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Lot 41

 

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"Colours can reveal innumerable human sentiments that we are capable of and I am trying to make them live on the canvas." - S H RAZA

The present lot is a gestural painting featuring fluid brushstrokes and a contrasting palette. From the late 1970s onwards, S H Raza frequently visited India, and the landscapes and lush forests inspired his art henceforth. The artist viewed nature "not as appearance, not as spectacle but as an... "Colours can reveal innumerable human sentiments that we are capable of and I am trying to make them live on the canvas." - S H RAZA

The present lot is a gestural painting featuring fluid brushstrokes and a contrasting palette. From the late 1970s onwards, S H Raza frequently visited India, and the landscapes and lush forests inspired his art henceforth. The artist viewed nature "not as appearance, not as spectacle but as an integrated force of life and cosmic growth reflected in every fibre of a human being... Nature became to Raza something not to be observed or to be imagined but something to be experienced in the very act of putting paint on canvas." (Rudolf von Leyden, "Metamorphosis," Raza, Mumbai: Chemould Publications and Arts, 1985)

Raza's use of the five primary colours is derived from the Indian concept of panchatatva, representing the five constituent elements of nature - earth, sky, air, fire and water. According to Ashok Vajpeyi, this was inspired by his early experiences in his native village in Madhya Pradesh where "all the five elements are active in their pristine purity. Raza may not have grasped the full import of this archetypal theatre of five elements taking place around him in his childhood but he never quite forgot it. In his late life, in his art, 'Panchatatva' - the five elements become a recurring theme..." (A Life in Art: Raza, New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007, p. 19)

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