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Lot Essay
"The Landscapes, architectonic with their 'cubic factors' are ultimately lyrical. There's an unrestrained enthusiasm, a liberty in the application of color that is applied swiftly with a palette knife, creating smooth pulsating textures." (A. Ludwig, Souza, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi)
Francis Newton Souza painted Untitled (Artist's Studio, Hampstead) in 1961 while living in north London, during a period seen as the apex of his career. The present painting is a triumphant display of Souza’s mesmerising skill as a draughtsman and painter. His powerful black line presents corniced buildings and piercing pediments suggesting not only the Catholic architecture which informed so much of Souza's oeuvre but also the immediate surroundings where he lived and worked around Belsize Park and Hampstead Heath. This landscape augmented by rich greens and browns is contrasted with flashes of bright white and blue giving the painting the sense of dappled light flickering through the autumnal foliage.
Fellow artist Jagdish Swaminathan describes Souza's cityscapes as "singularly devoid of emotive inhibitions." They are the "congealed visions of a mysterious world. Whether standing solidly in enamelled petrification or delineated in thin colour with calligraphic intonations, the cityscapes of Souza are purely plastic entities with no reference to memories or mirrors." (J. Swaminathan, 'Souza's Exhibition', Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, March 1995, p. 31)
The geometric black lines of buildings and rooftops overlay sharply across the natural pastoral background creating tension between the man-made and natural worlds. Souza had recently returned from six months spent in Rome and the almost schematic lines in the present painting are reminiscent of those seen in the depiction of Vitruvian Man by Leonardo. This painting is almost a blueprint for this balance between religion, man and nature. The absence of humanity at such an epicentre of civilisation, where religion, modernity and nature coexist in perpetual struggle and antagonism.
Francis Newton Souza painted Untitled (Artist's Studio, Hampstead) in 1961 while living in north London, during a period seen as the apex of his career. The present painting is a triumphant display of Souza’s mesmerising skill as a draughtsman and painter. His powerful black line presents corniced buildings and piercing pediments suggesting not only the Catholic architecture which informed so much of Souza's oeuvre but also the immediate surroundings where he lived and worked around Belsize Park and Hampstead Heath. This landscape augmented by rich greens and browns is contrasted with flashes of bright white and blue giving the painting the sense of dappled light flickering through the autumnal foliage.
Fellow artist Jagdish Swaminathan describes Souza's cityscapes as "singularly devoid of emotive inhibitions." They are the "congealed visions of a mysterious world. Whether standing solidly in enamelled petrification or delineated in thin colour with calligraphic intonations, the cityscapes of Souza are purely plastic entities with no reference to memories or mirrors." (J. Swaminathan, 'Souza's Exhibition', Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, March 1995, p. 31)
The geometric black lines of buildings and rooftops overlay sharply across the natural pastoral background creating tension between the man-made and natural worlds. Souza had recently returned from six months spent in Rome and the almost schematic lines in the present painting are reminiscent of those seen in the depiction of Vitruvian Man by Leonardo. This painting is almost a blueprint for this balance between religion, man and nature. The absence of humanity at such an epicentre of civilisation, where religion, modernity and nature coexist in perpetual struggle and antagonism.