Important Notice

S H Raza’s paintings from the 1970s onwards reveal an increased preoccupation with his emotional responses and memories of India. Prompted by his frequent travels to India over the 1970s, he deepened his engagement with Indian forms, colours, and philosophies, seeking ways to “go back to his roots,” and “integrate the essence of his life experiences, his childhood memories, the celebrative aesthetics of India with the plastic skills and... S H Raza’s paintings from the 1970s onwards reveal an increased preoccupation with his emotional responses and memories of India. Prompted by his frequent travels to India over the 1970s, he deepened his engagement with Indian forms, colours, and philosophies, seeking ways to “go back to his roots,” and “integrate the essence of his life experiences, his childhood memories, the celebrative aesthetics of India with the plastic skills and sophistication he had so assiduously learnt and imbibed in France.” (Ashok Vajpeyi, A Life in Art: S H Raza, New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007, p. 111)

“From the 1960s and early 70s, when he was nearing the age of fifty, Raza’s works are impregnated with a sense of double identity... His gestural treatment inducts the layering of raw emotions, expressed through colours and through images which seem ephemeral - as fleeting emanations of forms resurrected from the past. Memory plays a strange and fascinating role, in that it feeds on images of the past and intensifies the experience for us - all the more so if we are separated by time and place.” (Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia India Limited, 1997, pp. 87-88)

This was a period of great transformation, marked by his realisation “that colours have both emotive content and spiritual resonances,” endowing his works with “an unavoidably spiritual glow.” (Vajpeyi, p. 111) He sought to explore the possibilities of colour, and thereby “colour rather than any geometrical design or division” emerged as “the pivotal element around which his paintings moved. Also, colours were not being used as merely formal elements: they were emotionally charged. Their movements or consonances on the canvases seemed more and more to be provoked by emotions, reflecting or embodying emotive content. The earlier objectivity, or perhaps the distance started getting replaced or at least modified by an emergent subjectivity - colours started to carry the light load of emotions more than ever before.” (Vajpeyi, p. 78)

Besides the dense jungles of central India that he grew up in, Raza found himself drawn to Rajasthan, the subject of the present lot. “Rajasthan, the land of deserts, miniatures and colours, is a theme to which Raza continuously returns. He has never painted a traditional miniature work: instead he uses some of the dominant colours from the miniature tradition and uses them boldly on canvases which are sometimes many times larger than miniature paintings and also makes imaginative use of the divisions such paintings had of painted surfaces.” (Vajpeyi, p.114)

He found himself drawing from the vibrant landscapes of the region as well as from Rajasthani miniature paintings, creating a rich body of work using bright scorching colours and strong brushstrokes, as can be noticed in the present lot which features vivid reds, ochres and greens that pulsates with heat and intensity. The borders, frames and panels separating forms within the canvas are reminiscent of the compositions of Jain and Rajput miniature paintings. According to Geeti Sen, the treatment hints at “figures and the interiors of palaces which you find in Rajput narratives.” (Sen, pp. 102-103) As admitted by the artist, ‘colour in Rajasthan represents ecstasy. The Jain and Rajput miniatures have always been a source of inspiration for me.” (Vajpeyi, p. 114)

In works from this period, Raza concentrated on assembling a few selective colours to simulate the emotions invoked by the Indian landscapes of his memory. “... colours were not being used as merely formal elements... they were emotionally charged. Their movement or consonances on the canvases seemed more and more to be provoked by emotions, reflecting or embodying emotive content. The earlier objectivity, or perhaps the distance started getting replaced or at least modified by an emergent subjectivity - colours started to take the light load of emotions more than ever before.” (Vajpeyi, p. 78) With this use of colour, Raza captures the essence of the place gesturally, as well as thematically. “Rajasthan becomes a metaphor for the colours of India... Rajasthan is the mapping out of a metaphorical space in the mind... The image becomes thus enshrined as an icon, as sacred geography.” (Sen, p. 98)

These vivid colours are contrasted against black expanses in the canvas. The colour black increasingly manifested in Raza’s works from this period. “For black was the mother of all colours and the one from which sprang the manifest universe… As with Mark Rothko, black is one of the richest colours in Raza’s palette and signifies a state of fulsomeness.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Subliminal World of Raza,” A Life in Art: S H Raza, p.197-198) This use of black, seen in some of the most powerful of Raza’s works is reflective of his fascination with the encompassing darkness of night time in the deep and dense forests of his homeland. He once recalled “nights in the forest were hallucinating; sometimes the only humanising influence was the dancing of the Gond tribes. Daybreak brought back a sentiment of security and well-being. On market-day, under the radiant sun, the village was a fairyland of colours. And then, the night again. Even today I find that these two aspects of my life dominate me and are an integral part of my paintings.” (Artist quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 155)

Full of colour and vibrant movement that recalls the passion and warmth of Rajasthan, the present lot occupies an important place in the artist’s oeuvre, demonstrating his mastery of colour. It represents a significant milestone in Raza’s journey of self-discovery, as well as in his artistic path towards becoming one of India’s best known modernists “Inevitably, freedom is accompanied by remembrance, and for Raza this brought home the hot, burning colours of miniatures from Mewar and Malwa, the searing sensations of his own land. Even as the acrylic medium lends the painting a fluid vibrance, Raza’s tempestuous gestures, the tongues of flame in paintings like Rajasthan, will be immortalised.” (Dalmia, pp. 154-155)

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