Important Notice

V S Gaitonde is remembered for his unwavering integrity, his meticulous creative process, and his private, introspective nature, all of which came together to produce a limited output that aimed for perfection. The present lot is a monumental work from 1980, which reflects the accumulation of his various influences such as the rich palette of Indian miniature painting and calligraphic forms of artists such as Paul Klee. It comes from a time by... V S Gaitonde is remembered for his unwavering integrity, his meticulous creative process, and his private, introspective nature, all of which came together to produce a limited output that aimed for perfection. The present lot is a monumental work from 1980, which reflects the accumulation of his various influences such as the rich palette of Indian miniature painting and calligraphic forms of artists such as Paul Klee. It comes from a time by which the artist had isolated himself from everything he believed was superfluous to his art or identity as a painter, and only allowed paintings that he considered flawless to survive beyond the confines of his studio, working towards perfecting each canvas.

Gaitonde graduated from the J J School of Art in 1948. His “formal initiation into the fine arts came at a momentous time, for India stood on the brink of independence, poised to throw off the yoke of British colonialism. The curriculum at the arts college largely followed the same pattern as the Royal Academy in London.” (Meera Menezes, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde: Sonata of Solitude, Mumbai: Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, 2016, p. 48) However, he sought to break away from academia and art movements of the time; he believed in learning through exposure and introspection, and preferred to stand alone artistically rather than aligning with a group. Even in his earlier phases, he was “experimenting with painting itself. The creation of texture in an unconventional way, the use of thick lugubrious pigment, the evocation of light and, finally, the subtle balancing of the image on canvas as if it were undulating on water and gradually surfacing in the light...” (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1983)

Influenced by artist mentors like Shankar Palshikar and Jagannath Ahiwasi, he studied murals, stylised small-format Jain paintings, Pahari and Basohli miniatures. In his early works, he would adopt the bold colours and fine lines of the Basohli and Jain schools of painting. In the years that followed, Gaitonde experimented with various forms of figurations, space and abstraction, and eventually gravitated towards Western Modernism, particularly works by Paul Klee. The latter’s whimsical forms and colours opened up a new language of expression for Gaitonde. “Rather than saying I was influenced by Paul Klee, it should be said that I was drawn to the wondrous forms, colour combinations, beauty of line drawing in his work.” (Menezes, p. 88)

By the late 1950s, Gaitonde had moved beyond figurative art, employing instead the expressiveness of line and colour harmonies. He also began to favour oil as a medium, using it exclusively after 1959. “All of these led to Gaitonde mastering figuration, composition, and eventually a relationship between linear structure and colour in a deceptively simple manner. It is an emotionally perceived relationship in which colours ‘speak’ without an obtrusive emphasis on their physical properties as paint.” (Foy Nissen, quoted in Nadkarni, Gaitonde) This technique of using the exact strength of colours such that they appeared subtle would remain with the artist throughout his career.

In the following decade, Gaitonde embarked on a journey “that would take him from form to formlessness, from essaying an outward reality to conducting a deep search within.” (Menezes, p. 98) This was further augmented by his choice of largely monochromatic colour palettes from 1961 onwards, which he achieved through the use of rollers and palette knives instead of only brushes. “He built paint up and scraped it off. He laid it down in layer after aqueous layer, leaving stretches of drying time in between. He said himself that much of his effort as an artist was in the realm of thinking, planning, trying things out.” (Holland Cotter, “An Indian Modernist with a Global Gaze,” The New York Times, 1 January 2015, online) By the time of the present lot, he had also been experimenting with cut-outs from newspapers and magazines, by applying colour to the back of the scraps of paper, transferring it onto the canvas using rollers and subsequently erasing those parts with palette knives. The resulting effect created abstract forms that appear to linger on the surface, much like the forms seen in the present lot.

By this point, Gaitonde also worked almost exclusively with the vertical format canvas upon which colours met textures in a seamless symphony, each distinct from the rest. Appearing across the vivid golden yellow palette of the present lot, evocative of a scorching sunrise or sunset, is a range of calligraphic and other forms. These calligraphic and hieroglyphic forms have made appearances in Gaitonde’s largely monochromatic canvases since the 1960s, and were likely inspired by his exposure to art and philosophy from the Far East. Afterall, the artist’s quiet search for form and harmony in colour was at its core a philosophical exercise, influenced primarily by Zen philosophy, as signalled by the tranquil and ephemeral qualities found in his works.

“In the large, flat areas of colour (which may be called a thematic statement) one finds floating recurring forms which the artist has conceived spontaneously while organising his colours. As they run through the canvas, these forms are knit together by a very strong logic which works two ways: confirming an internal relationship endowed with a spinal quality and managing a confrontation with the area of pure paint. It is worth emphasising that Gaitonde is gradually eschewing the accidental element in his work. The play of colour is always in control, with the vertebral forms serving as a disciplining factor. There is an evocative power in these paintings which operates on more than one level: there is a sense of atmosphere, there is an approximation of music and, what is most important, there is a throbbing mystery about the very process of viewing and responding as if one is sucked into some still centre of hitherto unknown experience.” (Nadkarni)

However, he was also influenced by Indian philosophers he was exposed to, such as Sri Ramana Maharshi and Jiddu Krishnamurti. Gaitonde once expressed his beliefs of being and presence, from which the process of painting originates, as rooted in silence, echoing the teachings of Maharshi. This silence finds pictorial representation in the circle in his canvases such as the present lot. “Everything starts from silence. The silence of the brush. The silence of the canvas. The silence of the painting knife. The painter starts by absorbing all these silences. You are not partial in the sense that no one part of you is working there. Your entire being is. Your entire being is working together with the brush, the painting knife, the canvas to absorb that silence and create.” (Artist quoted in Sandhini Poddar, V S Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2014, p. 39)

Each painting by Gaitonde emerged from a process of deep and lengthy contemplation. He made only a handful of paintings in a year, spending months perfecting a single canvas, in reverence to and guided by the creative process. With his “emphasis on the creative process,... masterful handling of color, structure, texture, light, and his intuitive understanding of how these forces come together to alter one’s perception,” Gaitonde’s works such as the present lot become not only “deeply contemplative and refined objects,” but “containers of an avid, voracious world view, spanning the traditions of nonobjective painting and Indian miniatures, Zen Buddhism and East Asian hanging scrolls and ink paintings.” (Poddar, p. 31)

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