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Lot 7

 

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“Some of the most moving of Souza’s paintings are those which convey a spirit of awe in the presence of a divine power – a God, who is not a God of gentleness and love, but rather of suffering, vengeance and of terrible anger. In his religious work there is a quality of fearfulness and terrible grandeur which even Rouault and Sutherland have not equaled in this century” (Edwin Mullins, F.N. Souza, Anthony Blond Ltd., London, 1962, p.... “Some of the most moving of Souza’s paintings are those which convey a spirit of awe in the presence of a divine power – a God, who is not a God of gentleness and love, but rather of suffering, vengeance and of terrible anger. In his religious work there is a quality of fearfulness and terrible grandeur which even Rouault and Sutherland have not equaled in this century” (Edwin Mullins, F.N. Souza, Anthony Blond Ltd., London, 1962, p. 40).

Religious imagery, particularly that of the Roman Catholic Church, was always a powerful source of inspiration for Souza. His earliest memories of Goa, where he was born and spent his childhood, center on the “tremendous influence” that the Church had over him, “…not its dogmas but its grand architecture and the splendour of its services…The wooden saints painted with gold and bright colours staring vacantly out of their niches. The smell of incense, and the enormous crucifix with the impaled image of a man supposed to be the Son of God, scourged and dripping, with matted hair tangled in plaited thorns” (as quoted in Words and Lines, Villiers, London, 1959, p. 10).

In the present lot, Souza recalls this early wonder, painting a fairly benevolent Christ dressed in an ornate red robe, his frontal gaze recalling those of ‘the wooden saints’ or Byzantine icons. Although the subject retains the high-set eyes and tubular nose of the artist’s more critical portraits, there is no crown of thorns on his head, or any indication of his suffering and anguish as in the artist’s revolutionary paintings like Crucifixion (1959) and Last Howl from the Cross (1963). Here, against a quiet village landscape, Souza offers an optimistic and almost beatific portrait of the Son of God as an ordinary man, untouched by his cynicism about the politics and hypocrisy of the Church.

While this painting privileges Christ’s role as a redeemer in the spirit of Rouault, several of Souza’s paintings denounced him as a condemner. As Yashodhara Dalmia observes, “Souza’s images of Christ retained a dual streak – on the one hand the thick bounding lines, the frontal images, and the stiff demeanour were iconic. On the other hand, these were harshly, even malevolently subverted without any redeeming features. While comparisons have been made with Rouault, with whom he shared the same preoccupation with Christ, the accompanying compassion was absent in Souza’s works. Their humanity was totally eclipsed by a seething, writhing violence” (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 80).

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