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Lot 8

 

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Throughout his career, F.N. Souza was compelled to paint the human figure in an effort to document both the beauty and depravity of his race. Steering clear of abstraction, the artist made it his mission to portray humanity for what it really was. As his biographer, Edwin Mullins, notes, “Souza’s particular strength lies not in his refusal to admit the importance of abstract art, but in his capacity to find in figurative painting everything that... Throughout his career, F.N. Souza was compelled to paint the human figure in an effort to document both the beauty and depravity of his race. Steering clear of abstraction, the artist made it his mission to portray humanity for what it really was. As his biographer, Edwin Mullins, notes, “Souza’s particular strength lies not in his refusal to admit the importance of abstract art, but in his capacity to find in figurative painting everything that he needs; so much so, that he cannot understand why any other artist can do anything else. ‘To paint abstract paintings is quite impossible.’ Souza has written, ‘it’s like trying to paint thin air and those who think they do are fooling themselves. They claim to be going “beyond”. Beyond what? Beyond zero is minus. They say the spectator must bring his own imagination to work upon their painted surfaces, which means that the spectator should do all the work. It’s another instance of the Emperor’s clothes. And if this is “art”, then I’m the little boy who shouts ‘it’s naked!’” (Ibid., p. 36).

Souza’s series of ‘Heads’ from the 1950s are probably his most important and well-known figurative works. In addition to exploring the nuances of figuration, these portraits served as channels for the artist’s scathing social commentary, frequently centered on the dual issues of sex and religion, pleasure and suffering, which absorbed him all through his career. Offering insight into his personal life as well as his beliefs, they unmasked the hypocrisy of the clergy and the gentry, exposing their ‘soullessness’ for all to see.

“The one continuing theme Souza explores…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…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…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, “Devil in the Flesh”, Contemporary Indian Artists, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1978, p. 20).

In this striking painting, Souza offers his irreverent take on the portrait of a dignified man, executed in an austere palette and bordered by the artist’s thick line. With his elongated head, high-set eyes, tubular nose and half-hidden jaw, the subject here, probably an ordained member of the clergy, is robbed of all nobility and grandeur, save for the spare detailing around the neck of his tunic. Instead, Souza labels him ‘gothic’, a remnant of the medieval ages, representative of beliefs and systems that are outdated and duplicitous.

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