Tempera on canvas National Art Treasure (non-exportable work)
Jamini Roy’s works on Christian themes are a class apart for the unexpected marriage of Western lexicon with folk Indian idiom and this work is a beautiful example of the style perfected and owned by Roy. The figures of Jesus Christ at the centre, whether as a child or being crucified, and the attendant figures, are stylised in the folk idiom of the patuas, while the brush strokes are unmistakably impressionist. It is the big, almond eyes of the figures and the retaining borders on the canvases that place the painting in rural Bengal, the abiding inspiration for Roy’s distinguished oeuvre.
published references
Singh, Kishore, ed., Indian Divine: Gods and Goddesses in 19th and 20th Century Modern Art (New Delhi: DAG, 2014), ill. p. 338
Singh, Kishore, ed., Indian Modern Art: A Visual History (New Delhi: DAG, 2016), ill. p. 137
Tillotson, Giles, Primitivism and Modern Indian Art (New Delhi: DAG, 2019), ill. p. 148
Jamini Roy
Untitled (Crucifixion)
Tempera on canvas National Art Treasure (non-exportable work)
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Jamini Roy
Untitled (Crucifixion)
Tempera on canvas National Art Treasure (non-exportable work)
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