JAGDISH SWAMINATHAN (1928 - 1994)

A pertinent issue when looking at works from Swaminathan's Mountain, Tree and Bird series is to do with scale. How does the artist communicate the difference in size between a mountain and a bird, and, is it important to do so? K.B. Goel presents one interesting view: in these works, the content becomes the form. "The mountain is defined by its magnitude - a feeling of largeness which seems incommensurable to the dimensions of an easel painting. The order of largeness is, however, made commensurable with the dimension of a bird that is, in any way at a much higher elevation. The bird, metaphorically speaking, transcends the largeness of the mountain; it appears absolutely large. Thus the content - the idea of mass and quantity - is presented not in terms of Albertian quantities of vision but as a numenal agency of intuition." Through his simplification of form, Swaminathan could translate both volume and distance onto a flat, uni-dimensional surface. (K.B. Goel, 'The Other', Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, March 1995, p. 81.)