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拍品专文
Syed Haider Raza looked to the lush foliage and quiet majesty of the pastoral for inspiration in the 1950s, after having moved to France to study at the École des Beaux Arts. Thick impasto and bursts of colour become key elements in his pictorial language, marking his departure from figuration to increasingly abstract concepts and forms.
Though redolent of the distilled landscapes of his peer in art, Nicolas de Staël, whose work Raza had viewed and admired in Paris, Raza’s effulgent landscapes of the 1950s deny strict comparison. Rather, his forms and shapes bathe in a light that radiates from within. The dynamic diagonals and rectilinear forms of the village dominate the picture field. A halo of black surrounds the huddle of buildings, set under a deep blue sky. Rich hues of red, yellow, blue, orange, and pools of white dot the canvas, suggesting the vibrancy of the provincial setting. People are conspicuously absent, as is the case in Raza’s pastoral oeuvre. Jacques Lassaigne, former director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, observed that Raza painted "[Timeless] landscapes with no accommodation for man; uninhabited, uninhabitable cities [...]" (K. Singh, ed., 'S. H. Raza', Continuum: Progressive Artists Group, New Delhi, 2011, p. 154) Consequently, plays of colour and rough-hewn geometry impart anima and vitality. Building upon and departing from traditional iconographies of the pastoral, Raza surpassed canonical forms of art-making, choosing instead to carve his own path as an aesthete-philosopher. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2013 by the Government of India, one of India’s highest civilian awards.
For further discussion on Raza see lot 64
Though redolent of the distilled landscapes of his peer in art, Nicolas de Staël, whose work Raza had viewed and admired in Paris, Raza’s effulgent landscapes of the 1950s deny strict comparison. Rather, his forms and shapes bathe in a light that radiates from within. The dynamic diagonals and rectilinear forms of the village dominate the picture field. A halo of black surrounds the huddle of buildings, set under a deep blue sky. Rich hues of red, yellow, blue, orange, and pools of white dot the canvas, suggesting the vibrancy of the provincial setting. People are conspicuously absent, as is the case in Raza’s pastoral oeuvre. Jacques Lassaigne, former director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, observed that Raza painted "[Timeless] landscapes with no accommodation for man; uninhabited, uninhabitable cities [...]" (K. Singh, ed., 'S. H. Raza', Continuum: Progressive Artists Group, New Delhi, 2011, p. 154) Consequently, plays of colour and rough-hewn geometry impart anima and vitality. Building upon and departing from traditional iconographies of the pastoral, Raza surpassed canonical forms of art-making, choosing instead to carve his own path as an aesthete-philosopher. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2013 by the Government of India, one of India’s highest civilian awards.
For further discussion on Raza see lot 64