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Lot Essay
The Falling Figure, a subject Tyeb Mehta often revisited, was born out of a traumatic childhood memory when the artist witnessed the violent death of a man during the bloody Partition riots of 1947. The ensuing conflicts had a lasting impact upon his oeuvre, and he even participated in a government project that took him to the frontlines of the Indo-Pakistan War in the 1960s. It was during this period that Mehta first explored the idiom of the falling figure which earned him the Gold Medal at the inaugural Indian Triennale, New Delhi, in 1968. His depiction of the Falling Figure became representative of the fear and anxiety in the face of a violent and unavoidable cataclysm in society. The current iteration was painted in 1991 against the background of resurgent communal unrest across the subcontinent. Mehta was living in Bombay during this period and so would have been acutely aware of the tensions which culminated in the 1992 riots soon after the work was completed. In Untitled (Falling Figure), Mehta makes manifest this angst and clearly elucidates this primal fear.
In the present painting Mehta has created a masterpiece that bristles with personal and political poignancy. The composition is as elegant as it is haunting, as Mehta exquisitely synthesizes complex psychological and metaphysical notions of suffering, violence and trauma into the single distilled form of his protagonist plummeting through the darkness. Untitled (Falling Figure) exhibits Mehta’s masterful composition and emblematic rendition of horror and trauma with his characteristic economy of line and color. “Tyeb Mehta [...] brings about an almost violent rhythm in his human forms. A recurring motif in his work has been the falling figure, which seems to be hurtling downwards and yet is suspended, limbs spreading like a projectile and an expression of frozen horror on the face. The figure etched with minimal lines, manifests an intense pain.” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art, The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 218)
The sharp delineating lines and segregated pools of color in this painting betray the seminal time Mehta spent in New York more than twenty years earlier. The influences of Mark Rothko and especially Barnett Newman in terms of line and color which were fundamental in the formation of Mehta’s mature pictoral vocabulary, are clear in the present painting. This writhing form pays particular homage to Francis Bacon whose expressionistic art Mehta admired since the 1960s when he was in London. Comparisons can be made to Bacon’s iconic painting Two Figures from 1975 both in the smooth application of paint suggestive of polished marble, and in the visceral composition of the human form collapsing in on itself in time and motion.
This image draws its power from suspense, and a simplicity of line and color which allows the figure to transcend its condition appearing almost serene or at least acquiescent of its unavoidable destiny. This painting represents an exceptional moment of synergy between Mehta’s artistic, political and social concerns. Mehta, “started with images which haunted him, burning themselves deep into his mental circuitry [...] these obsessional images, autobiographical in import, gradually gained significance as Tyeb externalised them, reflecting on them, and allowed them to shimmer against the wider canvas of society.” (R. Hoskote et al, Tyeb Mehta: Ideas, Images and Exchanges, New Delhi, 2005, p. 14)
Untitled (Falling Figure) is a cornerstone of Mehta’s career, instantly recognizable and quintessential in both composition and form. Analogous to Edward Munch’s The Scream in stature and subject, this is a painting that was inspired by the artist’s deepest trauma. It is a truly modern painting as these anxieties and social narratives, committed to canvas resonate today as much as ever.
The plummeting protagonist suggests a more universal and existential angst for humanity today. “The falling figure was born from another struggle with the self: while Tyeb had decided to abjure narrative, he found that an accentuation of formal explication could attenuate the forcefulness of the experience [...] This reading also locates the falling figure in a genealogy that reaches back into Greek antiquity, as a descendent of Icarus or Phaethon, the hero punished for an unwitting transgression, an unintended display of pride or recklessness; thus, the evocation of a free fall is also a minatory reminder of the gravity of fate.” (R. Hoskote, New Delhi, 2005, p. 17) This free falling figure represents a loss of control and the inevitable fall of man from grace in atonement for their hubris. If this painting is indeed analogous to the destiny of mankind, this figure is at a critical moment, balancing between damnation and absolution.
In the present painting Mehta has created a masterpiece that bristles with personal and political poignancy. The composition is as elegant as it is haunting, as Mehta exquisitely synthesizes complex psychological and metaphysical notions of suffering, violence and trauma into the single distilled form of his protagonist plummeting through the darkness. Untitled (Falling Figure) exhibits Mehta’s masterful composition and emblematic rendition of horror and trauma with his characteristic economy of line and color. “Tyeb Mehta [...] brings about an almost violent rhythm in his human forms. A recurring motif in his work has been the falling figure, which seems to be hurtling downwards and yet is suspended, limbs spreading like a projectile and an expression of frozen horror on the face. The figure etched with minimal lines, manifests an intense pain.” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art, The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 218)
The sharp delineating lines and segregated pools of color in this painting betray the seminal time Mehta spent in New York more than twenty years earlier. The influences of Mark Rothko and especially Barnett Newman in terms of line and color which were fundamental in the formation of Mehta’s mature pictoral vocabulary, are clear in the present painting. This writhing form pays particular homage to Francis Bacon whose expressionistic art Mehta admired since the 1960s when he was in London. Comparisons can be made to Bacon’s iconic painting Two Figures from 1975 both in the smooth application of paint suggestive of polished marble, and in the visceral composition of the human form collapsing in on itself in time and motion.
This image draws its power from suspense, and a simplicity of line and color which allows the figure to transcend its condition appearing almost serene or at least acquiescent of its unavoidable destiny. This painting represents an exceptional moment of synergy between Mehta’s artistic, political and social concerns. Mehta, “started with images which haunted him, burning themselves deep into his mental circuitry [...] these obsessional images, autobiographical in import, gradually gained significance as Tyeb externalised them, reflecting on them, and allowed them to shimmer against the wider canvas of society.” (R. Hoskote et al, Tyeb Mehta: Ideas, Images and Exchanges, New Delhi, 2005, p. 14)
Untitled (Falling Figure) is a cornerstone of Mehta’s career, instantly recognizable and quintessential in both composition and form. Analogous to Edward Munch’s The Scream in stature and subject, this is a painting that was inspired by the artist’s deepest trauma. It is a truly modern painting as these anxieties and social narratives, committed to canvas resonate today as much as ever.
The plummeting protagonist suggests a more universal and existential angst for humanity today. “The falling figure was born from another struggle with the self: while Tyeb had decided to abjure narrative, he found that an accentuation of formal explication could attenuate the forcefulness of the experience [...] This reading also locates the falling figure in a genealogy that reaches back into Greek antiquity, as a descendent of Icarus or Phaethon, the hero punished for an unwitting transgression, an unintended display of pride or recklessness; thus, the evocation of a free fall is also a minatory reminder of the gravity of fate.” (R. Hoskote, New Delhi, 2005, p. 17) This free falling figure represents a loss of control and the inevitable fall of man from grace in atonement for their hubris. If this painting is indeed analogous to the destiny of mankind, this figure is at a critical moment, balancing between damnation and absolution.