A quality of stillness

There's a stillness to Jehangir Sabavala, who will be 84 this year, that is not dissimiliar to his own work, an overwhelming sense of elegance, but also of control. Labels come easily to him "" India's Salvador Dali (though only for his physical appearance) is best known as a cubist painter whose complicated web of minimalism arises out of a complex geometry.

Yet, Sabavala himself dispenses with labels. Not angrily "" that isn't his style "" but with a wry smile and good-natured tolerance. Yet, he can be firm.

In a sense, things came easily to him. He started travelling early with his mother "Bapsey" Meherbai, the daughter of Sir Cowasji Jehangir, seeing London and Paris, mixing with stars and performers, watching his parents' life (first the fights, then their divorce) play out in Bombay's then prudish society.

He learned to enjoy the high life, but kept a low profile; even as a celebrated artist, he has never been a public persona and leads an intensely private life.

It was therefore a rare occasion when he allowed the media to intrude when a retrospective of his work since 1948 opened at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi last month, coinciding with a second book on his work by art critic Ranjit Hoskote.

Educated at the JJ School of Arts, he went on to study futher in London and Paris from 1945 to 1957, a rare privilege for an artist. In turn, he was influenced by Europe, and though his canvases retain some Indian elements, they could just as easily be European.

Working mostly in oils, Sabavala concentrated on landscapes in the early half of his career. Though the landscapes could be distinguished into land and sea, water and sky, there were no defining circumstances that could root them anywhere.

Dimunitive figures on the horizon were later replaced by groups of figures, often in the foreground, and looming larger to occupy more space on his canvases. More recently, Sabavala has entered the world of cityscapes as well.

For most part, his colours have echoed the colours of stillness, with greys and blues and browns, only occasionally leaning in to the avuncular with a burst of reds and oranges.

His total control over the medium is awesome, and his linear constructs can at once suggest the vastness of the world, and then hint at a stir of movement in his works on sailboats or eagles. An air of spirituality cannot be separated from his paintings, though in themselves the subjects are almost always secular.

Sabavala has shown far less than his contemporaries, perhaps because he is obsessive about perfection and dismissive about exposure as well as money, to paint like a purist. His prices haven't grown in the same way as his contemporaries, but Sabavala enjoys a high premium, and investment in his works would certainly return value at a premium.