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Lot 60

 

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Jagdish Swaminathan was a passionate proponent of an approach to art that rejected the simple aping of either Western or indigenous artistic styles. In 1962, he founded Group 1890 along with artists like Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, Jyoti Bhatt and Gulam Mohammed Sheikh in opposition to both the blunt imposition of the Western art canon and techniques and the idealism of the Bengal School of art. This work, in line with the spirit of the Group 1890... Jagdish Swaminathan was a passionate proponent of an approach to art that rejected the simple aping of either Western or indigenous artistic styles. In 1962, he founded Group 1890 along with artists like Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, Jyoti Bhatt and Gulam Mohammed Sheikh in opposition to both the blunt imposition of the Western art canon and techniques and the idealism of the Bengal School of art. This work, in line with the spirit of the Group 1890 manifesto which derided the “vulgar naturalism” (“Group 1890 Manifesto”, Transits of a Wholetimer: J Swaminathan: Years 1950-69, New Delhi: Gallery Espace, 2012, p. 70) espoused by Indian artists of the early 20th century, is replete with representational symbols drawn straight from tribal and folk arts. Swaminathan believed these totemic forms function as archetypes, recalling primordial associations. Using the suggestive power of these culturally entrenched forms, his forms are organised in order to generate allusions. According to him, “...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.” (Jagdish Swaminathan, “The Cube and the Rectangle”, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1995, p. 22)

In the mid-60s Swaminathan entered a phase that was instrumental in the development of his homegrown geometric abstractionism whose composition depended on colour to organise pictorial space. In his catalogue for his 1966 exhibition Colour Geometry of Space, the artist wrote, “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 J Swaminathan: Years 1950-69, New Delhi: Gallery Espace, 2012, p. 80) Art critic Geeta Kapur notes Swaminathan’s mid-60s compositions were “conceived entirely in terms of colour” and featured a simple arrangement of geometric shapes much like the present lot. (“J. Swaminathan: Wings of a Metaphor”, Geeta Kapur, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, p. 201) This work-with the tribal forms of his works from the early 60s drawn in the flat tones and simplified geometric arrangements that define his turn to what he termed “colour geometry of space”-is a transitional work combining the techniques and elements of two very important eras in Swaminathan’s creative trajectory.

Swaminathan’s canvas eschews depth of field for a flat rendering of reality which draws from Indian miniatures and Tantric art as opposed to Western Expressionism. As an impassioned champion of art not derivative of Western styles, his practice consciously looks to Indian traditions of distortion that were well-established and widely in use before colonial art institutions labelled them crude artistry. In the words of the artist, “...the use of flat areas of colour as against tonalities, the simplification and distortion of forms to depict ‘meaning’ instead of mere fact, the principle that colour in painting functions palpably to create a reality different from that of nature-all these notions have been practised here for centuries.” (Jagdish Swaminathhan, “New Promise”, Transits of a Wholetimer, p. 107)

Artist Krishen Khanna commends Swaminathan’s singular image-making and masterful painterly techniques saying, “He talked and wrote about the importance of 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, New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi, 1995)

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