Nyasa Negress with Flowers of Thorns

The sexual prowess of women is confronted again in his work from 1959, Nyasa Negress with Flowers of Thorns. Like the Tahitian nudes of Paul Gaugin, Souza's nude possesses both a strong sexual aura and a sense of the primitive, the other and the unfamiliar. Mixing Georges Rouault's thick black lines with a cubistic structure, the artist gives the nude a sculptural quality that calls into mind the early 20th century work of Picasso, epitomized in his 1907 work, Demoiselles d'Avignon. The artist has reduced the facial features to a mask like countenance, collapsing perspective to depict multiple views of her face simultaneously. The faceted body of the Negress, is repeated in her accoutrements, her jewelry mimicking the cubistic forms of her figure giving the work a striking rhythm and composition. The Nyasa Negress is brazen, naked and powerful, demonstrating vigor and dynamism in the place of transitory beauty, a quality which Souza masterfully conveys. The stoicism and strength of the nude also demonstrates Souza's allegiance to 14th century Indian sculpture and the erotic carvings in India's temples. This work does not completely escape from Catholic intonations. The thorns which weave their way around the nude, beseech comparison to Christ's crucifixion headdress and the typically decorative flowers mentioned in the work's title are almost indistinguishable from their barb-like counterparts. Part of an important series of nudes during the 1950s-60s, comparisons to Nyasa Negress with Flowers and Thorns can be made to a slightly later work Black Nude, 1961, currently in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and on loan to the Tate Britain.