February 22, 1922. On this ordinary day, a luminary was born. Syed Haider Raza burned his legacy into visual art history with the ever-burning flame of his work. This legend’s art is replete with abstraction and transcends the rudimentary boundaries of words. His art unveils the layered spirituality influenced by three distinct religious experiences that intertwine to form a unique meld. Raza was Muslim by birth, married to a Christian and was socialized in a Hindu environment in his nascent years. 

2023 marked the centenary year of Syed Haider Raza. Even now he is lauded as one of the foremost Indian painters. Along with contemporaries from the Progressive Art Group in India such as M. F. Hussain, F. N. Souza and others, Raza created a unique space for the modern Indian painter in the visual art world. Raza’s art characterizes a confluence of Western expression and Indian symbolism, allowing for a fascinating critical analysis of spiritual themes in abstract art.  Two of Raza’s most famous series, Saurashtra and Bindu, convey an intricacy of spiritual thought woven in geometry, colors, lines and brush strokes. Each painting is a rich tapestry that weaves the individual threads of many experiences and perspectives. 

Colors, shapes, ideas and experiences

Any lofty, robust tree must have good branching and staunch roots. Raza’s creativity is no different. The seed behind Raza’s growth was planted in a small village in Madhya Pradesh, India. From there he branched out to Bombay, where thousands journeyed in the hopes of finding success in the urbanscape. His final destination was France, where he trained, married a French artist, settled and remained by choice in his life and art “Indian.” The magnetic pull of his motherland was irrefutable, so he kept returning home to the land of vibrant, coruscating, living colors.

Even in childhood, Raza was enchanted by the infinite Elysium of nature that made his hometown of Babariya thrum with life: the songs of verdant green forests and the sempiternal beauty of the cascading Narmada. This deep affinity for the beauty of nature likely pushed him to pursue landscape art, which spanned much of his early career. His love for nature is evident through his hunger for color and artistic ferocity, even when he was a budding artist lacking the influences he needed to truly blossom. 

Raza discovered a new vision when he traveled to coastal Mumbai, the city of dreams. The boundless urban landscapes of buildings and the infinity of the sea provided another perspective that appealed to his sensibilities. Other journeys, such as the one to Kashmir and then to France, expanded his palette of perceptions. 

Raza’s expressional turn

Some of the most illustrious works of Raza’s repertoire were catalyzed by the Bindu incident in his school days. His teacher, hoping to soothe the agitation in his mind, instructed Raza to concentrate on a bindu, or dot, on the classroom wall. Spellbound, Raza spent hours fixated on this ostensibly insignificant dot. The time spent gazing at the dot returned with a force later in life that grew into a phenomenal artistic and spiritual journey, shaping Raza into the celebrated artist he is today. 

Bindu was part of his journey to move away from Cubist and figurative forms in order to experiment with expressional art. He needed to address his restless mind, and as such was drawn to that childhood event of gazing at the black dot. The bindu became a larger-than-life multilayered philosophical symbol. Artfully put by Sandhya Bordewekar, a leading art historian, the bindu “represented the seed, a natural symbol of fertility, the cyclical nature of the seasons, the circle of life and death that cannot be broken.” 

Saurashtra

Another famous series of Raza’s paintings, Saurashtra, came after Bindu. Done in the early 1980s, Saurashtra is all about emotional and geometrical expression. The painting seeks to capture what poet Ashok Vajpeyi, director of the Raza Foundation, describes of Raza’s work: “Inheritance and invention, modernity and memory, celebration, and spirituality.” 

Saurashtra drew inspiration from the arid landscape of the State of Gujarat. In contrast to the dusty, dry surroundings, the people of Gujarat wear vigorously spirited, vibrant and even psychedelic colors. The abstract strokes navigating the geometrical spacing seem inspired by the colors of the Rajasthani miniature paintings between the 16th and 19th centuries. The colors of ochre, crimson and deep-red brown are reminiscent of the languorous, sultry land. Scintillas of green represent occasional oases amongst the desert. Raza writes, “Instead of being constructions, my paintings from the 1970s are more gestural in techniques, and in terms of colour, too, they are expressionistic. The spontaneity was new and compulsive – I let the canvas grow.” 

The Saurashtra series of Raza’s paintings are abstract, but there is a spiritual journey to be found. These paintings form part of the artist’s transitional phase, where he seeks to explore his inner self and aspires to balance his inner growth and interaction with the outer world. Writer Urmila Banu states that “the distortion of forms and lines correspond to the struggle of his state of mind, a reverse journey from experience to innocence, tracking back his rootedness to the native place, where he was born, weaving the relationship with nature and meadows and the social and cultural landscape.” 

The demand for S.H. Raza’s artwork is testimony to the importance of his legacy. To celebrate his centenary, the Raza Foundation, an arts and culture organization established in 2001 by Raza, along with Centre Pompidou in Paris, organized an exhibition that took place from February 15 to May 15, 2023. It was specially curated to demonstrate Raza’s free-flowing and unfettered oeuvre, including early works from his days in the Sir J. J. School of Art. The exhibition aimed to establish the role of Sayed Haider Raza as an artist who bridged Western and South Asian sensibilities, artistic techniques, aesthetics and philosophical and spiritual ideas. Raza received the fourth-highest civilian award in India, the Padma Shri, in 1981. He also received the Fellowship of the Lalit Kala Academi (the National Academy of Visual Arts in India) in 1984. In 2007 he added the third-highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan, to his list of decorations, as well as Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honor, in 2013. 

Raza left his mortal body on July 23, 2016. The goblin of death in Terry Pratchett’s acclaimed novel Reaper Man famously said: “No one is dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.” The rich legacy left behind by Raza can testify to the numerous ripples that continue to give direction to other artists. A mute witness to his legacy is the painting he was making before his death, which rests on the easel for posterity in his studio in Delhi: “A black circle whirling on its axis would begin its journey, rising from an ocean of white, and dynamise the room.” The unfinished painting is evidence of Raza’s flying soul recreating his abstractly painted spiritual journey. 

[The Art Journal Foundation first published this piece.]

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.