Important Notice

Lot 98

 

Quick Zoom

Throughout his artistic career, F.N. Souza’s body of work has been defined by the alternately twinned and divergent forces of sex and religion. Always provocative, whether tormenting or pleasurable, on their own or united, these two grand narratives inform almost all of Souza’s creative output, particularly his paintings from the 1950s and 60s.

Nowhere, however, do these themes collide more violently than in Souza’s various... Throughout his artistic career, F.N. Souza’s body of work has been defined by the alternately twinned and divergent forces of sex and religion. Always provocative, whether tormenting or pleasurable, on their own or united, these two grand narratives inform almost all of Souza’s creative output, particularly his paintings from the 1950s and 60s.

Nowhere, however, do these themes collide more violently than in Souza’s various depictions of lovers. To the artist, raised in a devout Catholic atmosphere, lovers embodied the ‘original sin’ and also came to represent the rigidity and hypocrisy he later attributed to religious dogma, explaining his disfiguring and hostile depiction of their act. In these striking works, the man was often linked to the corrupt clergy, preaching against lust and lechery at the pulpit while covertly practicing it in the brothel and bedroom. The woman, on the other hand, was alternately rendered as an inactive participant, letting her partner have his way with her so that she could get on with her affairs, or a hypersexual temptress, asserting her control over the events playing out on the surface.

In this 1964 canvas, “a roué with bared teeth crawls on all fours towards a woman whose black-stockinged legs and brassiered breasts only emphasise the provocative thrust of her haunches. Her hands are in the form of a dog’s paws, as if to define the level of relationship on which this game is played…the violent brushwork, the lurid colours, the sense of claustrophobia and suffocation suggest an underworld of coarseness and malevolence” (Ebrahim Alkazi, Souza’s Seasons in Hell, Art Heritage, Season 1986-87, New Delhi, p. 74). The cross that the woman wears prominently around her neck emphasizes Souza’s tumultuous relationship with organized religion and the Roman Catholic Church, where he sought salvation but only found pretense and Janus-faced duplicity. Rather than the epitome of purity and motherhood, the woman wearing the cross is almost animalistic in her appearance and behaviour, giving in to her most sordid desires.

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site