Important Notice

Lot 44

 

Quick Zoom

Jagdish Swaminathan began painting in earnest by the late 1950s, and in 1962, he formed the artists’ collective, Group 1890, which opposed both the idealism of the Bengal School and mannerism of European Modernism. Though the group was short- lived, Swaminathan continued his quest to create a new kind of Indian art that was independent of Western influences but also wasn’t merely an imitation of Indian art traditions. He experimented with... Jagdish Swaminathan began painting in earnest by the late 1950s, and in 1962, he formed the artists’ collective, Group 1890, which opposed both the idealism of the Bengal School and mannerism of European Modernism. Though the group was short- lived, Swaminathan continued his quest to create a new kind of Indian art that was independent of Western influences but also wasn’t merely an imitation of Indian art traditions. He experimented with totemic symbols, influenced by tribal and folk art, in a constant quest to simplify them and create a new pictorial language.

After studying Pahari miniatures in the late 1960s, he began a series called the Colour Geometry of Space, of which the present lot is a part, in an attempt to understand the relation of colour to space. In a 1966 catalogue for an exhibition of the same name at Gallery Chemould in New Delhi, he notes, “For the last two years or so certain geometrical forms had been appearing and reappearing in my work...My intention was not the analysis of space. It was while working with these geometrical forms in colour that space was revealed to me, space that is beyond analysis.” (Jagdish Swaminathan, “Colour Geometry of Space,” Transits of a Wholetimer, New Delhi: Gallery Espace, 2012, p. 88)

The Colour Geometry of Space series explored flat planes and compositions with forms which were distinct from the geometric abstraction of the West. Art critic Geeta Kapur notes that this phase of the artist’s oeuvre was significant because of the painterly techniques evolved at this time. “The palette was lightened to iridescent hues like pink, mauve, pale green, and lemon yellow, and the painting was conceived entirely in terms of colour.” (Geeta Kapur, “J. Swaminathan,” Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, p. 201) This style was further influenced by the folk art of Rajasthan and Gujarat, and Tantric art, which Swaminathan understood as having one objective- “not to represent reality or even analyse it, but to create that para-natural image which inspires man to contend with reality.” (Swaminathan, “New Promise,” p. 108) Through the use of simple geometric shapes, the artist sought to awaken a primitive association buried deep within the collective consciousness of man. He explains, “...the arrangement of geometric forms generates memory associations whose roots are in the racial, collective psyche. Thus a triangle placed on top of a rectangle tangentially evokes the thought of a temple and the upward thrust or the arrangement suggest erotic implications. The introduction of the representational content in terms of colour geometry gives birth to psycho-symbolic connotations.” (Jagdish Swaminathan, “The Cube and the Rectangle,” Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1995, p. 22)

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