'In Sabavala's paintings of the 1980's and 1990's the universe is heard to speak in a voice capable of many nuances. “One is moved” he says “by the sweep, the drama, the magnificent changeability of nature.” ... Man's achievement in Sabavala's paintings has been to arrive and depart in silence, with something of the furtive apologia of the interloper on the grand spectacle... As though reverting to the Indo-Iranian religion of his ancient forebears, he affirms the sacredness of the universe; the creative and regenerative principle of the cosmos far overshadows man and his feeble works.'
A striking example of Jehangir Sabavala’s later body of work, this masterpiece explores the awe-inspiring power of the natural world. A dexterous composite of fractured cubist planes, this lot is an excellent illustration of Sabavala’s perspectival and tonal capacities, where he employs ‘crystalline geometry… dissolves bodies, objects and topographies, and re-constitutes them as prismatic structures.’ (R. Hoskote, The Crucible of Painting: The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Eminence Designs Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, 2005, p. 77)
The ethereal expanse of crystal blue water and archipelago of floating islands possess the feeling of an unattainable, foregone world. And yet, the female figure who stands among the boats in the foreground, provides a sense of tangible corporeality to the breathtaking waterscape before her. This solitary protagonist, the ‘lone vigil’ of the scene, seems to be the watchful guardian of this unspoiled landscape.
The luminescent effects of light and the crisp hues of the landscape rouse an impressionist freshness in the work. The blues, greys and greens are superbly countered by both the figure, dressed in vibrant yellow and red, and the radiant orange band which runs across the very top of the scene, redolent of the glow and heat of the rising sun. Lone Vigil emphasizes the magnificence of the five elements of the natural world – earth, water, fire, air and sky – an indelible feature of Sabavala’s art from this period, as noted by Vedantist commentator Ananda Wood during a 1993 exhibition of his works.
'In traditional Indian and European thought, these five elements represented a progressive investigation towards reality: from the apparently solid and separately identifiable things of earth, through the changing fluidity of water, through the qualitative conditioning of air and atmosphere, and through the pervading continuity of all-embracing space and overarching sky, finally to unconditional reality.'
Sabavala is renowned for his t.mes less landscapes, but in his works from the 1980s and 90s, one bears witness to a more immense depiction of the power of nature. In Storm III, painted in 1988, Sabavala represents this power through tumultuous waves and ominous clouds. Here, Sabavala portrays the relative insignificance of humankind through the lone, vulnerable ship that is at the mercy of the elements. By contrast, in Lone Vigil, Sabavala references the power of nature not through its destructive potential but rather its capacity to astound its observer through sheer awe and wonderment.
Sotheby’s New York, 22 March 2007, lot 85
Estimate: $120,000 - 150,000
Sold for $264,000
This almost spiritual esteem for nature that Sabavala explores in Lone Vigil, remarkably mirrors the intentions of the writers and artists of the 19th century Romantic period. Sabavala’s female protagonist, in her assured stance and her astonishing surroundings, recalls the stalwart figure in Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c. 1818), one of the most esteemed masterworks of the Romantic era. The place of this ‘wanderer’ within the scene is said to be ‘contradictory, suggesting at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it.’ (J. L. Gaddis, ‘The Landscape of History’, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Oxford University Press, New York 2004, pp. 1–2)
