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Lot 57

 

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F.N. Souza's landscapes often embody the same sense of conflict and unease that characterizes his figurative paintings. The artist's works in this genre are either mute and bleak, or "…seem to be driven by a cataclysmic force, which wrecks havoc… Most of these are cityscapes following, at first, a simple rectilinear structure, which later, in the 1960s, gives way to an apocalyptic vision. The tumbling houses in their frenzied movement are also... F.N. Souza's landscapes often embody the same sense of conflict and unease that characterizes his figurative paintings. The artist's works in this genre are either mute and bleak, or "…seem to be driven by a cataclysmic force, which wrecks havoc… Most of these are cityscapes following, at first, a simple rectilinear structure, which later, in the 1960s, gives way to an apocalyptic vision. The tumbling houses in their frenzied movement are also symbolic of all things falling apart, of the very root of things being shaken, of a world of the holocaust and thalidomide babies…of nature gone awry, of a demonic force behind the appearance of things" (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 93).

In the present lot, a furiously executed landscape from 1964, Souza releases the violence of his tormented being onto the canvas. Thick lines, inspired perhaps by the work of Soutine and Rouault, or by the stained glass windows of the churches that the artist was taken to by his grandmother as a child in Goa, etch out the forms of geometric houses and leafless trees against muted layers of white and blue paint. Speaking of his landscapes from the period, Geeta Kapur notes, "Around 1960…Souza's landscapes begin to change drastically. A huge cracker seems to go off in the foundations of his cities and the buildings begin to sway and tumble and lean against each other in frantic postures" ("Devil in the Flesh", Contemporary Indian Artists, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1978, p. 30).

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