Jehangir Sabavala (b. 1922)

Ranjit Hoskote, Sabavala, Pilgrim, Exile, Sorcerer, Bombay, 1998, p. 171 illustrated

'In Sabavala's paintings of the 1980's and 1990's the universe is heard to speak in a voice capable of many nuances.  "One is moved" he says "by the sweep, the drama, the magnificent changeability of nature."  Transposing his interior drama of turmoil and exhilaration onto the tide, the wind, the awesome spectacle of a storm rending the earth open, the artist offers homage to the cosmos, the original creation...Man's achievement in Sabavala's paintings has been to arrive and depart in silence, with something of the furtive apologia of the interloper on the grand spectacle...As though reverting to the Indo-Iranian religion of his ancient forebears, he affirms the sacredness of the universe; the creative and regenerative principle of the cosmos far overshadows man and his feeble works.' (Ranjit Hoskote, Sabavala: Pilgrim, Exile, Sorcerer, Bombay, 1998, p. 136).