Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Antiquities and Modern and Contemporary Fine Arts | June 2015

which most would never connect to the visual forms & language of a modern Indian painting. The Santiniketan Triptych inspired such a search. Naturally, it is always dangerous to impute non- artistic ideologies upon any piece of art, even when the artist may do so directly (or especially so). Nonetheless, the very fact that a work of art can inspire philosophical questions with a relatively niche focus, and in so doing weave out further questions, into a kind of ‘fuller-full’, some deeper,some cast in different terms symbolizing the same point of quest, is indeed remarkable for Indian modern art. Hopefully a few more literary jugalbandi’s will emerge in the coming years, but for now, a few insights from R. Gandhi’s Svaraj can be shared, in the hope of clarifying the artistic majesty and significance of Tyeb’s ‘Santiniketan Triptych’ and the studies which underpin and have allowed his artistic clarity to be so beautifully represented in oil because of the equally clear, though different forms created earlier in charcoal and watercolour on paper. The same understanding is also evident for his later 1995 Triptych Celebration. “…it became immediately evident to me…that the theme of the singularity of Selfhood, central to Advaita, was central to the painting. And not only because of the gender-crossing androgynised standing figure of the central panel,and the shared,species-crossing,anatomy of the woman and the she-goat at the foot of the flagpole.”– Ramachandra Gandhi, in Svaràj:A Journey with Tyeb Mehta’s “Shantiniketan Triptych”. New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery 2002; p.xvi “…is there any drama in non-duality? Within the consciousness of the conviction that Self alone is, that not-Self cannot be, is there any internal dialectic, any apparently irresolvable conflict of forces, any dramatic, unexpected, dissolution of contradictions? If the triptych is a testament of advaita, as its central panel powerfully suggests, the answer to the above question must be“Yes!”, because the central panel is high drama, theatre of truth and an experiment with it.” Ibid, pp.xvii Neville Tuli: “The process itself gives rise to most of the difference, but is there any significance in the difference?” Tyeb Mehta: “Yes, because it is not telling on the painting. It is part of the painting always, only as a whole.” NT: “Early on, was there a stage of focusing on the figure rather than the whole?” TM: “Maybe, but the proportions of the colour, the way the line bifurcates that part of the colour from this part, all these are very important to me,…” NT: “Must your painting hold only on formal terms?” TM: “Only on formal terms.” NT: “What about understanding yourself from painting, rather than the other way around?” TM: “Myself, I rarely focus in that manner,…it is just because I paint, that I solve this problem.” - Excerpts of First Conversation between Neville Tuli & Tyeb Mehta on 17 September 1993 [BOOK.bkc/ BOOK.ess]. “The Flamed Mosaic: Indian Contemporary Painting”. Ahmedabad:The Tuli Foundation for Holistic Education & Art (HEART) in association with Mapin Thus to extricate one influence from the other is a tenuous task. However, having this watercolour study and others for his two triptych’s brings a great deal of new insight and clarity to his workings as an artist. Naturally, greater research and scholarship in the years to come will deepen one’s understanding of the artistic process, and the role these rare studies played. Further, it is rare to find a book (e.g. “Svaraj by Ramachandra Gandhi 2002), deeply rooted in another (non-fine arts) cultural discipline, to be inspired by a single painting, and that too at a philosophical level which tries to answer various important questions common to existence, Celebration Triptych. Oil on canvas, 1995 with a preparatory study from the 2nd Osianama Series (July 2014) for the Central Panel of the 1995 triptych, from another Eminent Private Family Collection, Kolkata. 79