Important Notice

Lot 91

With its use of fine line and delicate balance between intricate detail (each nail on the lovers` hands, for example) and flat planes of color, this 1965 work demonstrates Souza`s tireless experimentation with the image in his oeuvre. Combining the aesthetic that informed his line drawings with a gouache medium, the artist renders his lovers in a world where nothing matters except their union. The background is not richly textured, as is Souza`s... With its use of fine line and delicate balance between intricate detail (each nail on the lovers` hands, for example) and flat planes of color, this 1965 work demonstrates Souza`s tireless experimentation with the image in his oeuvre. Combining the aesthetic that informed his line drawings with a gouache medium, the artist renders his lovers in a world where nothing matters except their union. The background is not richly textured, as is Souza`s wont, but sparse, almost as if the figures and their bed are on exhibit within a glass-fronted, multicoloured cube.

To Souza, raised a Catholic, these lovers embodied the `original sin`, explaining his hostile depiction of their act. At the same time, the artist was “aware of eroticism as a means of attaining a deep religious ecstasy as practiced in India since ancient times, and of the inexorably lovely mithuna figures of Indian art, particularly Khajuraho… A fact that is not often noticed is that Souza`s sexual couples are often ritualistic, stripped of all incidental details, enacting an ancient act. Yet, his inventiveness lay in sometimes achieving a fine balance between ritual sensuality and the assertion of the personality of the figure” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 92).

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