Important Notice

Jagdish Swaminathan’s contribution is as much his art as his ideas, sound theoretical observations and fierce individualism. Not concerned with any kind of revivalism, he thought all modern art was preoccupied by the mundane physical world. He thought it essential for painting to have the mysterious sense of poetry which lacked in any narrative or didactic painting. “He talked and wrote about the numenous image at a time when most artists were... Jagdish Swaminathan’s contribution is as much his art as his ideas, sound theoretical observations and fierce individualism. Not concerned with any kind of revivalism, he thought all modern art was preoccupied by the mundane physical world. He thought it essential for painting to have the mysterious sense of poetry which lacked in any narrative or didactic painting. “He talked and wrote about the numenous image at a time when most artists were dealing with phenomena... His structures were elemental, uniquely his own. He conjugated them to create undreamt of images. Hills, birds, insects, plants, water, air, unbuildable buildings but no human beings. Their relationship on the canvas had nothing to do with the laws of this physical world. The arena of painting was its own unique universe in which the impossible is credible.” (Krishen Khanna, J Swaminathan: Contemporary Indian Art Series, Lalit Kala Akademi)

Swaminathan worked extensively with the symbolic forms of folk and tribal perceptions before he began experimenting with pure geometric forms and flat saturated expanses of colour. His perennial search for a cerebral and pure form in art found expression through creating a universe uniquely his own that oscillated between the binaries of naturalism and abstraction. His most iconic compositions, often referred to as the bird, mountain and tree series, are forms suspended within sweeps of vivid colours that come together to form a relationship that appear to reveal themselves but never quite do so. “Here all rules of tonalities, of harmonies, of warm and cool colours, broke down. Thus primary colours could be used to achieve an inward growing, meditative space. The introduction of representational forms in the context of colour geometry gave birth to psycho-symbolic connotations. Thus a mountain, a tree, a flower, a bird, a stone were not just objects or parts of a landscape but were manifestations of the universal.” (J Swaminathan, “Modern Indian Art: The Visible and The Possible,” Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1995, p. 49)

Swaminathan found a kindred spirit in Paul Klee and the tribal and folk artists, creating a symbolic and metaphorical system that was mysteriously his own. He also developed his own technique, applying colours simultaneously in layers without letting the pigments bleed into each other, after which he would cover the surrounding areas with a brilliant lone colour. “The entire drama was enacted in the richest and most unusual colours... It was the association of pure and quite often conflicting colours adjacent to each other which resonated.” (Krishen Khanna)

The present lot, painted in 1974, encapsulates Swaminathan’s deliberate move away from the Western ideals towards a deeply spiritual experience of painting. He had, by this time, reached a compositional symmetry, allowing a broader palette to create a harmony and poetics of its own. The mountain reflected below the horizon, a rock hovering with a pensive bird resting on it, are elements the like of his other works from the decade featuring these conjured signifiers of the bird and mountain. Transcending time, the brilliant blue of the bird reverberates with a greater force on the tip of the mountain below, leading one’s eye to the swaying branch with blossoms- an element that is unique to this canvas. The calmly swaying branch, still bird, defined horizon, and a sense of symmetry clouds over the canvas with a soothing visual effect. Hinted by the distinct cherry blossom detail in the present lot, this period was marked by his obsession with inventing elements which in turn created limitless metaphors to ponder upon.

“At the end of it all, in whatever way one designates him in the history of art and ideologies, Swaminathan is an artist who rhymes the movement of the eye and the hand and turns it into the movement of the signifier through an iconic image; through a dissembling decodable language.” (Geeta Kapur, “J Swaminathan: the artist the ideologue the man his persona,” Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1995, p. 62)

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