Important Notice

"Renaissance painters painted men and women to look like angels. I paint angels to show them men and women look like." - F. N. Souza

Hailing from a small Portuguese Catholic community in Goa, Francis Newton Souza., one of India's leading Modernists and the founder of the Bombay Progressives, was one of the most vociferous critics of what he saw as the hypocrisies of religion and society. In his works specific to the Church, he... "Renaissance painters painted men and women to look like angels. I paint angels to show them men and women look like." - F. N. Souza

Hailing from a small Portuguese Catholic community in Goa, Francis Newton Souza., one of India's leading Modernists and the founder of the Bombay Progressives, was one of the most vociferous critics of what he saw as the hypocrisies of religion and society. In his works specific to the Church, he worked with certain indubitable iconography - such as Christ, crucifixes, chalices, or the image of the mother and child - and upturned them into scathing images. Souza also held a fascination for the erotic; some of his works echoed the aesthetics of South Indian bronze sculptures and the temple carvings of Khajuraho. Often, his two main themes - Church and eroticism - mingled together, having a potent effect on the viewer. Like his subjects, his art, too, did not prescribe to any particular school which prompted John Berger, a critic with "The New Statesman", to say "he straddles several traditions but serves none." (quoted in Edwin Mullins, Souza, Anthony Blond Ltd., London, 1962, pg. 58)

The current lot is a departure from his usual thematic preoccupations, hence forming a rare and important part of his oeuvre. Here, Souza has depicted the "Death of Balaram", a scene from Mahabharata. Souza seldom interpreted or interrogated moments from Hindu mythology. Yet, in his signature style, Souza has rendered the stately and picturesque image of Balaram's death through his filter of the grotesque. Balaram was considered to be an avatar of the Adishesha, or the Lord of the Nagas (snakes), on whom Lord Vishnu is often depicted resting. In Hindu mythology, Balaram shared a womb with Lord Krishna before birth, and they were inseparable during life. After Krishna's death, Balaram renounced the world under a tree and chose death as his destiny, during which a huge white snake emerged from his mouth - a sign of the Adishesha - according to scriptures. Souza's drawing of this belies the apparent tranquility of this act, instead evoking a feeling of sublime: visceral and monstrous, but beautiful all the same. Mullins' view on Souza's religious art resonates with this imagery: "Some of the most moving on Souza's paintings are those which convey a spirit of awe in the presence of divine power - a God, who is not a God of gentleness and love, but rather of suffering, vengeance and of terrible anger." (Ibid., pg. 40)

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