Lot Essay
Tyeb Mehta, celebrated for his artistic evocations of struggle and redemption, mines the theme of falling in this 2007 masterwork. A blue bird hurls out of control, yet is perpetually suspended in space and time. Existing in an eternal present, the image of the bird locks its viewers into a vertiginous relationship, challenging them to engage with the unceasing fall during each viewing. Paralleling the chaotic thrust of Georg Baselitz’s powerful Fingermalerie I-Adler-à la, Mehta’s vision is cinematic, arresting his subjects in motion, as it were, perhaps the result of his earlier artistic forays into cinema.
Yet, unlike Baselitz’s profusion of environmental detail and colours, this depiction is pared down to the contours of the bird’s form and a blank ground, demonstrating Mehta’s rare ability to submit spare form to emotive performance. He builds dynamic tension through the contortion of the subject’s body, and the diagonal line that rends the field of vision in two. Slashing the image in half, contrasting the downward thrust of the falling body, the diagonal is a recurring trope in Mehta’s works, as is the image of the falling figure. Emblematic of his devotion to formalist expression, the diagonal line perhaps evokes the pains of partition, the horror of which he experienced at the age of 22. Quite literally, he invokes the division of territory, through the application of lines that run through the field of the canvas and the bodies of his figures.
The subjects of Mehta’s works fluctuate between states – fixed yet in motion, mythic yet Modern, and animal yet human. Three-dimensional objects are placed in tension with the two-dimensionality of the canvas, heightening the drama of being in flux. Consequently, his paintings of the “falling figure” emblematise tumult. The falling figure is represented through a range of animals, famously including the bull, hurling toward chaos in the celebrated painting Untitled (Bull) of 2007. Similarly, anthropomorphic creatures fall in mythic space in Untitled (Falling Bird), 1999, which features the trope of the bird again, but sprouting the limbs of a man.
Initiating his career with figures of humans in states of raw suffering, he moved to anthropomorphic images and animals as subjects, as metaphors for the human condition that defy literal readings. The bird is a symbol of our fallibility, fragility, and also our eternal resilience. “For over a decade Mehta’s concern had been with mythologizing the tormented existence of individuals which had lent grace and an utter gravity to his forms. In his later works he moved towards the flight of the bird and made it lunge downwards. The falling bird replaces the human being as if beginning the cycle anew.” (Y. Dalmia, Tyeb Mehta: Triumph of Vision, New Delhi, 2011, p. 25) In the artist’s words, “I did the first drawing of the bird as far back as 1983 but as I went along I generally began to feel that the bird always flies so why not make it fall – it’s a contradiction in terms. The bird can be made without bringing in flying because that has a different kind of body-lifting movement. Falling means you have more or less given up.” (Artist statement, cited in Y. Dalmia, 2011, p. 25)
As such, Mehta grapples with the fall of man as an eternal state. The descent is continuous yet never fulfilled, therefore hope remains. “Eventually in these images which currently inhabit Tyeb’s imagination, we return to the vexed and vexatious figure, creature of crisis and bearer of epiphany; and we see, through the many appearances it takes on and casts off, the true lesson of persistence. For the avatar (the animal incarnation of man) is manifestly the trope of survival and continuity, of optimism; it is the vehicle of the future, the token of redemption […] The dream of transcendence that lies at the heart of Tyeb Mehta’s art does not reveal itself easily; he makes certain that we must work strenuously to reach it, sharing with him, every inch of the way, in the work of art.” (R. Hoskote, Tyeb Mehta: Ideas, Images, Exchanges, New Delhi, 2005, p. 42)
Yet, unlike Baselitz’s profusion of environmental detail and colours, this depiction is pared down to the contours of the bird’s form and a blank ground, demonstrating Mehta’s rare ability to submit spare form to emotive performance. He builds dynamic tension through the contortion of the subject’s body, and the diagonal line that rends the field of vision in two. Slashing the image in half, contrasting the downward thrust of the falling body, the diagonal is a recurring trope in Mehta’s works, as is the image of the falling figure. Emblematic of his devotion to formalist expression, the diagonal line perhaps evokes the pains of partition, the horror of which he experienced at the age of 22. Quite literally, he invokes the division of territory, through the application of lines that run through the field of the canvas and the bodies of his figures.
The subjects of Mehta’s works fluctuate between states – fixed yet in motion, mythic yet Modern, and animal yet human. Three-dimensional objects are placed in tension with the two-dimensionality of the canvas, heightening the drama of being in flux. Consequently, his paintings of the “falling figure” emblematise tumult. The falling figure is represented through a range of animals, famously including the bull, hurling toward chaos in the celebrated painting Untitled (Bull) of 2007. Similarly, anthropomorphic creatures fall in mythic space in Untitled (Falling Bird), 1999, which features the trope of the bird again, but sprouting the limbs of a man.
Initiating his career with figures of humans in states of raw suffering, he moved to anthropomorphic images and animals as subjects, as metaphors for the human condition that defy literal readings. The bird is a symbol of our fallibility, fragility, and also our eternal resilience. “For over a decade Mehta’s concern had been with mythologizing the tormented existence of individuals which had lent grace and an utter gravity to his forms. In his later works he moved towards the flight of the bird and made it lunge downwards. The falling bird replaces the human being as if beginning the cycle anew.” (Y. Dalmia, Tyeb Mehta: Triumph of Vision, New Delhi, 2011, p. 25) In the artist’s words, “I did the first drawing of the bird as far back as 1983 but as I went along I generally began to feel that the bird always flies so why not make it fall – it’s a contradiction in terms. The bird can be made without bringing in flying because that has a different kind of body-lifting movement. Falling means you have more or less given up.” (Artist statement, cited in Y. Dalmia, 2011, p. 25)
As such, Mehta grapples with the fall of man as an eternal state. The descent is continuous yet never fulfilled, therefore hope remains. “Eventually in these images which currently inhabit Tyeb’s imagination, we return to the vexed and vexatious figure, creature of crisis and bearer of epiphany; and we see, through the many appearances it takes on and casts off, the true lesson of persistence. For the avatar (the animal incarnation of man) is manifestly the trope of survival and continuity, of optimism; it is the vehicle of the future, the token of redemption […] The dream of transcendence that lies at the heart of Tyeb Mehta’s art does not reveal itself easily; he makes certain that we must work strenuously to reach it, sharing with him, every inch of the way, in the work of art.” (R. Hoskote, Tyeb Mehta: Ideas, Images, Exchanges, New Delhi, 2005, p. 42)