Untitled

George Keyt, though born Sri Lankan, is included in the Indian discourse of modernism because his subjects hailed from Hindu and Buddhist mythology, and he also spent considerable time in India. His visual language combined judiciously the European modernists’ innovation with ancient South Asian fresco techniques found at Ajanta and Sigiriya. In this large, beautifully nuanced painting of a lovers’ tryst, Keyt brings together all his signature elements—cubist angularity balanced by the lyrical line of traditional Indian figures, rich tropical colours and ruminative visages of figures from ancient Hindu and Buddhist cave paintings.