Ghulam Rasool Santosh

(1929-1997)

Untitled (Fire)

Footnotes

Provenance
Property from a private collection, UK.
Acquired from the artist in 1995.

'Santosh's oeuvre emerges from a syncretic Kashmiri culture in which Hindu practises developed in dialogue with Islamic Sufi traditions and Mahayana Buddhist practises. Santosh came from a Muslim Kashmiri background but married a Hindu, took her name in place of Dar, and moved comfortably back and forth between poetic Urdu text and modernist oil paint...His work seeks out the modern and the universal in a specific religious tradition of the subcontinent.' (Susan S. Bean, Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence, Peabody Essex Museum, 2013 p.110)

'The mind of an artist is conditioned and activated by continuity of thought, thereby rendering the creative expression self-consistent...Indian tradition is based on the universal concept of the ultimate reality manifesting itself in a myriad shapes and forms in time and space. My own self is preoccupied with the same universal concept...My paintings are based on the male-and-female concept of Siva and Sakti, and therefore, construed as Tantra...To me painting is a necessary, normal activity, no more special than any of my other activities.' (G.R. Santosh, 'Tanmum Trayate iti Tantrah', New Delhi, 1989.

'My concept is broadly thus: Sex is elevated to the level of transcendental experience. I take the human form in its dual male and female aspects, in sexual union, in a state of unalloyed fulfilment, caught in a trance. I try to capture this intensity, order and what is regarded as yogic discipline.' (G.R. Santosh, 'Image and Inspiration-Studio interview with S.A.Krishnan,' 1971)

In 1964, Santosh went on a pilgrimage to the ice-formed Shiva lingam in the Amarnath cave in Southern Kashmir, which had a profound impact on him, and altered the course of his career. He thus began incorporating the eighth-century Tantric philosophy of Kashmiri Shaivism into his work, which postulates the oneness of all things, and propounds that the energies of the universe emanates from Shakti, Shiva's feminine power of the cosmos. It is their dual energy which is the crux of the universes balance. This combined with his witnessing of the influx of Tibetan exiles in Delhi in 1960 and his rising interest in the complex geometric mandalas from the Himalayan region and the publications on the subject, Tantra Art: Its Philosophy and Physics in 1966 and Tantra Asana: A way to Self-Realization in 1971 led to Santosh developing a new visual language.

He married the esoteric symbols found in Hindu and Buddhist tantrism and altered their iconographies into abstractions. Untitled (Fire) is a quintessential example of the style he's most renowned for. Painted in 1976, this vertically symmetrical painting has an anthropomorphic figure seated in a stylised double lotus pose. The body has been decorated with yantras, sacred geometrical symbols, signifying the regenerative aspects of consciousness. The face is composed of a circle and triangle, together representing the totality of the cosmos, expressing advaita or non-duality. The downward triangles and circular egg forms represent the feminine, whilst the sharp angular lines represent the masculine. The body is in unison, and has a stylized silhouette of legs, torso and head, ensconced by a halo of fire. Santosh encloses the patterns of the universe in bright colours. The blue seated figure contrasts with the orange background, an expression of the Shaivist belief that deems each person inherently enlightened. The painted borders on the canvas combined with the multitude of limbs, layers and fragments illustrate the multifaceted and infinite nature of the individual as it connects with its nuanced environment. For Santosh, Tantra was not merely a subject of study but a way of life, offering profound insights into the nature of reality and the human experience. Through his art, he sought to translate the esoteric principles of Tantra into visual form, weaving a tapestry of symbols and iconography that spoke to the deepest recesses of the soul.