Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | January 2008

151 114 Jagdish Swaminathan (1929 - 1994) Perception XV S/d in English ‘J. Swaminathan ‘72’ and Signed in Devanagari ‘Swami 72’ on verso. With inscription ‘J. Swaminathan/ 4. Perception XV’ on exhibition label Oil on canvas, 1972 49.0 x 49.0 in (124.5 x 124.5 cm) INR 16,000,000 – 20,000,000 USD 400,000 – 500,000 ‘His structures were elemental, uniquely his own. He conjugated them to create undreamt of images. Hills, birds, insects, plants, water, air, unbuildable buildings but no human beings. Their relatIonship on the canvas had nothing to do with the laws of this physical world. The area of painting was its own unique universe in which the impossible is credible. A rock suspended in mid air with a sleek bird atop of it, a mountain reflected in a lake which leaves you guessing as to which is which, and steps on a monument leading nowhere. The entire drama ‘You see in Swaminathan’s paintings the images of bird, tree and mountain, suspended in a space which is pure colour (colour which is pure space) perfectly still yet evanascent, like apparitions which will disappear with a touch, leaving only the faintest shadow on the bright void….Swaminathan’s aesthetic, then, comes close to what one might call “natural mysticism” a state of identification of the self with the whole of nature.’ – Geeta Kapur rpt. in Contemporary Indian Artists . Mumbai: Vikas Publishing House 1978. p.204. enacted in the richest and most unusual colours. He talked and wrote about the Colour Geometry of Space. His poetics were not surreal…He managed to dissociate common phenomena from its normal associations and lodge it as it were, in a universe of mystery and wonder, creating images which are about to reveal themselves but never quite do so. They remain suspended though vivid.’ – Krishen Khanna rpt. in J.Swaminathan . New Delhi: LKA 1995.