First published on 24th April 2024
Francis Newton Souza, born on April 12, 1924, in Portuguese Goa, was an artist best known for his experiments with the human form. Souza’s controversial paintings, infamous for their alleged obscenity and haunting reimagination of Christian motifs and subjects, are also heralded for creating a new modern visual language in Indian art. One of the founding members of the Progressive Artists Group (PAG), Souza has been seen as one of India’s first modern painters, and in the words of M.F Husain, “the most significant painter, almost a genius.” [1] The running theme in the life and works of Souza was a sense of rebellion -- against British rule, Christian/religious morality, class- and caste-based antagonisms, and existing artistic conventions and education models.
Souza joined Bombay’s J.J. School of Art, founded on British academic principles, and was suspended on account of his participation in an anti-colonial demonstration in 1945. While at the art school, he turned to drawings, paintings and prints by European modernists to educate himself. Souza’s painting “The Blue Lady” (1945), based on the art of Paul Cezanne and Gaugin, and created at the time of his expulsion, is regarded as a milestone in Indian modern art, typifying the mood of fervour that came to be a signature of the artist’s style.
The themes in Souza’s early works have been read in close connection with his personal experiences and politics. Souza’s then affiliation with the Communist Party of India (CPI) was the guiding force behind his socialist realist paintings. Influenced by the works of Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco, he painted the class contradictions in society, depicting the Goan peasants and Bombay proletariat as the victims of a system dominated by the capitalists and bourgeoisie. According to Yashodhara Dalmia, this creative phase was reflective of “Souza’s commitment to improving the lot of the downtrodden.” His eventual estrangement with the CPI -- resulting not from ideological differences but due to his restless personality that was at odds with the expectations from a party member -- inaugurated a new stage of development in Souza’s oeuvre. [2]
The following phase of Souza’s life would be associated with the PAG he founded with S.H. Raza and K.H. Ara in 1947. The group challenged the high academic realism taught at the J.J. School of Art, which harped on the rational use of mythological or religious allegory and idealized depictions (such as those embodied in the works of Raja Ravi Varma). Along with the group, Souza sought to experiment with the human figure, asserting its individuality: this was reflective of the larger project of PAG in crafting a distinct identity that negotiated with European imports and inspirations drawn from Indian art. [3]
By this time, Souza had also produced a significant corpus of work that shows his familiarity with European Expressionism and the influence of Georges Rouault, Chaim Soutine and Pablo Picasso. Geeta Kapur has observed that he diverged from Rouault on the ground that he rejected the quality of compassion in his works of spiritual experience, which are infused with a spirit of “deadly rancor”. [4]
Faced with charges of obscenity for his female nudes and nude self- portraits, Souza shifted to London in 1949. There, he was able to make a mark for himself through his exhibition in 1955 that happened in parallel to the publication of his autobiographical essay “Nirvana of a Maggot”. Souza also brought out a self-portrait as part of the 1957 publication Portrait of the Artist, which had a bald, wrinkled and scarred face, the quintessential Souza style of arrows piercing the neck and oval eyes in the opposite directions. The tense mood of these disfigured facial features would find their way into other paintings in 1957, such as “Head of a Man” and “Moonstruck Scientist”. John Berger, in his assessment of these paintings, noted their wide-ranging influences and therefore his inability to decipher the extent of their borrowings from European art, and the interpretations behind Souza’s figures and motifs. The latter could be read either as figures of Christian authority or ordinary people. Berger also highlighted Souza’s use of form as a combination of engraved lines, pigments, patterns and a recognition of body weight. [5] In contrast to Berger, George Salter saw the opacity of Souza’s work as reflective of his experiences of exile in Britain and his attempts to make his work legible to a white audience. [6]
Souza’s rebellion has largely been seen as having a productive impact, becoming the force behind the creation of new symbols, forms and techniques. H. Goetz placed Souza within a post-Independence context, which allowed for true freedom of expression and the emergence of a revolutionary art that did not resort to ideas of a golden past. [7] Souza also took a radical, critical stance within the Indian Christian community, as an attack against his strict Roman Catholic upbringing and the hypocrisy of the clergy. Dalmia agrees with Kapur in assessing that despite sharing a common preoccupation with Christ, Souza’s work diverges from Rouault’s approach by presenting the deity as a ghastly figure, with no compassion or other redeeming qualities. In other works of this phase, such as “Death of the Pope” (1962), analogous to Giacomo Manzu’s work of the same name (which was based on his genuine grief over the death of Pope John XXIII), the artist basks in irreverence towards ecclesiastical figures. Souza’s rendition shows a skeleton, surrounded by priests who appear greedy and satanic, and echo the artist’s belief by saying “Evil is the all-pervasive fact of life.”
Souza took artistic techniques and ideas from other countries and assimilated them within the Indian milieu. He transformed Madonna into a Hindu Parvati; blended elements from the yakshis of Mathura in “Salome’s Dance”; and borrowed from Picasso to create human figures and African masks, that were also molded within the framework of Indian folk art.
Souza’s treatment of the human figure, both male and female, showcases a dynamic engagement with society, sex and religion. His 1955 work, “Six Gentlemen of Our Times”, depicts heads of men dressed in Western suits, with cross-hatched surfaces, prominent teeth and vacant eyes. These figures represent the hypocrisy and ugliness of the rich and powerful. Dalmia sees his male figures as devoid of emotion and passion, standing in for the moral and societal degradation symptomatic of a post-War society. Souza’s other major preoccupation was with the female nude, whereby he presented his women as defying convention and in an unabashed display of sexuality.
The artist’s birth centenary in 2024 has encouraged a full appreciation of his inventions as well as a critical appraisal of his work in light of contemporary moresandpolitics. Recent evaluations of Souza have often resorted to comparing him with Picasso. This influence can especially be seen in Souza’s use of bold colours, geometrical compositions and distorted faces. Souza’s “Young Ladies in Belsize Park” and Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” show similar treatment of the female body, and Souza’s “Man and Woman Laughing” and Picasso’s “La Plage” also have commonalities in the way they mirror the turmoil in each artist’s life. [8] The interventions of both Souza and Picasso initially ignited reactions of hostility and confusion from the art world, but later came to be championed as pathbreaking experiments with motifs and figures. However, new developments in feminism and the rise of the MeToo movement have also thrown light on their problematic equations with women and forced a reconsideration of their genius. Souza’s violence and exploitation of female muses was fundamental to his work, blurring the lines between his professional work and his personal life. His depiction of the female nude can also be read as rendering them as easy providers of pleasure, a form of dehumanization and objectification cleverly cloaked as eroticism. Some of these insights have put into question the artistic legacy and history under which Souza has till now been celebrated and praised.
Notes
[1] “Francis Newton Souza-the ‘enfant terrible’ of Modern Indian art,” Christie’s, February 26, 2024.
[2] Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Passion for the Human Figure: Francis Newton Souza,” in The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 77-100.
[3] S.K. Bhattacharya, “F.N. Souza -- An Eclectic in Indian Art,” Roopa-Lekha XXXVI, nos. 1 and 2: 161-166.
[4] Geeta Kapur, “Francis Newton Souza: Devil in the Flesh,” Third Text 3, nos. 8-9 (September 1989): 25-64.
[5] John Berger, “An Indian Painter,” New Statesman and Nation, February 26, 1955.
[6] George Salter, “Francis Newton Souza: Masculinity, Migration and Home,” in Art and Masculinity in Post-War Britain: Reconstructing Home (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).
[7] H. Goetz, “Rebel Artist: Francis Newton,” Bulletin of the Baroda State Museum and Picture Gallery, Vol. IV., Pt. 1-11.
[8] Uma Nair, “How Could Souza be Picasso,” The Times of India, December 19, 2011.