What better way to celebrate your 93rd birthday than going right back to the beginning? Syed Haider Raza is doing just that with a new solo show called “Aarambh” (which translates to 'the beginning'.) The title of the show is a reflection of Raza's unassuming personality who does not take himself too seriously. He is one of the most important artists of modern Indian art, and one of the five who lord over the lion’s share of India’s art market. And the only surviving artist in the genre, who is not ready to hang his canvas yet.“Aarambh” is what Raza views his own life as. “There is always something new to learn, a new beginning to make, says the artist who, at 93, is exactly not what you’d expect a 93-year-old artist to be. He is not eccentric, speaks in measured words and doesn’t squirm at requests for pictures with various canvases in his spacious studio, even if it means moving from one chair to another, from one corner to another. He doesn’t even unsettle you by questioning your questions regarding his art and life, a not-so-uncommon trait amongst artists of even average reputation or talent.Raza is frailer than when I last interviewed him in 2011, a few weeks after his relocation to Delhi from Paris where he had lived for 60 years. Reclining in a chair like a delicate child, he looks much smaller than the tall, lanky guy of his younger years, but retains every bit of the French demeanour he probably imbibed during his days in France as a painter, and husband to French artist and sculptor Janine Mongillat who died in 2002.“Yes, I miss Paris at times, but I’m happy here," he says. Raza had left India to study at Ecole Nationale Superieur des Beaux Arts in Paris in October 1950, and ironically it was in France that he grew into one of the most formidable names of Indian art. Here, he discovered himself of sorts, his deep philosophical, Indian roots, after painting nature for a long time. His painterly tryst with spirituality continues, as the works in “Aarambh” are an extension of his “Bindu” series. “Bindu” literally translates into a ‘dot,’ of a million meanings, a million possibilities.He has often spoken about his French experience as a seminal trajectory that an artist should try for – if not 60 years, then at least some sustained exposure to European modes of art. “It’s important to be exposed to the trends and ways of thinking all over the world. That completes an artist,” he says. “Just as we have learnt to adapt Indian civilization to the scientific advances of the world, an artist, a writer, must do the same. It affects your way of thinking, your way of living.” He adds after a pause, "Today, it should especially be undertaken as it is so much easier to go to Europe compared to the time I went.”In this context, I bring up another famous alumnus of the Parisian school, Amrita Sher-Gil, an artist of a generation previous to Raza’s, who had a similar zeal and fire to create an Indian identity of modern art, as the later day Progressives (the group of artists formed in 1947 by Raza, F.N.Souza and M.F. Husain, and later joined by all those whom we now know as the masters of modern Indian art). “She was a courageous woman, who tried and succeeded, in achieving alone what we – plenty in number – tried to do a generation later," he says.Indian art is certainly many shades different today than it was when Raza, Souza, Husain, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee were young enthusiasts charting new roads for a newly independent country’s new identity in the arts. What is it that he finds most striking in the present day artists? “I meet them regularly and we exchange ideas and opinions. It’s especially interesting to see how women have changed so much," he reflects, before adding, "What an artist makes of the open environment around him depends totally on the individual. Some are able to assimilate the essence of their environment, some deny it. As for me, I was able to assimilate it all because of God’s grace. He gave me the courage to adopt new things.”Even as he muses on the topic, I sense his attendants shuffling their shoes in the background. I realise it’s an indication to let Raza relax as two feet away is an easel with a canvas, filled with bright blues, that he must return to. That’s what sustains him and keeps him going; even though the strokes have become wobbly and the colors tend to run away from the pencil boundaries that he creates for them. But even so, the ‘Bindu’ stands firm in each Raza canvas, encapsulating the entire journey of the country’s art from what it was in 1947 to what it has become now. — Aarambh is on view at Vadehra Art Gallery, D40, Defence Colony, New Delhi, until March 18. His recent works were also shown at Akar Prakar in Kolkata over the last weekend and are concurrently being shown at Art Musings in Mumbai through March 15Follow@ARTINFOIndia
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