Francis Newton Souza : An Artist With A Tormented Soul

Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat

“The man who exposes himself is always alone” Geeta Kapur. Francis Newton Souza a prolific painter is a household name within the artistic milieu of the country. His name evokes paintings which have remained a dominant trope of this genius’s creative impulses in resisting and defying authority either filial or religious in a bold, daring and dynamic way. He gained international notoriety for his erotic and religious paintings, which were informed by a variety of styles that include Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, and Primitivism. His art within the contemporary context more than a decade after his death still remains the talking point precisely for its ambiguous iconography that not only assaults the senses but as a sign to decode its semiotics, with the semantic centered in his complex psychology that constructed his persona. His landscapes and portraits too convey the same sense of belligerence, but they seem to pale into insignificance in the presence of his volatile nudes and disrespectful discompassionate religious themes.

In retrospect it becomes difficult to posture him since he straddled two traditions namely the modern and the Indian. His visual language was cubisticexpressionist, but his engagement with line foregrounded his Indian tradition, articulating with rhythmic sensuousness and absolute facility of its control. His experiences of pedantic pedagogy in the J.J. School of Arts revolted him, and with the dawn of Independence Souza created a new trajectory namely the formation of Progressive Artists Group [August 1947], that disallowed any remnants of many forms that included sketching, painting and writing. In both the medium of expression, Souza emerged as an antagonist, a rebel and a voyeurist.

The two dominant themes he painted aggressively and antagonistically were the female nudes and the Christian iconography, providing a delightful site for a psychoanalyst to unravel his deep complex mind. His important writings include his early utobiography published in 1955 called “Nirvana of a Maggot” edited by Stephen Spenders and a collection of his catalogue essays in a slim volume called “Words and Lines”. His manifesto for the PAG he founded along with five other artists in 1947, clearly established his vision of a pioneer set to open up a different trajectory for the newly established Independent Indian artists. The eccentricity of his genius was apparent from his college days as an art student, and particularly an exhibition for the PAG group that was held in 1949. It was Souza who had plotted and publicized the manifesto, as well as the first artist to leave the group to travel abroad and with a reason, carrying the intense and irate nostalgia for the Group. His attitude while abroad was in the nature of the role of an angry expatriate, weaving the myth of his emigration, namely that he was driven out of India by a lack of appreciation and especially by the police in Bombay for his paintings were removed from an exhibition on charges of obscenity and his house searched for pornographic pictures.