Processes and philosophy of one of India’s legendary artists

Art, to Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, was a process complete in itself. It helped him move closer to his own self, as he kept on exploring transient realities and his inner spaces. This was a highly individualized and internal process that he rigidly followed. The entire artistic process reflected his deeply introspective and analytical attitude.

His paintings were invariably described as abstract in nature. Personally though, he rejected the tag. VS Gaitonde instead preferred to see them as 'non-objective,' visualizing more as a balanced juxtaposition of colors and texture. He meticulously maneuvered his medium on the canvas with precision, building up pigments to only strip them away and unravel hidden layers of the work.

The highly codified works carried an 'evocative power' that operated on more than one level. A sense of 'atmosphere blended with an approximation of music filled them. They gave rise to a mystery about the very experience of viewing, reviewing and responding, as if one was drawn into some ‘still centre of hitherto unknown experience’, as senior art critic Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni had described.

In a deceptively uncomplicated manner, he seemed to have solved the complex equation between linear structure and color – akin to an emotionally perceived relationship in which colors asserted themselves, sans any obtrusive emphasis on their physical parameters as paint.

Also influenced by ancient calligraphy, his large works on canvas, mostly monochromatic, exuded an ‘evocative power’. The flat, 2-dimensional pictorial space, held by seemingly floating forms, evoked a sense of infinite space. In a way, the master artist was least concerned with the process of representation but the painted surface itself. His ethereal paintings conjured up a veiled version of the natural world. Through a deft manipulation of color, form and technique, he transformed basic elements into carriers of spiritual introspection that made his works into mystifying masterpieces.