Page 51 - Eye of the beholder

cubist in its structure. Yet it is marked by a strong sense of sensuality as an aura of sentimental nostalgia engulfs her. Keyt’s sensibility attracted him to the cubist visual language, but the trope he offered was endearingly decorative in the way he choreographed his lines and created flat planar spaces which he filled in this instance with pastel tones of attractive blue, orange, green and brown, thus making his approach distinctly personal.
Compositionally the geometry is formatted on ovals, semi circles and circles and other inorganic shapes that convey impression of fragmentation reinforced with lines that are bold, defined, taut and energetic. Keyt remains Sri Lanka’s most celebrated painters to this day. According to S.B. Dissanayake an art critic, “Keyt’s ruling instinct has been to produce forms admirable to the eye by continual transformations and exaggerations of the natural features themselves. For him symmetry was not essential but curvature and roundedness was and if it had to be dislocated and again relocated then it had to be through curves”.
SELECT REFERENCE
Kishore Singh. “Indian Modern: Narratives from 20th Century Art”, New Delhi, DAG, 2015 S.B. Dissanayake, “George Keyt”, National Art Gallery, Colombo, Exhibition Catalogue 1993
Figure. 13:
Title: Vilande Kvinna/ Untitled/Reclining Nude Medium: Oil/Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 60 cm X 120 cm.
Signed: Lower right. '89
Provenance: Swedish private collection;
Norrkopings Auktionsverk; Aquired from there in 2011
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