THE GEOMETRY OF THE SPIRIT
Sayed Haider Raza, one of Indian art’s great masters, turned 85 last week.
A tribute by Ashok Vajpeyi
Reshaping Modernity: Raza in the Progressive Artists’ Group years
His true home is in art, which increasingly becomes a space for grace, meditation, celebration and prayerHe was born 85 years ago in Madhya Pradesh in a tiny village called Kakaiya, which consisted of only nine houses. Sayed Haider Raza grew up not far from the river Narmada and went to his village’s small primary school. One day, his teacher made a bindu on the wall and asked him to concentrate on it, forgetting everything else. Raza later lived in many homes — in Mandala, in Damoh, in Nagpur, Bombay and Paris — eventually settling down in a village in southern France called Gorbio. He has lived with his parents, his teachers and his wife, the French artist Janine Mongillat. After her death, he lives alone. Yet, in more ways than one, the true home of Raza is neither his flat in the 16th century building that used to be a convent in Paris, nor the studio in Gorbio from whose sylvan tranquillity one can see the blue waters of the Mediterranean sea. Raza resides in art, which increasingly becomes a space for grace, meditation, celebration and prayer. Raza lives in his art confidently, peacefully and gratefully.
He went to many schools in India and to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A lot of what he learnt in these places remained with him all his life: the Hindi poems of the middle and high schools in Damoh, the bindu he was made to concentrate on in Kakaiya, the concepts of Indian thought and aesthetics learnt in Damoh, Nagpur and Bombay; the sens plastique acquired in Paris. But the two other schools he learnt and continues to learn at have been nature and life. Nature in Madhya Pradesh was both beautiful and fearsome. Later Raza trained himself to see nature not so much through the retina as through the inner eye: nature not as landscape but as inscape, in its essence, as Prakriti, Beej, Ankura Pravah. Nature has been both his permanent teacher and also the most abiding theme of his art.
Raza grew into his own as a painter in Bombay in the late 1940s. The Indian modernism that developed through the Progressive Artists’ Group in the 40s and 50s was both path-breaking and pluralistic. While it was certainly influenced by the Western aesthetic, it also attempted to discover and reinvent many elements of the Indian visual arts tradition. The artists did not share a common poetics — they all had different view-points, idioms and concerns — but they did form a close camaraderie, daring to experiment, to explore and to venture into new areas of experience and visuality. They finally became distinctly different, and some of them, like MF Husain, FN Souza and Raza, became masters of modern Indian art. The modernism which nurtured them was open enough to all such pluralities of vision and approach as well as of style and aesthetic.
Raza landed in Paris on a French government scholarship in 1950, little knowing that he would settle there for good, spending more than half a century in France, immersing himself in the French — and specifically the Parisian — school of art. In 1956, he became the first foreign painter to win the coveted Prix de la Critique. His initiation and absorption into the École de Paris was complete.
The first three decades that Raza spent in France saw him doing cityscapes and landscapes. He had initially gone to France to learn the art of constructing a painting, as he had been advised by Henri Cartier-Bresson, the great photographer. Cartier-Bresson had seen Raza’s work in 1948 and had found it full of ‘colour and emotion’ but lacking in construction. After the Prix de la Critique, Raza became an established success, invited to exhibit in the famous biennales of Venice, Brussels and São Paulo. His works were shown in exhibitions in Tokyo, London, New York and Canada. His landscapes became studies of light and darkness — though human figures were absent, there was an intensity in his art which did not directly evoke or embody any emotion or the presence of self. But it is obvious that these are concealed, subterraneously, on the canvases. Raza’s art never states, it enacts: it has always been about evocation.
Known as a master colourist Raza can move from a fury of colours to almost utter whites, from passion to deep tranquillity, from celebration to meditation. As with the ancients, the sensual and the spiritual do not have a dichotomous existence in his art; the one inheres in the other.
In the mid-1970s, Raza started feeling restless with self-questioning.
He was no longer satisfied with the Western location of his art; he turned to his roots, to Indian concepts and his childhood memories. He rediscovered the bindu as a centre of energy and creative radiation and also as a centre of stillness and silence. He developed an entire aesthetic and spiritual geometry around it. He continues to explore this area with confidence, articulating an ennobling vision.
Raza is a painter of memory, gratitude and affirmation. There are few like him for whom the gap between life and art is minimal. The river near which he spent his childhood haunts him continually. Among all the holy rivers, the Narmada has the unique distinction of being ubhayatutturthe, a river with holy places on both its banks. The description could apply to Raza as well.
He speaks three languages — Hindi, French and English — and is generous to a fault. He helps a large number of young artists in many different ways, including providing annual awards of Rs 1 lakh each to five talented people from the fields of the visual arts, music, dance and poetry. He is forever engaged in seeking inspiration from Islamic, Hindu and Christian thought; among his most loved books are the Gita and the works of Rilke, Nirala, Ghalib and Paul Valéry. He is one of those rare painters who inscribe lines of verse and utterances in Hindi and Sanskrit in his paintings.
Raza has now created a foundation in Delhi, at an investment of nearly one-and-a-half crores, to promote, assist and honour young artists, musicians, dancers and poets. He is well on his way to creating a Raza-Mongillat Foundation in Gorbio, to which he will gift his vast collection of Indian art and antiques, along with a large corpus fund from his own resources. He is very keen to help create a centre for poetry and the arts in Delhi as a forum for dialogue, interaction and understanding. He turned 85 on February 22 and feels that he has yet to paint a few major canvases.
Vajpeyi is a prominent Hindi litterateur and the author of A Life in Art — Raza
Mar 10 , 2006
Sayed Haider Raza, one of Indian art’s great masters, turned 85 last week.
A tribute by Ashok Vajpeyi
Reshaping Modernity: Raza in the Progressive Artists’ Group years
His true home is in art, which increasingly becomes a space for grace, meditation, celebration and prayerHe was born 85 years ago in Madhya Pradesh in a tiny village called Kakaiya, which consisted of only nine houses. Sayed Haider Raza grew up not far from the river Narmada and went to his village’s small primary school. One day, his teacher made a bindu on the wall and asked him to concentrate on it, forgetting everything else. Raza later lived in many homes — in Mandala, in Damoh, in Nagpur, Bombay and Paris — eventually settling down in a village in southern France called Gorbio. He has lived with his parents, his teachers and his wife, the French artist Janine Mongillat. After her death, he lives alone. Yet, in more ways than one, the true home of Raza is neither his flat in the 16th century building that used to be a convent in Paris, nor the studio in Gorbio from whose sylvan tranquillity one can see the blue waters of the Mediterranean sea. Raza resides in art, which increasingly becomes a space for grace, meditation, celebration and prayer. Raza lives in his art confidently, peacefully and gratefully.He went to many schools in India and to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A lot of what he learnt in these places remained with him all his life: the Hindi poems of the middle and high schools in Damoh, the bindu he was made to concentrate on in Kakaiya, the concepts of Indian thought and aesthetics learnt in Damoh, Nagpur and Bombay; the sens plastique acquired in Paris. But the two other schools he learnt and continues to learn at have been nature and life. Nature in Madhya Pradesh was both beautiful and fearsome. Later Raza trained himself to see nature not so much through the retina as through the inner eye: nature not as landscape but as inscape, in its essence, as Prakriti, Beej, Ankura Pravah. Nature has been both his permanent teacher and also the most abiding theme of his art.
Raza grew into his own as a painter in Bombay in the late 1940s. The Indian modernism that developed through the Progressive Artists’ Group in the 40s and 50s was both path-breaking and pluralistic. While it was certainly influenced by the Western aesthetic, it also attempted to discover and reinvent many elements of the Indian visual arts tradition. The artists did not share a common poetics — they all had different view-points, idioms and concerns — but they did form a close camaraderie, daring to experiment, to explore and to venture into new areas of experience and visuality. They finally became distinctly different, and some of them, like MF Husain, FN Souza and Raza, became masters of modern Indian art. The modernism which nurtured them was open enough to all such pluralities of vision and approach as well as of style and aesthetic.
Raza landed in Paris on a French government scholarship in 1950, little knowing that he would settle there for good, spending more than half a century in France, immersing himself in the French — and specifically the Parisian — school of art. In 1956, he became the first foreign painter to win the coveted Prix de la Critique. His initiation and absorption into the École de Paris was complete.
The first three decades that Raza spent in France saw him doing cityscapes and landscapes. He had initially gone to France to learn the art of constructing a painting, as he had been advised by Henri Cartier-Bresson, the great photographer. Cartier-Bresson had seen Raza’s work in 1948 and had found it full of ‘colour and emotion’ but lacking in construction. After the Prix de la Critique, Raza became an established success, invited to exhibit in the famous biennales of Venice, Brussels and São Paulo. His works were shown in exhibitions in Tokyo, London, New York and Canada. His landscapes became studies of light and darkness — though human figures were absent, there was an intensity in his art which did not directly evoke or embody any emotion or the presence of self. But it is obvious that these are concealed, subterraneously, on the canvases. Raza’s art never states, it enacts: it has always been about evocation.
Known as a master colourist Raza can move from a fury of colours to almost utter whites, from passion to deep tranquillity, from celebration to meditation. As with the ancients, the sensual and the spiritual do not have a dichotomous existence in his art; the one inheres in the other.
In the mid-1970s, Raza started feeling restless with self-questioning.
He was no longer satisfied with the Western location of his art; he turned to his roots, to Indian concepts and his childhood memories. He rediscovered the bindu as a centre of energy and creative radiation and also as a centre of stillness and silence. He developed an entire aesthetic and spiritual geometry around it. He continues to explore this area with confidence, articulating an ennobling vision.
Raza is a painter of memory, gratitude and affirmation. There are few like him for whom the gap between life and art is minimal. The river near which he spent his childhood haunts him continually. Among all the holy rivers, the Narmada has the unique distinction of being ubhayatutturthe, a river with holy places on both its banks. The description could apply to Raza as well.
He speaks three languages — Hindi, French and English — and is generous to a fault. He helps a large number of young artists in many different ways, including providing annual awards of Rs 1 lakh each to five talented people from the fields of the visual arts, music, dance and poetry. He is forever engaged in seeking inspiration from Islamic, Hindu and Christian thought; among his most loved books are the Gita and the works of Rilke, Nirala, Ghalib and Paul Valéry. He is one of those rare painters who inscribe lines of verse and utterances in Hindi and Sanskrit in his paintings.
Raza has now created a foundation in Delhi, at an investment of nearly one-and-a-half crores, to promote, assist and honour young artists, musicians, dancers and poets. He is well on his way to creating a Raza-Mongillat Foundation in Gorbio, to which he will gift his vast collection of Indian art and antiques, along with a large corpus fund from his own resources. He is very keen to help create a centre for poetry and the arts in Delhi as a forum for dialogue, interaction and understanding. He turned 85 on February 22 and feels that he has yet to paint a few major canvases.
Vajpeyi is a prominent Hindi litterateur and the author of A Life in Art — Raza
Mar 10 , 2006
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