Important Notice

Lot 49

"I remember the days when I was not really very satisfied in the `80`s. I used to tell myself in my solitude, but where is your country Raza in your work? Where is the great civilization that is the Indian tradition in your work? And I started revisiting India, and Indian philosophy, Indian poetry, Indian art. I must say that my language is Indian - matrabhasha Hindi hain – I speak Hindi, and I have also been studying Sanskrit to the best of my... "I remember the days when I was not really very satisfied in the `80`s. I used to tell myself in my solitude, but where is your country Raza in your work? Where is the great civilization that is the Indian tradition in your work? And I started revisiting India, and Indian philosophy, Indian poetry, Indian art. I must say that my language is Indian - matrabhasha Hindi hain – I speak Hindi, and I have also been studying Sanskrit to the best of my ability. After 1980 I went to India regularly for three months and studied Indian sculpture, painting, visiting Ajanta and Ellora, Elephanta, Kutchh Rann, Gujarat, Bengal and trying to study what is most important in Indian art" (S. H. Raza in conversation with Susan Bean, Raza: A Retrospective, Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery, New York, 2007).

It was from Raza`s travels back to India in the late 1970`s and early 1980`s, and from the lifelong lesson of swadharma or the elimination of the peripheral and concentration on the significant learnt from his school teacher Nandlal Jharia, that the bindu emerged in his painting and creative philosophy. For Raza, who has been inspired by nature all through his artistic career, the bindu was both the source of all life and the great void into which everything was reabsorbed. It was the starting point of his discovery of the symbolic language of form and color which revealed the universe to the artist, and today, it continues to anchor the geometric and spiritual symbology that animates his work. Like the black dot on the white wall that Jharia made the young Raza meditate on to learn concentration and swadharma, the bindu is the quintessence of human potential, constantly vibrating and radiating its energies.

In this monumental canvas from 1988 titled Maha Bindu, Raza expresses the immense representational significance of this motif. Here, the vibrating bindu pulsates within a square, much like the ancient Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, or thematic sketches describing the sacred universe. The colors inscribed in corners of the square – red, green yellow and white, along with the black of the central bindu – describe the constituent elements of nature – kshiti, gagan, samira, pavak and jala, or earth, sky, air, fire and water.

"As with a mantra that increases manifold with repetition, so also the Bindu acquires latent forces of energies. The circle within a square, expanding in energy, radiant in primary colors, becomes an icon for meditation. This iconic representation has transformed into a language, a genre unto itself that allows Raza and his art to interpret the complexity and depth of an ancient philosophy. Raza comments: By very simple means, I am convinced, one can attain infinity!" (Geeti Sen, The Seed and the Fruit: Metaphors in Raza`s Painting, S. H. Raza, Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2005, unpaginated).

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