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

55 PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK 13 NIKHIL BISWAS (1930 — 66) Man & Moon Signed in English, t.r. Watercolour, early 1960s 55.6 x 75.4 cm. (21.9 x 29.7”) “ Lonely as I am in this wide world, I see how this spirit of loneliness has infected the mood of our modern artists and coloured their works. I also feel that the themes of my works are slowly attaining an intellectual aspect… But I am after an aspect that should be perceptual. I want to enjoy myself in my art. I want to live peacefully and hopefully with the inmates of my soul. I want to delineate truth in the background of eternal and universal values, the intrinsic nature of which remains ever unchanged despite its metamorphosis. This is the agonizing problem before the artist today.” (N.Biswas, from Sambiti ; rpt. in Chitrakoot Art Gallery ExC. 1994-5 ). “ Yes, it is the problem of dehumanisation that confronts us. I am no introvert,… I see how I am being denuded of humanity in spite of my intimate connection with human beings. Still I am a man, a creature of this earth. I partake of the creative energy that belongs to it. Every moment the clarion call of the birth of the new beacons (sic) me… To me Jesus Christ symbolises the pain and agony of a suffering man. Hence, he is the fittest symbol of the soul stirring the pangs and helplessness of our age. Europe in her zeal to make a god of him has overlooked the simple truth that he was essentially a human being.” (Nikhil Biswas, adapted & translated from article in Bengali monthly Sambiti ; rpt. in Drawings by Fourteen Contemporary Artists of Bengal 1970). Rs. 150,000 - 200,000 $ 2,130 - 3,725