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Lot Essay
Untitled (Bird, Tree and Mountain Series) epitomizes Jagdish Swaminathan’s fascination with developing a pure and true form of representation through art. He argued that traditional Indian paintings were never meant to represent reality in the naturalistic sense, and drew inspiration from folk and tribal art forms, Pahari miniature painting traditions and Indian mythology, rejecting the conventions of Western naturalism. From the late 1960s, Swaminathan settled upon a now instantly recognizable visual aesthetic in this quest, using archetypal forms and images intended to reveal an alternate reality that was primal, spiritual and mystical.
In this painting, Swaminathan uses color as a means of representing an introspective universal reality. “To understand colour as harmony was to limit oneself to look at it as representation, be it in terms of nature association or representation. Geometric areas of colour in certain juxtapositions created infinity on a two dimensional plane […] Here all the rules of tonalities, of harmonies, of warm and cool colour broke down. Thus primary colours could be used to achieve an inward growing, meditative space […] The introduction of representational forms in the context of colour geometry gave birth to psycho-symbolic connotations. Thus a mountain, a tree, a flower, a bird, a stone were not just objects or parts of a landscape but were manifestations of the universal’’ (Artist statement, ‘Modern Indian Art: the Visible and The Possible’, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, 1995, p. 49). Here, the vivid red that dominates the background pays tribute to the Basholi school of miniature painting that deeply influenced the artist. Apart from the stylistic or compositional uniqueness of Basholi paintings, it was their unusual, non-naturalistic use of color that had a profound impact on his work.
This painting exemplifies Swaminathan’s pictorial dichotomization of reality and illusion in its existence between naturalism and abstraction. Using his signature motifs of bird and mountain, the artist conjures a two dimensional cosmos that is both meditative and metaphorical. The bird is frozen as it rises from the mountain into the crimson sky, as if straddling two different planes at once. Swaminathan constructs a world that transcends time and space and induces a meditative stillness that became the artist's obsession.
This painting also typifies the duality between reality and illusion which Swaminathan strived to unveil to the world, questioning whether it is the physical world or his painted enchantment which is an illusion or maya. “Swaminathan treats images like the numen in nature – that is metaphorically, but in a sense where the metaphor is now detached from the material-mythical world, and lifted into the ethereal spheres of lyric art and poetry” (G. Kapur, Contemporary Indian Art, London, 1982, p. 7). The artist borrowed the term ‘numinous image’ from Philip Rawson to speak about a ‘para-natural’, magical and mysterious space that is not obvious but is inherent everywhere. The present composition is an almost reverential meditation on reality and illusion, which seeks to unveil the true forces of nature through art.
In this painting, Swaminathan uses color as a means of representing an introspective universal reality. “To understand colour as harmony was to limit oneself to look at it as representation, be it in terms of nature association or representation. Geometric areas of colour in certain juxtapositions created infinity on a two dimensional plane […] Here all the rules of tonalities, of harmonies, of warm and cool colour broke down. Thus primary colours could be used to achieve an inward growing, meditative space […] The introduction of representational forms in the context of colour geometry gave birth to psycho-symbolic connotations. Thus a mountain, a tree, a flower, a bird, a stone were not just objects or parts of a landscape but were manifestations of the universal’’ (Artist statement, ‘Modern Indian Art: the Visible and The Possible’, Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, 1995, p. 49). Here, the vivid red that dominates the background pays tribute to the Basholi school of miniature painting that deeply influenced the artist. Apart from the stylistic or compositional uniqueness of Basholi paintings, it was their unusual, non-naturalistic use of color that had a profound impact on his work.
This painting exemplifies Swaminathan’s pictorial dichotomization of reality and illusion in its existence between naturalism and abstraction. Using his signature motifs of bird and mountain, the artist conjures a two dimensional cosmos that is both meditative and metaphorical. The bird is frozen as it rises from the mountain into the crimson sky, as if straddling two different planes at once. Swaminathan constructs a world that transcends time and space and induces a meditative stillness that became the artist's obsession.
This painting also typifies the duality between reality and illusion which Swaminathan strived to unveil to the world, questioning whether it is the physical world or his painted enchantment which is an illusion or maya. “Swaminathan treats images like the numen in nature – that is metaphorically, but in a sense where the metaphor is now detached from the material-mythical world, and lifted into the ethereal spheres of lyric art and poetry” (G. Kapur, Contemporary Indian Art, London, 1982, p. 7). The artist borrowed the term ‘numinous image’ from Philip Rawson to speak about a ‘para-natural’, magical and mysterious space that is not obvious but is inherent everywhere. The present composition is an almost reverential meditation on reality and illusion, which seeks to unveil the true forces of nature through art.