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Lot Essay
Pyne began using tempera as his primary medium in the mid-1960's and his longstanding experiments with indigenous powder pigments and various binding agents has allowed him to develop a unique way of building up surface and texture on the canvas.
"The character of Pyne's composition reveals an architectonic structure. His textures, especially in his depiction of headgear and the human body, reveal an architectural rigidity. He resorts, equally, to the use of architectural features like columns, staircases, entrances, doors and windows, either set off by or devoid of human figures. In this work, Pyne has shown a seated figure, along with the use of everyday objects, such as the flower vase, hinting at the macabre or creating a philosophical mood. These ordinary items serve as apt metaphors, acquiring different perspectives in the context of a particular painting. For a painter whose canvases are shadowed with melancholy, a flame or a humble lamp is a simple, but enchanting feature, especially in the compositional context of either a journey or death, with its corollaries of disease, decay and fear."(Shiladitya Sarkar, Thirst of a Minstrel, The Life and Times of Ganesh Pyne, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 59-64)
"The character of Pyne's composition reveals an architectonic structure. His textures, especially in his depiction of headgear and the human body, reveal an architectural rigidity. He resorts, equally, to the use of architectural features like columns, staircases, entrances, doors and windows, either set off by or devoid of human figures. In this work, Pyne has shown a seated figure, along with the use of everyday objects, such as the flower vase, hinting at the macabre or creating a philosophical mood. These ordinary items serve as apt metaphors, acquiring different perspectives in the context of a particular painting. For a painter whose canvases are shadowed with melancholy, a flame or a humble lamp is a simple, but enchanting feature, especially in the compositional context of either a journey or death, with its corollaries of disease, decay and fear."(Shiladitya Sarkar, Thirst of a Minstrel, The Life and Times of Ganesh Pyne, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 59-64)
