Important Notice

“I have been obsessed by the idea of Bindu as a seed, as a vital geometric shape. The seed generates energy, and the energy is revealed in colour.” - S H RAZA

At the age of eight, S H Raza was taught by his schoolteacher Nandlal Jharia to “meditate on a small black circle that had been drawn on a white wall of the veranda. These simple exercises of concentration that channelled his youthful energy were to become the source of... “I have been obsessed by the idea of Bindu as a seed, as a vital geometric shape. The seed generates energy, and the energy is revealed in colour.” - S H RAZA

At the age of eight, S H Raza was taught by his schoolteacher Nandlal Jharia to “meditate on a small black circle that had been drawn on a white wall of the veranda. These simple exercises of concentration that channelled his youthful energy were to become the source of inspiration for his art...” (Jeffrey Wechsler and Umesh Gaur, India: Contemporary Art from Northeastern Private Collections, Rutgers: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 2002, p. 94) However, it would be many years before this idea would begin to manifest in Raza’s oeuvre, which evolved in distinct yet connected phases, influenced by his journey and life in France before circling back to his Indian roots.

This manifestation started in the late 1970s and early ‘80s when Raza began to frequently travel to India which caused him to question the inherent “Indianness” of his art. The period of travel and self-reflexivity that followed ushered in a deeper engagement with forms, colours and philosophies rooted in his home country. Raza then began to shift from his earlier gestural style to a newfound vocabulary that focussed on geometry and the use of a primary palette.

Since then, Raza’s paintings have alluded to nature, which would continue to remain an integral part of his work. As Rudolf von Leyden said, “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) The artist also drew from Indian philosophical, spiritual, and mythical concepts, and turned to his native languages, increasingly using Hindi and Sanskrit terms as titles for his works.

According to Raza, his work is the “result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, which symbolises the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space.” (U Bickelmann and N Ezekiel eds., “S H Raza: Artist Statement,” Artists Today: East-West Visual Arts Encounter, Bombay: Marg Publications, 1987, p. 18)

On the surface, Raza’s geometric works show certain similarities t to the paintings of American abstractionists Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland. While the three artists did engage in theoretical discussions around the Formalist movement, Raza’s art functions on a more spiritual level. This is because the bindu and the concentric circles of the present lot were more than an abstract graphic device for Raza. The forms, instead, held deep meaning for him. “For Raza it is the bindu which becomes the single compelling image that recurs on the canvas with infinite variations – suspended in a timeless zone as a magnetic force that controls the sacred order of the universe.” (Geeti Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision, New Delhi: Media Transasia Ltd., 1997, p. 142) It is a metaphor for the origin of all life in Indian philosophy, from which “a whole series of different climates of thought can be created,” in addition to representing concepts like unity, completeness, and infinity. (Sen, p. 12)

The bindu, or the black circle pulsating with concentrated energy, manifests itself in varying forms throughout Raza’s geometric works. It can be interpreted as a sign of shunya (zero), a void, or a seed. Its representation ranges from a large black orb to a concentrated circle, as noted in Bindu-Nad. It symbolises “...the seed, bearing the potential of all life, in a sense. It is also a visible form containing all the essential requisites of line, tone, colour, texture, and space. The black space is charged with latent forces aspiring for fulfillment.” (Sen, p. 134)

In the present lot, the artist replaces vivid primary colours with a muted palette of browns and black to indicate his gradual move “towards the essentials: shorn of all redundant matter, pure and transparent... Raza had been realising during his various visits to India that colours have both emotive content and spiritual resonances.” (Ashok Vajpeyi, A Life in Art: Raza, New Delhi: Art Alive Gallery, 2007, p. 111) Framed within a square, Raza’s masterful understanding of forms and colours results in a painting that alludes to notions of serenity, positivity, and light.

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