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Lot 57

 

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The emotive qualities of nature combine with the spiritual intellect of geometry in this 1982 painting by Raza. The square format canvas was created when Raza was still painting his La Terre series of abstract gestural works but had also discovered the beauty of geometry. Though the loose brushwork is still visible, it is now circumscribed within a definite frame composed of solid frames of colour. The composition that is subtly divided into... The emotive qualities of nature combine with the spiritual intellect of geometry in this 1982 painting by Raza. The square format canvas was created when Raza was still painting his La Terre series of abstract gestural works but had also discovered the beauty of geometry. Though the loose brushwork is still visible, it is now circumscribed within a definite frame composed of solid frames of colour. The composition that is subtly divided into four quarters hints at the compositional techniques of traditional miniature painting and is at the same time indicative of the changes that were soon to transform Raza's idiom.

The painting is dominated by the black circle at the centre, which eventually came to be immortalised in Raza's bindu paintings. This circle of darkness is surrounded by a series of square frames which expand the frame of vision. The layered composition is heightened by the largely hidden abstract painting that seems to lie beneath and can only be seen in one of the bands of radiating squares.

This work was included among a group of paintings in an exhibition organised by the Loeb Gallery in Bern in 1982. According to art critic Rudy von Leyden, who attended this exhibition, Raza's art "emerges as an entity of vibrating power, metamorphosis incarnate, unchangeable and ever changing like the forces of nature refl ected in the human mind." ("Metamorphosis," Raza, Mumbai: Chemould Publications and Arts, 1985) At this exhibition where the present lot was acquired, all the paintings were sold, acquired mostly by Swiss expats who had some connection to India. In the works exhibited there, including the present lot, Raza displayed the depth and versatility that were to be the hallmarks of his remarkable career as a deeply spiritual artist.

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