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Lot Essay
George Keyt’s unmistakable visual language combines European Modernist movements such as Cubism and Fauvism with traditional South Asian fresco techniques from the Ajanta and Sigiriya caves. Describing his work, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda noted that “Keyt is the living nucleus of a great painter. In all his works, there is the moderation of maturity. Magically though he places his colours, and carefully though he distributes plastic volumes, Keyt’s pictures nevertheless produce a dramatic effect. These figures take on a strange expressive grandeur, and radiate an aura of intensely profound feeling” (W. G. Archer, India and Modern Art, London, 1959, p. 124).
Keyt’s paintings of women are dynamic and evocative. Voluptuous female nudes appear frequently in his work, taking stylistic cues from the works of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. The artist’s delight in the female form is tempered, however, by a spiritual dimension. Keyt was deeply interested in Indian religions, and temple sculpture from sites like Khajuraho, Bhubhaneshwar and Konark became a significant influence on his visual lexicon. Many of Keyt’s women are inspired by the legends of Parvati, Sita, Radha and other fabled beauties of Hindu mythology.
The present lot is a masterful example of the bold geometric forms and calligraphic lines that embody a “highly personal curvilinear rhythm, contrasting graceful movements, delineation of round and flat forms on the same picture plane and a feeling of highly intense sensuality. (L.P. Sihare, ‘Keyt – Asian Painter’, George Keyt: A Centennial Anthology, Colombo, 2001, p. 31). Here, Keyt paints a nayika, or the mortal heroine of epic love stories, often classified by archetypal states in relation to her lover, the hero. Bharata’s early first-century CE Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, Natya Shastra, might identify Keyt’s melancholy figure as a vipralabdha nayika, or one in the state of having been ‘deceived by her lover.’ At the same time, Keyt subverts the traditional visual representation of the heroine by presenting her naked, perhaps emphasizing the tragedy of deception in love.
Keyt’s paintings of women are dynamic and evocative. Voluptuous female nudes appear frequently in his work, taking stylistic cues from the works of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. The artist’s delight in the female form is tempered, however, by a spiritual dimension. Keyt was deeply interested in Indian religions, and temple sculpture from sites like Khajuraho, Bhubhaneshwar and Konark became a significant influence on his visual lexicon. Many of Keyt’s women are inspired by the legends of Parvati, Sita, Radha and other fabled beauties of Hindu mythology.
The present lot is a masterful example of the bold geometric forms and calligraphic lines that embody a “highly personal curvilinear rhythm, contrasting graceful movements, delineation of round and flat forms on the same picture plane and a feeling of highly intense sensuality. (L.P. Sihare, ‘Keyt – Asian Painter’, George Keyt: A Centennial Anthology, Colombo, 2001, p. 31). Here, Keyt paints a nayika, or the mortal heroine of epic love stories, often classified by archetypal states in relation to her lover, the hero. Bharata’s early first-century CE Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, Natya Shastra, might identify Keyt’s melancholy figure as a vipralabdha nayika, or one in the state of having been ‘deceived by her lover.’ At the same time, Keyt subverts the traditional visual representation of the heroine by presenting her naked, perhaps emphasizing the tragedy of deception in love.