"The mysteries of form reveal themselves through light-colour-space perceptions. In a visible energy spectacle, certain fundamental elements are intricately interrelated and determine the nature of form. Their understanding is indispensable in any creative process. [...] In the normal day-to-day work, the artist realizes the complexities of life, nature and art, as also his own limitations; his work is a lifelong effort, and inquiry [and] emergence from darkness to light."
Beginning in the 1940s, Sayed Haider Raza painted landscapes, most famously watercolours of Bombay and other areas of India. As a young artist, these studies honed an observant eye and established his unique perspective of the world. After studying at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay, Raza moved to Paris in 1950 where he began a period of structural compositions that blended the traditional landscape with more abstract modes of representation that defined the post-Impressionist movement.
While the early 1950s were defined by Sienese-inspired townscapes, by the mid-1950s Raza’s artistic style underwent a major evolution. Abandoning precision and a refined use of gouache and watercolour, the artist moved towards completely free, gestural works that emphasized dimension with thicker applications of impasto. Using colour and texture as foci, Raza deepened his sense of the world in this experimentation - anchored in feeling rather than objective reality.
'[H]e continued to explore further possibilities of colour, making colour rather than any geometrical design or division, the pivotal element around which his paintings moved. Also, colours were not being used as merely formal elements: they were emotionally charged. Their movements or consonances on the canvases seemed more and more to be provoked by emotions, reflecting or embodying emotive content.'
As Raza’s compositions became more abstract, so did the theme. Time - its passing and its effect on the material world, became Raza’s recurring subject. Twilight, dawn, night and daytime, the changes of light during the day were inspirations to him, and representative of the imperceptible yet continuous pulse of life. His free and expressive brushstrokes of this period mirror the fleeting notion of time. Raza mentions what the landscape at the time invoked in him: "I wanted my paintings to express the feeling of fervor and human tension that burned within me." (S. H. Raza quoted in M. Imbert, Raza: An Introduction to his Painting, Delhi, 2000, p. 37)
'Burning' is an apt description of his canvases from this period, particularly Crepuscule. The brilliant brazen hues of this 1959 work are crafted in wondrous frenzy. 'Crepuscule', French for twilight – neither day nor night – is represented in a clash of deep blacks, dark blue and navy, white and hints of green that phase out the fiery red hue, now delegated to the edges of the canvas. It is as though night is coming as fiercely and valiantly as the rising sun. In the lower left corner, a village house is lit with a warm, yellow light from within, reminiscent of a night scene only lit by human habitation.
While this work demonstrates the transition of light, it also demonstrates a shift in Raza’s oeuvre. Including both a small landscape element amidst an abstract canvas, Crepuscule signifies a pivotal moment in Raza’s career before he embraced pure abstraction. Liminal space of light and life are combined in this masterpiece from Raza's oeuvre.