Jehangir Sabavala (1922 - 2011)

Christie's London, 16 October 1995, lot 59

Good overall condition. Three small indentations to extreme lower edge of canvas from stretcher bar on reverse. Three light abrasions to the top most paint layer in center green area visible in catalog illustration.
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In the 1980s and 1990s, Jehangir Sabavala’s paintings began to emphasize the drama and magnificence of nature. In 1993, the year this work was painted, the Vedantist commentator Ananda Wood identified five elements of the natural world in Sabavala's paintings: earth, water, fire, air and sky. 'In traditional Indian and European thought, these five elements represented a progressive investigation towards reality: from the apparently solid and separately identifiable things of earth, through the changing fluidity of water, through the qualitative conditioning of air and atmosphere, and through the pervading continuity of all-embracing space and overarching sky, finally to unconditional reality.' (R. Hoskote, 'A Crystalline Alchemy', The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Bombay, 2005, p. 145).

The inspiration for this painting came from a visit Sabavala made to the Khali estate in the Kumaon region of the Himalayan foothills. Upon returning home, the artist enthusiastically wrote of the beauty of the Kumaon region. "How lovely the Kumaon still is - if you climb high enough and avoid the ruthless deforestation... between 6000 and 8000 feet, you could still do cross-country walks through pine, cedar, and oak. And the air is scented and the meadows just beginning to be flower-strewn... and those rare moments when Nanda Devi or Maiktoli or the lovely Trisul enigmatically cast their veils aside and reveal themselves - ice-clad, towering and very mysterious - turning the horizon into a magical Fast-Eastern 'wash' fantasy" (ibid. p. 146). In his paintings that pay homage to the Kumaon province, Ranjit Hoskote describes 'A hint of Constable... in the celebration of the felicity of natural forms... The artist relishes the play of opposites, the nebulous against the geometric, scumbled passages of cloud... Modelling the overhanging cloud-head, the tree-line and the massif in cerulean, cobalt, damson and amethyst touched with citron yellow, Sabavala also takes an unabashed delight in colour.' (ibid.). Sabavala's landscapes from this period are not only a celebration of the awe and wonderment of nature but they also possess an awareness of time and mortality and the violation of nature by technology.