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Texts by Olivier Germain-ThomasS. H. Raza

Mandalas

Sayed Haider Raza occupies a singular place on the international art

scene since a long time; thanks to his childhood and his initial

training, this great Indian painter whose works have been exhibited

all over the world belongs undeniably to his country of birth; owing

to the fifty odd years that he has spent in Paris, the circle of his

friends, his marriage to a French artist, he is from France-- from the

Paris school so to say-- which is known to welcome creative persons

from the four corners of the world.

In certain aspects, Raza’s work does resemble Western abstract art;

at the same time it is also highly evocative of the colours and

fundamental signs of Indian culture. The combinations of geometrical

shapes which figure in his canvases from the eighties onwards

constitute the contemporary metamorphosis of a highly ancient

Indian tradition, that of the mandalas whose symbolism spread with

the advent of Buddhism in the whole of Asia. These colourful

architectural pieces with a rare sense of power are sheer invitations

to meditation, and to the awakening of the secret stream of energy

which is present in all beings.

Raza’s mandalas, pictorial figures replete with spirituality are

accompanied in this book by texts from ancient and modern India,

which have sometimes been correlated to Western thought. Olivier

Germain-Thomas, a writer who has been familiar with the Indian

context for long, presents this authoritative work and the artistic

journey of its author.

As the name indicates, the kundalini, ‘the ringed one’of the sinuous body is comparable to the serpent when itlies “coiled” and dormant in the body. The serpent whichis rendered formidable by its poison symbolizes all theevil forces, so too, so long as the kundalini lies inertwithin us, it corresponds to our unconscious, obscureenergies, which are at the same time poisoned andpoisoning. On the contrary, when aroused and mastered,these same energies become efficient and confer averitable power.

Lilian Silburn

42

52

Art does not reproduce what is visible;it makes things visible.

Paul Klee

The work of the mind proceeds from the work of the flesh andshares its nature.

Rainer Maria Rilke

55

What Speech (Vacha) says:“Father, it is I who give birth to itright at the top of the Empyree;I who was born in the depths of the Watersin the Ocean of the origins,I have penetrated all the beingsfrom this world till the other one.

I am akin to the Windwhich blows and takes all that it wants;I move forward with it,I travel through the Sky and the Earth,I fill them, I spread beyond them,by My power and My grandeur!”

Rig Veda

56

I am the saviour in the waters, Arjuna,I am the light of the sun and the moon,In the Vedas I am the mantra Aum,I am the sound in the etherand I am the vitality in man.

I am the sacred fragrance of the earthand I am the radiance in the fire,I am the life in all that exists,I am the ardour within ascetics.Of all that is, I am the seed, know it, Arjuna,the timeless seed.I am the clairvoyance within sages,I am the glory of heroes,I am the power of the strong,a force liberated from desire and passion.In all things I am the desirein harmony with the cosmic order, O Arjuna.

Words of Krishna, Bhagvad Gita

59

... Creating a suggestive magic containingat once the object and the subject, theworld external to the artist and the artisthimself.

Charles Baudelaire

63

When we study the religions of yesteryears, we encounter, inalmost all of them, worship offered to trees held by them to besacred, and singularly to the most venerated of them all, theCosmic Tree. This constituted the central pillar, the axis aroundwhich was organized the universe, the natural and supernatural,physical as well as the metaphysical one.

In mythology, as it is set out usually, we can still discover ahighly archaic base, in which trees were the privileged agentsfor communication between the three worlds, the subterraneanabysses, the surface of the earth and the sky, and alsoconstituted the manifestations par excellence of the divinepresence.

Jacques Brosse

71

It is because I am present in my material energythat I am able, once again and endlessly, to makethe totality of these innumerable forms arise,solely through the energy of this energy.

Bhagvad Gita

80

You take shape,I am endlessly reborn:both of us in the pursuit of union.

My joy, your body,your delights, my presence.

I give you a face,you make me infinite.

Both of us, a single body.A new being is born,the You-me, the me-You.

Between us no more difference,me You, You Tuka.

The Pilgrim’s Psalms, Tukaram