Jagdish Swaminathan (1929-1994)

In the late 1980s, Swaminathan turned to the forms and symbols of tribal art for inspiration and his canvases from this period reflect this evocative new ethos. His early encounters with indigenous peoples had left a deep impression upon him. One such experience is recounted in the following words: 'A young boy had been bitten by a snake and the witch doctor was reviving the boy by continuous chant and throwing pot fulls of water on him. We watched in rapt fascination and soon enough the boy recovered and the snake, which had been imprisoned in an earthen pot, was let off and disappeared into a thick bamboo grove. This early encounter with tribal life was to have a deep impact on my later life.' (J. Swaminathan: An Exhibition of Paintings, Vadehra Art Gallery)

Swaminathan’s connections with tribal art were reinforced during his tenure as the Director of Roopanakar Museum in Bhopal (1981-1990). He gained a deep knowledge of the symbolic and ritual expression of tribal art and this was translated in canvases where various symbols and images coalesced to create a distinctive new idiom. Geometric shapes such as the triangle, rectangle and the circle appear frequently in his works, and they take on a symbolic and religio-erotic significance. The triangle for instance, can mean several different yet related things. The upward pointing triangle can be seen to represent the mountains, which in the Hindu context is seen as the abode of Shiva the erotic ascetic, and this interpretation is further reinforced by the appearance of the snake within the triangle, both a symbol of Shiva and in itself considered a symbol of fertility and rebirth in the animist religions that predate Hindu beliefs. In the artist’s words, 'The vibrant contact with tribal cultures triggered off my natural bent for the primeval.'

The use of this new symbolic vocabulary also triggered experimentation in technique. The artist began using a wax-based medium that served as a binder for natural pigments such as red and yellow, ocher and charcoal dust, which he applied on the canvas with his fingers creating textured surfaces as seen in the present work.