Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

45 PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK “Souza is a painter of the mind. His images are conceived in a stylized form and like Picasso and Chagall he frequently refers to mythology. Therefore, there are two aspects to Souza’s works; the cloisonnic and the pictorial form of language. The cloisonnic character of Souza’s art can be discerned in the mutilated portrait studies where the human head is pierced by arrows and the contour of the mouth is diffused and distorted, giving a picture of agony… The other examples of the former can be seen in various nude studies of women… The pictorial quality is of high order and the form is controlled by the proliferation of linear rhythm and finally crystallized in tonal variations of chiaroscuro to produce a plastic effect”. (S. K. Bhattacharya, from F. N. Souza - An Eclectic in Indian Art, rpt.in Rooplekha 1966 . pp161-6). “I’d want my language to ooze out of my mouth naturally, pure like a bubbling spring, a fountain spurting out, its source embedded deep within the crevices of pristine music,…” (F.N. Souza, from Words & Lines 1959. p13). d c