The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
‘His style of painting was heady and haunting’
“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” Rainermariarilkein Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
My first experience of looking at a work by Syedhaiderrazawasatvadehraartgalleryin the ’90s. His style of painting with the elemental form of the circle as a compositional starting point was heady and haunting. I recall goingbackthenextdaytostudyhisworksbefore meetinghimattheindianinternationalcentre, Delhi, for an interview. When I met him that winter afternoon, he spoke of how the circle manifests itself in multiple forms because it is the beginning and the end — the source and the spirit; and mentioned the similarities between the word Om and the seed.
While other critics were speaking of foreign artists, I felt that Raza’s works addressed a deeply Indian, spiritual connotation. The idea oftheconcentriccirclesrepresentedaconcentrated energy. Raza imbued an inherent rhythmandeleganceinhisworkswhichmade him one of the finest and most striking examplesofartistsinthedomainofindiancontemporary art. Shapes and colours were his world. And he tried all kinds of permutations to createhisindian-lookingmandalasthatwereborn out of an orchestration of chromatics. He was so content creating works and watching art loverscrowdaroundhisprimordialbindusand his rippled geometrics.
In those days he was also into Buddhist chanting and spoke of the vitality of the Panchatatva — the five primary colours and their elements. “My colours are born of the earth,” he would say, “they are the reflection of gestation, of the seed that must be born out of the spirit of all that is omniscient.”
Itwaslastyear,whenicurated Five Quartets, that the Raza Foundation gave me permission to spend time with him. 93-year-old Raza was frail but a gentleman with finesse. His long slenderfingersalwaysfascinatedme.ishamelessly held onto them while he spoke. It was the heart of a solitary, deeply reflective Raza reminiscing over his wife Janine, the Sunday Mass at the church in Gorbio in France and the hymns that he loved. He spoke about his love for Christ, of how his teachings spoke about thepowerofhumanism.hespokeofhowthe bindu that used to be a symbol of peace was now a symbol of a tormented world of the violencethatmansubjectsitto.suddenlyraza’s whole universe had morphed into his bindu anditwasasiftimeandspacestoodstilltocreate a corollary of conversations.
Raza’s universe was the vocabulary of great thinkers and writers. Everything he did was born out of allegories and allusions. The principles of pure geometry and form that he used in his canvases were his own principles. His favourite authors Arthur Rimbaud and Rainer Maria Rilke seemed to bring him joy. When I recited a few lines of Rilke’s poetry he became ecstatic and recited the lines in French.
Everydayofthosesevendaysisatwithapen andpaperandputdownmynotes.thosenotes fromthesummerof2015becamereverie with Raza, the book I wrote on him. Hearing the news of his passing, I now think that it was so precious to have been able to spend time with the last of India’s modern masters. He leaves behind works that speak of seasons in the sun and twinkling nights merging Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the South of France.
The writer is an independent curator and critic and the author of Reverie with Raza
A 1983 WORK, SAURASHTRA:
Raza’s Saurashtra set the new record auction price for modern Indian art when international auction house Christie’s, London, sold the work for Rs 16.42 crore in 2010. This beat the records set in the past two years by FN Souza, MF Husain, Tyeb Mehta and Raza himself, making him India’s most expensive artist.
FROM A 2016 EXHIBITION:
Raza’s last few years saw him romancing with the conceptual bindu. Be it Gandhi, Sanskrit or his philosophical leanings, Raza’s bindu acquired various interpretations. At 94, his most recent series, “Nirantar”, was exhibited in January 2016, in Delhi.
COMPILED BY PALLAVI PUNDIR