Syed Haider Raza, most celebrated modernist and spiritualist Indian painter....

Syed Haider Raza, most celebrated modernist and spiritualist Indian painter....

Syed Haider Raza, one of India's most prominent modernists, created an artistic language that was founded in Indian culture but also affected by his worldview. The point “bindu” would become the epic-entre of his cosmos in the background of a huge space, the epi-centre of his maze of geometric patterns as well as his earlier abstract landscapes, through which he would introduce the world to Indian Mystical iconography. On his death anniversary (23 July), we look at his influences and how his art and he traversed borders to become a global phenomenon.

Raza’s work evolved from expressionistic landscapes to abstracts. His work reflects his classical French schooling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris as well as his exposure to post-war American abstract expressionism. His later work was replete with his love for Indian iconography, philosophy, music and poetry.

Raza is said to have started painting every day with a prayer, believing that a piece only comes to life when the Divine penetrates it. He felt the material, or the act of painting that is entrenched in the materiality of pigment and canvas, could be a means to realise the immaterial. Raza's spiritual foundation was very strong, yet his approach was extremely open to life. He didn't believe in denying his surroundings. Instead, he perceived the universe with its various manifestations of form and colour as a means to a purpose, not an end in itself. He remained a painter until the end, and through the act of repeatedly painting, almost like doing chanting and meditation (a comparison Raza himself used), he sought to evolve.

I can always hear his voice with his words, “ Prabuddha, Indian artists can’t actually understand the value of point and space in the whole composition of the cosmos.”

#PrabuddhasArt #AIMArtInMe

Comments

Raghu Rai: The Unflinching Eye That Framed India’s Conscience by Prabuddha Ghosh

Raghu Rai: The Unflinching Eye That Framed India’s Conscience by Prabuddha Ghosh In the long and unsettled narrative of modern India, few visual chroniclers have worked with the moral clarity, emotional depth, and sustained intensity of Raghu Rai. To speak of him merely as a photographer is to understate the scope of his engagement. He is, more precisely, a witness to India’s becoming—its fractures, its continuities, its silences, and its eruptions. Across decades, his lens has moved with a rare steadiness through the country’s most defining moments, refusing spectacle while never relinquishing the power of the image. Born on 18 December 1942 in Jhang, in undivided Punjab—now in Pakistan—Rai belonged to a generation marked indelibly by the trauma of Partition. Geography, for him, was never inert. It was memory, rupture, and inheritance. Punjab was not simply a birthplace; it was a divided consciousness. That inheritance would quietly shape his sensibility. There is, in his work, an unm...

A Timeless Gaze, A Global Ascent: When Raja Ravi Varma Redefined the Place of Indian Art by Prabuddha Ghosh

A Timeless Gaze, A Global Ascent: When Raja Ravi Varma Redefined the Place of Indian Art by Prabuddha Ghosh ( The recent sale of Yashoda and Krishna by Raja Ravi Varma marks a defining moment in the trajectory of Indian art. Achieving an unprecedented ₹167.2 crore at Saffronart ’s Spring Live Auction in Mumbai, the painting has become the highest-valued work of Indian art ever sold. Acquired by Cyrus S. Poonawalla , it surpasses the earlier record set by M. F. Husain ’s Gram Yatra , indicating not only a shift in market dynamics but also a renewed cultural recognition. This article approaches the event as more than an auction milestone. It connects the sale to broader questions shaping the present and future of Indian art, including the evolution of collecting practices, the continued relevance of Varma’s legacy, the distinctive qualities of his paintings, the ongoing surge in the Indian art market, and the factors contributing to such extraordinary valuation. Drawing on current ...

A New Vista in My Creative Journey: Entering Digital Art by Prabuddha Ghosh

A New Vista in My Creative Journey: Entering Digital Art in 2025 by Prabuddha Ghosh A fter more than thirty-five years of dedicated engagement with photography and nearly two decades of sustained practice in digital photography, I have now entered a new and significant phase of my creative journey: the field of Digital Art. This transition has emerged organically through reflection, experimentation and encouragement from individuals whose guidance and faith have been deeply meaningful to me. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the constant motivation and mentorship of my friend and senior artist, Shri Atul Padiaji of Vadodara, Gujarat, whose encouragement gave me the confidence to explore this medium with greater seriousness and depth. Equally important has been the role of my younger brother, Shri Jayanta Khan of Kolkata, who, through his persistent inspiration over more than a year, urged me to take this decisive step and begin a new chapter in my artistic life. I also believe t...

…. Curator’s Pen by Prabuddha Ghosh

Search This Blog