Page 112 - Eye of the beholder

The painting in the collection of Sadhus’ titled “Majesty V” have the representation of two Cocks walking majestically and as though in involved conversation. Chavada undeniably has created a mood of amicability and friendliness. What captures the imagination is the left foot of the cock on the right caught in an impending movement. It has an impressionist character and a cubist structure reinforced by his signature line developed over long years of rendering drawings and sketches. It is nevertheless the colours that are as magical as they are evocative and poetic. The use of primary hues namely blues and reds make the painting strikingly warm and cool. The intelligent and judicious placement of broad areas of structured colours imparts to his compositions an intellectual feel. That is to say that the artists did not go purely by his gut feelings in the placement of colours but went through a mental process of calculating the defined areas of colours as for instance the yellow ochre in the background.
The cocks occupy the entire space of the composition. A proletarian subject, but the artist endowed t with royal majesty. It is in this respect that Chavada contoured his modernity which marked him as a an extraordinary genius, deriving subject matter from a vast repertoire of contemporary reality. His paintings continue to have a happy as well as an intimate appeal even today. One cannot bypass a Chavada by assuming everything is obviously represented and hence seen. But it was in the silence of the spaces that the sentiments and emotions of Chavada resided.
SELECT REFERENCE
Herman Goetz, “Chavada” Lalit Kala Akademy New Delhi 1983 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/art/11296-moving-colours-modern-great-who-infused-new-dynamism-indian-art https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/shiavax-chavda-grace-on-canvas/article19919222.ece https://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-his-life-was-a-dedication-to-the-arts-shiavax-chavda-s-children-talk-about- his-retrospective-exhibition https://www.vervemagazine.in/arts-and-culture/celebrate-renowned-artist-shiavax-chavda-27-years-after-his-death https://www.saffronart.com/sitepages/articledetails.aspx?articleid=170&pageno=1
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