Important Notice

The expansive, panoramic view of India's western coastline in The Green Cape reveals the wondrous beauty that Jehangir Sabavala finds within nature. Sabavala creates quiet, solitary landscapes with transcendent scenes that offer space for contemplation. "At the level of immediate sensation, we are struck by the obvious physical beauty of the painting as a product, process and parallel reality. And as we enter Sabavala's spaces, with... The expansive, panoramic view of India's western coastline in The Green Cape reveals the wondrous beauty that Jehangir Sabavala finds within nature. Sabavala creates quiet, solitary landscapes with transcendent scenes that offer space for contemplation. "At the level of immediate sensation, we are struck by the obvious physical beauty of the painting as a product, process and parallel reality. And as we enter Sabavala's spaces, with trepidation, to inhabit them, we apprehend their disquieting tranquillity; the paradox underscores the artist's uncertainty about his place in the universe, his nostalgia for the infinite." (Ranjit Hoskote, Pilgrim, Exile, Sorcerer: The Painterly Evolution of Jehangir Sabavala, Bombay: Eminence Designs Pvt. Ltd., 1998, p. 101)

The present lot suggests a mystical bond between the individual and the cosmos. Sabavala's figures are often described as pilgrims, or lost souls, yearning through serene terrains, making their way to the receding horizon. This sense of seeking is achieved through the subtle interpretation of Cubism which he studied in England and Paris in the 1960s. The carefully constructed, geometric colour planes, combined with his subtle palette create a sense of luminosity. Sabavala states, "I have been seduced by a palette of broken tones... by a visible search for a more distilled essence. I think that so much more can be said by the half-tone than by the blatancy of primary colour... I prefer to haunt a mysterious world of veiled lights and sudden discoveries." (Hoskote, p. 101)

Sabavala's work is aesthetically sublime and is also intrinsically laced with philosophical thought. He was very interested in the writings of the French philosophers, including Albert Camus, who explored notions of spiritual estrangement. "Sabavala's paintings have preserved an introspective, melancholy lyricism, as well as the ache of the Sublime. These paintings are tinted with nostalgia, as for moments once possessed, for homelands once known and now forever beyond the horizon of what can be known." (Hoskote, p. 99)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site