Sanyasi

Sanyasi captures the essence of one of India’s archetypal emblems of the exotic East. Trindade was careful to include all the attributes that make the wandering holy man a curiosity to most Indians as well as to outsiders. His presentation is similar to that of the European Orientalists, Bengal School or Company artists – specialised in ethnic types, regional costumes and mendicants – nonetheless, Trindade’s realism as well as his Western background and education sets his version apart from the rest.
Each element of the sitter’s being is astutely recorded. Placed close to the pictorial surface, and staring directly at the viewer, the sanyasi raises his kashkul, or alms pot, as if soliciting a response. Like Shiva this man wears his matted hair piled on top of his head. A marigold, the ubiquitous flower that adorns shrines and tombs, clings to his beard just above the hand that fingers the rudraksha beads he wears around his neck to remind him of samsara, the cycle of life, death and reincarnation. Trindade invites the viewer to feel the heat with the warm yellow tones that prevail in the composition and relate the suntanned skin to a wandering, outdoor existence. Unceremoniously wrapped in orange garb, the sanyasi clutches a bamboo pole, that contributes to his rustic, mendicant, itinerant image.
References: Shihandi, Marcella, et al, António Xavier Trindade: An Indian Painter from Portuguese Goa (exhibition catalogue), Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1996; Gracias, Fátima, Faces of Colonial India: The Work of Goan Artist António Xavier Trindade (1870-1935), Panjim, Goa, Fundação Oriente, 2014.