Important Notice

Selectively drawing from Pahari miniature traditions, Manjit Bawa's "…paintings take shape around the single form or the compact group, without a trace of architecture to frame them… each form, animal and human, rejoices in its plasticity and libidinal energy, its gymnastic ability to defy the strictures of the anatomist. The rounded contours of each toy-like figure speak of its prana, the life- breath that gives it a vital buoyancy, allowing it... Selectively drawing from Pahari miniature traditions, Manjit Bawa's "…paintings take shape around the single form or the compact group, without a trace of architecture to frame them… each form, animal and human, rejoices in its plasticity and libidinal energy, its gymnastic ability to defy the strictures of the anatomist. The rounded contours of each toy-like figure speak of its prana, the life- breath that gives it a vital buoyancy, allowing it to occupy rather than be trapped in those flat, glowing, single-colour fields of red, yellow, green or blue that are Bawa's hallmark device" (Ranjit Hoskote, Manjit Bawa: Modern Miniatures, Recent Paintings, Bose Pacia exhibition catalogue, 2000, not paginated).

Deeply influenced by the teachings of Sufi mystics, the artist often incorporated mythological themes and subjects in his work. These subjects express simplicity not only in their forms, but in their interactions with the viewer as well. In the present lot, Bawa paints Krishna as a shepherd, set against a deep green background, playing on his flute to calm and enrapture the herd of cattle that surrounds him.

Such pairings of humans and animals in Bawa's work, whether inspired by myth or everyday life in rural India, illuminate the artist's personal interest in asymmetrical relationships and interpersonal communication. Interacting with his autistic son, the artist often contemplated the ideal of a universal language, like music, through which all sentient beings could express and share their experiences of the world with each other. "Often in Bawa's paintings, humans and animals engage in a wordless dialogue that throws its participants back onto an older, nearly forgotten language of instinct and intuition" (Ibid.).

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