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Invitation to meditation

S. H. RAZA—Mandalas: French text by Olivier Germain-Thomas; English translation by Muthusamy Varadarajan and Padma Natarajan; Art Alive Gallery, S-221, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017.

Sayed Haider Raza (born 1922) occupies a solitary but lustrous, yet deeply reflective, niche in the context of contemporary Indian art. A co-founder of the well-known Progressive Artists Group in Bombay at the turn of the 20th century, he is one of the earliest practitioners of the more difficult and demanding disciplines of the abstract in the visual art canon. Almost synonymous with the “bindu”—the tiny but import laden sacred dot—and the “m andala”, Raza along with a few other Indian artists is generically but not quite accurately referred to as a “tantric” artist. This book is a rare distillation of French critic-scholar Olivier Germain-Thomas’ abiding study and contemplation of Raza—the man, the artist and his considerable body of work spread over the last three decades.

First published in France in 2004, it makes its English debut thanks to a very empathetic and evocative translation by Muthusamy Varadarajan and Padma Natarajan. The text itself is brief and comprises a longish interview with the artist by the author and an essay on the mandala, interspersed with pithy quotes from a wide spectrum of sources that include the epics, poets, philosophers, aesthetes et al. But the final product embellished by sumptuous visuals of Raza’s complex ruminations is poignant. It merits deep reflection by the reader to internalise what the artist has experienced in creating the meditative paintings that he has. What does a French sensibility bring to our understanding of Raza? For me it was the texture of the language — a certain cultural specificity that dilates without being too didactic or desultory, and a degree of humility in the critic’s exploration as he seeks to understand a very introspective artist whose multi-religious, cross-cultural leavening is distinctive. Germain-Thomas is ideally suited for this task as a versatile French author and sensitive critic who has written nine books on Asia and five novels from 1979 onwards, apart from a monograph on texts and photos.

Raza, Gaitonde and Ram Kumar are better-known in contemporary Indian art as being among the early abstractionists. But unlike the latter, whose work was undistinguishable from their Europena peers, Raza, despite his training in France, remained quintessentially linked to his Indian roots in the sylvan forests of Babaria in Madhya Pradesh and the Hindu-Muslim harmony that he was nurtured in. The young Raza received his early art training in Nagpur and Bombay before being selected for a French scholarship that enabled him to enroll at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1950 to 1953. The breakthrough by way of recognition was the French Critic’s award that was conferred on Raza in 1956 and over the last 52 years numerous accolades have been showered on this gifted artist—both internationally and in India.

Raza’s early work was abstract no doubt — as for instance in his landscapes — but the turning point towards the sacred began when he was in his Sixties—in the 1980s. As the author/text points out, Raza cannot be restricted to the non-figurative genre in the traditional sense of the term: “Raza does not belong to this tradition even though he drew closer to it before discovering himself. The combinations of geometric shapes which organizes his work since the ‘80s, the concentric circles, the interlocked triangles, the squares, the energy point (the bindu) constitute a contemporary metamorphosis of a very ancient Indian tradition, the tradition of the mandalas.” The word mandala denotes a circle—but as Germain-Thomas perceptively adds: “If we use this term for Raza, it is not to ‘crib, cabin and confine’ him in a specific tradition, he who is patently beyond all systems, he who is, above all a painter. It is to convey the sacred power which emanates from the combination of the shapes and colours inscribed in his canvases.” But the more significant assertion is: “Raza does not belong to India’s past; he has soaked up its culture, to create contemporary paintings which throw open new vistas.”

The text and the visuals in this slim book indeed point to many rewarding vistas apropos Raza and that which his work symbolises. Reference is made to the Vastusutra Upanishad wherein it is averred that “the same liberating knowledge which can be attained through speech (vacha) can also be attained through the form (roopa).” My own thoughts were drawn towards the entoptic phenomenon in the visual arts and a more recent formulation by J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson. Their 1988 article “The Signs of All Times” proposes a neurobridge backwards in time by 100,000 years to the Upper Palaeolithic by which we can gain insight into the nature of the origins of art. Is it possible that Raza’s vision as reflected in his mandalas is illuminating that intangible bridge for us? To comprehend the macro abstract through the atavistic ritual of micro form?

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