Important Notice

“All great art has to be local. When I say local I mean an artist has to draw from things near him so that a certain passion comes through his paintings.” - KRISHEN KHANNA

Krishen Khanna’s encounters with Indian mythology and Biblical narratives during his formative years proved an enduring influence on his art and resulted in a number of works drawing on these stories. The present lot is his rendering of a pivotal scene from... “All great art has to be local. When I say local I mean an artist has to draw from things near him so that a certain passion comes through his paintings.” - KRISHEN KHANNA

Krishen Khanna’s encounters with Indian mythology and Biblical narratives during his formative years proved an enduring influence on his art and resulted in a number of works drawing on these stories. The present lot is his rendering of a pivotal scene from Gajendra Moksha (The Liberation of Gajendra) in the ancient Hindu text Bhagavata Purana. According to the legend, Gajendra ruled over a herd of elephants in the mountains. There, he once entered a lake with the intention of plucking a lotus for the worship of Lord Vishnu. A crocodile attacked Gajendra’s leg taking advantage of his vulnerable position and thus, Gajendra entered a battle for his life in the water with his friends and family watching helplessly from the sidelines. After a great deal of spirited struggle against the crocodile, Gajendra eventually accepted his fate and, in what he assumed to be his final moments, called upon Vishnu. He lifted a lotus to pay his respects when the god showed up. Moved by this show of unfettered devotion, Vishnu annihilated the crocodile to save Gajendra. In escaping the perils of samsara-the cycle of life and death symbolised here by the lake-through his faith, Gajendra successfully attained moksha or liberation, giving the legend its name.

This acrylic and charcoal work is notable for being drawn live at Saffronart’s 2016 exhibition of Khanna’s works. His spontaneous style of draughtsmanship allows him to recover unexplored elements from previously visited themes. The artist says, “I start to scratch the surface of a piece of paper. Soon enough, the pencil moves as if of its own accord, putting my hand this way and that rather like a pencil in a planchet creating a nervous scribble meaningful only to the directing ghost… I would fain repeat the contours of a subject I’ve tackled before, which is not to say that I would not go back to the same subject in the hope of discovering another dimension.” (Artist quoted in Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: The Embrace of Love, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, 2005, p. 31) In keeping with his commitment to reinvention, Khanna revisits the same scene as a previous work in Gajendra Moksha but injects a new vein of pathos into the work through the intensity of his linework. He creates dramatic tonal shifts by dexterously modulating the figures’ contours. The pronounced expressions of helpless pain and aggression on the respective subjects charge the work with a sense of immediacy.

His range of referentiality is not limited to his own body of work: Gajendra’s struggle with the crocodile is a favourite scene in the canon of Indian art with many paintings, miniatures and murals depicting it. Khanna, a celebrated muralist in his own right, recalls the Indian tradition of mural painting with the monumentality of his work. Noting the composition of space and the lack of background in a similar work, critic Gayatri Sinha asserts, “What Khanna attempts in his large drawing of an elephant and crocodile, or the elephant and lion draws from such traditions, opening up the conventional subjects of miniature and mural painting to wider interpretation. Here there is no background in the accepted sense, just the bodies in space, and the compact of energy and combat on display.” (Gayatri Sinha, “Krishen Khanna - Drawing”, Krishen Khanna, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2016)

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