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Lot Essay
Geometrical forms are used to map the universe. Here, the vocabulary of pure plastic form acquires an integral purpose: to relate the shape and rhythm of these forms to Nature
- Geeti Sen, 1997
While Sayed Haider Raza’s work has always been inspired by nature and the landscape, his compositions based on these themes continually evolved over the course of his eight decade long career, eventually tracing a complete arc from stylized realism to nonobjective abstraction. By the early 1980s, Raza had turned to planned, geometrical pictorial structures to negotiate and express his vision of nature and its cyclical forces. In doing so, the artist turned from “the external to the internal substance. There is an implicit sense of timelessness which is all-pervasive, which brings a different meaning to his pictures. There is no reference here, as with his earlier work [...] Instead he has ‘abstracted’ from nature its essence, its deeper implications for mankind” (G. Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi, 1997, p. 27).
In these geometric works, Raza structures his canvases and indeed his entire perception of nature and the universe around variations of the bindu, a black circle that evolved from a focal point in a meditation exercise the artist remembers from his childhood to a representation of the source and end of all creation. The bindu first appeared in Sayed Haider Raza’s work as a ‘black sun’ (see lot 704) in the early 1950s, and became an integral part of his oeuvre from the late 1970s until his death in 2016. This simple geometric shape dominated these last decades of artist’s practice, giving birth to a new codified and symbolic language for Raza, in which powerful shapes and primary colors represent different aspects of the natural world. This sacred visual geometry cracks open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, Raza’s forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.
In Prabhat, which means dawn, the bindu appears multiple times, often as a black orb but also as the gentle morning sun at the upper left, harking back to Raza’s earliest explorations of this form. The composition is divided into nine distinct cells, each an individual vignette with a resolved geometric configuration that relates to the larger whole. In structuring this painting in this manner, Raza creates a universe in itself, and offers his viewers a visual key with which to navigate and decode it.
According to Raza, his works from this period are essentially the “result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, symbolizing the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space” (Artist statement, Artists Today: East West Visual Encounter, Bombay, 1985, p. 18). The shapes and forms that occupy these cells are thus not abstract graphic devices, as in the style of Frank Stella’s geometric works. Rather, they represent something more fundamental, symbolic of the spiritual and primal. The bindu becomes less of a structural component and more of a central point representing concentrated energy like the sun. This element manifests itself in various forms throughout Raza’s oeuvre, and is variously interpreted as zero, a drop, a seed or a sperm – the point of germination and cessation for all creation.
- Geeti Sen, 1997
While Sayed Haider Raza’s work has always been inspired by nature and the landscape, his compositions based on these themes continually evolved over the course of his eight decade long career, eventually tracing a complete arc from stylized realism to nonobjective abstraction. By the early 1980s, Raza had turned to planned, geometrical pictorial structures to negotiate and express his vision of nature and its cyclical forces. In doing so, the artist turned from “the external to the internal substance. There is an implicit sense of timelessness which is all-pervasive, which brings a different meaning to his pictures. There is no reference here, as with his earlier work [...] Instead he has ‘abstracted’ from nature its essence, its deeper implications for mankind” (G. Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, New Delhi, 1997, p. 27).
In these geometric works, Raza structures his canvases and indeed his entire perception of nature and the universe around variations of the bindu, a black circle that evolved from a focal point in a meditation exercise the artist remembers from his childhood to a representation of the source and end of all creation. The bindu first appeared in Sayed Haider Raza’s work as a ‘black sun’ (see lot 704) in the early 1950s, and became an integral part of his oeuvre from the late 1970s until his death in 2016. This simple geometric shape dominated these last decades of artist’s practice, giving birth to a new codified and symbolic language for Raza, in which powerful shapes and primary colors represent different aspects of the natural world. This sacred visual geometry cracks open the interpretive space of the image; neither specific to a particular religion, nor bound to a particular geography, Raza’s forms are elemental, primordial and eternal.
In Prabhat, which means dawn, the bindu appears multiple times, often as a black orb but also as the gentle morning sun at the upper left, harking back to Raza’s earliest explorations of this form. The composition is divided into nine distinct cells, each an individual vignette with a resolved geometric configuration that relates to the larger whole. In structuring this painting in this manner, Raza creates a universe in itself, and offers his viewers a visual key with which to navigate and decode it.
According to Raza, his works from this period are essentially the “result of two parallel enquiries. Firstly, it is aimed at pure plastic order. Secondly, it concerns nature. Both have converged into a single point, the bindu, symbolizing the seed, bearing the potential for all life. It is also a visible form containing all the requisites of line, tone, colour, texture and space” (Artist statement, Artists Today: East West Visual Encounter, Bombay, 1985, p. 18). The shapes and forms that occupy these cells are thus not abstract graphic devices, as in the style of Frank Stella’s geometric works. Rather, they represent something more fundamental, symbolic of the spiritual and primal. The bindu becomes less of a structural component and more of a central point representing concentrated energy like the sun. This element manifests itself in various forms throughout Raza’s oeuvre, and is variously interpreted as zero, a drop, a seed or a sperm – the point of germination and cessation for all creation.