost every civilisation, celestial geography envisages the universe in terms of pure geometry - as the only means by which the planetary spheres can be mapped" (Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, Media Transasia Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, pg. 119).

These elements come together to represent the cosmos in Panchatatva Naga. Raza repeatedly visited the concept of the panchatatva in his work, exploring the relation between the five elements - earth, wind, water, fire, and sky - through colours and geometric symbols. Basic shapes are used to specifically denote various aspects of the cosmos and its constituents. The circle, or the bindu, which forms the central element in a number of his works, encompasses everything and bears life. In holy scriptures such as the Upanishads, squares, horizontal lines, and sometimes inverted triangles are alternatively attributed as denoting water; vertical lines and upright triangles denote fire, and diagonal lines stand for the wind. They form the basis of life and creation. In Panchatatva Naga, gentle gradations of colour are contained within a circle, formed by the coiling of nagas, or serpents. These serpents allude to the energy that lies dormant at the base of our spine. By using permutations of these shapes and colours, Raza maps the cosmos in a distilled, yet powerful image.

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