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Lot Essay
The present lot, an imposing painting from 1993, centers on a triangular form with another inverted over it, a recurrent motif in Jagdish Swaminathan’s abstract works. The palette of this large painting is dominated by neutral tones, earthen browns and parchment yellows, punctuated by splashes of brilliant red. These drops of red paint, recalling fingerprints, draw attention to the process of creation and emphasize the artist’s hand even in abstraction. The artist’s hand is also prevalent in the fluid black strokes that resemble hieroglyphs or calligraphy, which resonates with the title of the piece, Text Decoded II. Despite the anarchic spots and swirls, the composition of the painting is fundamentally structured, oriented around a clear arrangement of geometric shapes. Also visible among the black forms that flank the central mountain-like shapes, are Swaminathan’s archetypal bird and sun forms, reminiscent of his iconic Bird, Mountain, Tree series of paintings from the previous decades.
Swaminathan’s use of geometric shapes in his work is inspired by yantras, geometric tantric diagrams that aid in meditation or prayer. Yantras resonated with Swaminathan and other neo-Tantric artists in India in the late twentieth-century, including Gulam Rasool Santosh and Biren De. While neo-Tantric abstractions often employ bold colors and strong lines, Swaminathan’s earthy colors and fluid forms indicate another key influence: tribal and folk art. Swaminathan wrote extensively about indigenous art in India, advocating for rural and tribal artists to be treated as contemporary artists and collaborators, rather than marginalized practitioners of tradition. He wrote, “Respecting the innate creative genius of the Adivasi people, just as we respect our own, we are seeing them as living in a commonality with us. We see our fates inexorably linked together, and the new artistic ethos can only be born if this commonality is realized” (Artist statement, The Perceiving Fingers, Bhopal, 1987, p. 38).
Swaminathan’s respect for folk and tribal artists and art forms had a lasting effect on his life and on his creative process as well. “He worked with palette knife, rags, and roller, and used a sharp object to furrow deep into the thick paint surface. In addition, Swaminathan often applied paint with his hand, his essential ‘tool,’ just as the tribals did; he felt that his fingers could ‘discover and cover, reveal and mold better than any conventional implement.’ Text Decoded is one of a series of paintings he created to question the validity of the distinctions so often made between urban art and folk art and between art and craft. Swaminathan’s aesthetic, which held that folk art, tribal art, and urban art are all equally valid versions of the contemporary, might appropriately be termed a ‘post-colonial aesthetic’” (V. Dehejia, ‘Text Decoded’, Beyond the Legacy, Washington, 1998, p. 202). Other paintings in the Text Decoded series are part of the permanent collections of the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC (generously donated by Mahinder and Sharad Tak in 1998), and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
Swaminathan’s use of geometric shapes in his work is inspired by yantras, geometric tantric diagrams that aid in meditation or prayer. Yantras resonated with Swaminathan and other neo-Tantric artists in India in the late twentieth-century, including Gulam Rasool Santosh and Biren De. While neo-Tantric abstractions often employ bold colors and strong lines, Swaminathan’s earthy colors and fluid forms indicate another key influence: tribal and folk art. Swaminathan wrote extensively about indigenous art in India, advocating for rural and tribal artists to be treated as contemporary artists and collaborators, rather than marginalized practitioners of tradition. He wrote, “Respecting the innate creative genius of the Adivasi people, just as we respect our own, we are seeing them as living in a commonality with us. We see our fates inexorably linked together, and the new artistic ethos can only be born if this commonality is realized” (Artist statement, The Perceiving Fingers, Bhopal, 1987, p. 38).
Swaminathan’s respect for folk and tribal artists and art forms had a lasting effect on his life and on his creative process as well. “He worked with palette knife, rags, and roller, and used a sharp object to furrow deep into the thick paint surface. In addition, Swaminathan often applied paint with his hand, his essential ‘tool,’ just as the tribals did; he felt that his fingers could ‘discover and cover, reveal and mold better than any conventional implement.’ Text Decoded is one of a series of paintings he created to question the validity of the distinctions so often made between urban art and folk art and between art and craft. Swaminathan’s aesthetic, which held that folk art, tribal art, and urban art are all equally valid versions of the contemporary, might appropriately be termed a ‘post-colonial aesthetic’” (V. Dehejia, ‘Text Decoded’, Beyond the Legacy, Washington, 1998, p. 202). Other paintings in the Text Decoded series are part of the permanent collections of the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC (generously donated by Mahinder and Sharad Tak in 1998), and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.