Important Notice

Lot 85

The Roman Catholic Church, the religion of Souza’s birthplace, is repeatedly cited as a predominate influence on his life and works

Although Souza became increasingly adverse to the ideals of Catholicism, his art was consumed by depicting what he felt was the subversive influence of the religion. Sometimes the impact of Catholicism in his paintings is subtle, a sacred vessel in a still life, a series of martyr’s thorns protruding from a... The Roman Catholic Church, the religion of Souza’s birthplace, is repeatedly cited as a predominate influence on his life and works

Although Souza became increasingly adverse to the ideals of Catholicism, his art was consumed by depicting what he felt was the subversive influence of the religion. Sometimes the impact of Catholicism in his paintings is subtle, a sacred vessel in a still life, a series of martyr’s thorns protruding from a head. In others, Souza confronts Catholicism head on. In what could be considered one of his great works, The Crucifixion (Tate Britain, London) criticises the very pivot of a belief rooted in the suffering of Christ. Likewise, in this work, painted in 1955, Souza chooses to depict a a Catholic priest, performing High Mass.

Souza was fascinated by the splendour of the Catholic church services, their pomp and ceremony, their use of elaborate ornate symbols, and the grandeur of the priest’s robes. In this painting Souza depicts the priest in all his majesty, his richly embroidered vestment rising from the canvas in thick expressive swirls of green, blue, red and black oil. The composition draws parallels with those of the artists of the Renaissance and European depictions of Byzantine art. During his time in London Souza would spend days in the National Gallery and it would be there that he would have seen their masterpieces first hand from Titian`s Portrait of a man with Blue sleeve to Giovanni Bellini`s The Doge Leonardo Loredan(right).

At the centre of the composition is the Monstrance held in the priest’s hands. The celebration of Mass is based around the Last Supper when Christ symbolically offers his body and blood to the disciples. The Monstrance holds the Host symbolising the body of Christ which could be held up at the Consecration for all to see.

Souza was not only fascinated with the rituals and symbols of the Catholic faith but also in its historical and spiritual figures. Subjects portrayed by Souza have included Zechariah, St. Sebastian, John the Baptist, and St. Peter. He was drawn to these people through their stories of anguish, self-sacrifice and devotion - essentially the ability to have faith in a way that Souza had discarded. With this in mind, although not titled as such, this painting could be a depiction of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, a Dominican monk often shown holding a monstrance among his many emblems. St Thomas was born in 1255, educated at a Benedictine monastery where they sent a prostitute to seduce him. However, according to the Golden Legend he managed to resist the temptation with the help of two angels who brought him a chastity belt.

These Catholic ideas of guilt and sexual temptation were in stark contrast to the erotic and sensual Indian art that surrounded Souza during his early years in India. Indeed, Souza gave this duality the phrase ‘sin and sensuality’. He believed that while the Catholic Priests he encountered preached about self control, the congregation wrestled with their desires for the pleasures of the flesh.

"As a Roman Catholic youth, born in Goa, I was familiar with the priests bellowing sermons from pulpits against `sex` and `immodesty` particularly addressed to women, making them stricken with guilt. The Catholic men stood cocky in their suites and ties agreeing with the priests, lusting for naked women inwardly. Hypocrites!" – F.N. Souza

Souza revisited the subject of the priest several times. Other similar versions of this work include Priest with Moonstrance (Mullins) and Priest with Challice. Notably, the priest reappears in another work from 1955 in The Lovers. In this work the priest is portrayed in his cardinal red robes cavorting with a nude woman outside the walls of a city. It would seem that the Priest has fallen foul of the very manly urges he chooses to lecture against.

"The one continuing theme Souza explores, in the coming years, is the theme of hypocrisy and the Church, in so far as it symbolises absolute authority and camouflages with subtle cunning the hypocrisies of the elite, has remained one of the most important subjects of his paintings……..The recurring portraits of priests, prophets, cardinals, and Popes are therefore to be taken literally for what they are but also symbolically as representatives of institutions and authority, only more treacherous in that they claim divine sanction. That is to say, the villains of the Catholic Church he represents are both real and allegorical. It is this double connotation of fact and symbol and his interlocked feelings of secret fascination and objective disgust which make Souza’s handling of religious figures so unique" (Geeta Kapur, Contemporary Indian Artists, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1978, p20)

Several of Souza’s contemporaries shared his cynicism of the Catholic Church and the spiritual authority their leaders claimed to embody. Francis Bacon (1909–1992), whom Souza exhibited with as early as 1954, painted a series of over forty works of the Pope during the 1950s and 1960s, his inspiration deriving from Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X. Bacon’s portraits are of alarming figures screaming and clutching at the arms of their thrones. (Right: Francis Bacon: Francis Bacon: Study after Velazquez I, 1950)

The 1950’s were a strong period for Souza, especially the year 1955 in which this painting was made. It saw him break the London art scene with his first one-man exhibition at Gallery One, an exhibition in which this work was displayed. It also saw Souza produce some of his most expressive and enduring works.

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