“The central characteristic of Gaitonde’s artistic personality, it must be understood, is that he likes to stand alone…This independent-mindedness was accompanied by a firm belief in his identity as a painter” (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, not paginated).

So focused was Gaitonde on the perfection of his craft that he eventually isolated himself from all people and things he believed were not essential to his creative process or to his identity as a painter, and only allowed paintings that he considered absolutely faultless to survive beyond the confines of his studio. His reclusiveness and the slow and meticulous process he adopted to create his desired effects, together with a period of prolonged sickness during which he did not paint at all, have made Gaitonde one of the least prolific of all modern Indian artists.

In this painting, pared of any recognizable form, Gaitonde displays the masterful control of colour, texture and light that his flawlessly developed technique allowed him. Building up incandescent layers of pigment with a roller and carefully removing any superfluous paint with a palette knife, the artist is able to magically illuminate each of his canvases by alternately concealing and revealing forms and colours on the surface. Here, layers of burnt orange and golden yellow make this canvas simultaneously revelatory, intimidating and serene.

Speaking about Gaitonde’s works, Nadkarni notes that they are like “…vast, translucent pool[s] of paint, a reminder that the materials available to the artist themselves surrender the maximum of values…in these paintings, the medium is not separate from the so-called content…The canvas looks like an ocean; to carry the simile further, it is as if we are looking down on the mildly lapping waters of the sea near a pier and, in the half light, gazing at things surfacing or floating in the water. The motifs in these canvases literally surface in the pool of paint, and they convey a variety of associations" (Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, not paginated).

“The central characteristic of Gaitonde’s artistic personality, it must be understood, is that he likes to stand alone…This independent-mindedness was accompanied by a firm belief in his identity as a painter” (Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983, not paginated).

So focused was Gaitonde on the perfection of his craft that he eventually isolated himself from al