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Lot Essay
Until 1965 Pyne worked in ink and washes but by the mid 60's he became increasingly dissatisfied with the character of watercolor as a medium. He tried working in gouache but eventually found that he could be more articulate when working with tempera. Festival was executed in the first few years of Pyne's engagement with tempera.
There is a lyrical, dreamlike quality to the current work that becomes the hallmark of Pyne's later images. In 1965, Pyne produced an ink drawing called The Wings that depicts a skeletal torso with two wing-like forms triumphantly outstretched. The skeletal form re-appears in the current work and is integrated with several other motifs that later became totemic in the corpus of the artist's work. The snake and darkened architectonic forms to the right of the image are seen frequently elsewhere, most notably in the temperas Nagmani and The Door, the Window. The central figure of a lady with palms raised to the sky, reappears in such temperas as Before the Pillar from 1972.
Myths and fables told to him as a child play an important role in Pyne's paintings as do his own childhood memories and fears. Pyne states: 'True darkness gives one a feeling of insecurity bordering on fear but it also has its own charms, mystery, profundity, a fairyland atmosphere. Darkness still gives me the same feelings now as it did when I was a child. The only difference is that I try to consciously analyze those feelings now. Mythology and fables also fascinate me. Probably for the same reasons. I now look at things with an eye that are, I think, more mature but I also have a sneaking suspicion that when one is confronted with primeval values one has little to gain through maturity.' (Neville Tuli, The Flamed-Mosaic: Indian Contemporary Painting, Ahmedabad, 1997, p. 142.)
There is a lyrical, dreamlike quality to the current work that becomes the hallmark of Pyne's later images. In 1965, Pyne produced an ink drawing called The Wings that depicts a skeletal torso with two wing-like forms triumphantly outstretched. The skeletal form re-appears in the current work and is integrated with several other motifs that later became totemic in the corpus of the artist's work. The snake and darkened architectonic forms to the right of the image are seen frequently elsewhere, most notably in the temperas Nagmani and The Door, the Window. The central figure of a lady with palms raised to the sky, reappears in such temperas as Before the Pillar from 1972.
Myths and fables told to him as a child play an important role in Pyne's paintings as do his own childhood memories and fears. Pyne states: 'True darkness gives one a feeling of insecurity bordering on fear but it also has its own charms, mystery, profundity, a fairyland atmosphere. Darkness still gives me the same feelings now as it did when I was a child. The only difference is that I try to consciously analyze those feelings now. Mythology and fables also fascinate me. Probably for the same reasons. I now look at things with an eye that are, I think, more mature but I also have a sneaking suspicion that when one is confronted with primeval values one has little to gain through maturity.' (Neville Tuli, The Flamed-Mosaic: Indian Contemporary Painting, Ahmedabad, 1997, p. 142.)