Indian View I

Indian View I was painted after Hodgkin’s return from one of his trips to India. Hodgkin had been long drawn to Indian art, particularly Indian miniatures. After many years of waiting, the artist first visited the country in 1964, and enamoured of its bright colours and rich culture, went back almost yearly. Since that first trip, India became one of Hodgkin’s preferred motifs. While some paintings are more representational, in this series Hodgkin focused on reminiscing through colour the feelings and emotions he associated with his train journeys across the country. Even if the image remains abstract, the framed composition at the centre of the print suggests a small, remembered train view – although the subject remains uncertain.

In this print, Hodgkin used incredibly bold colour, which set the work apart from the subtle palette he adopted for most of the series. As Andrew Graham-Dixon noted about Hodgkin’s use of colour: “Hodgkin’s approach to colour from his early years has always had a Matissean quality; not so much in the character of particular colours – Hodgkin’s colours were often harder and more intense, sometimes applied straight from the tube without mixing – but in his reliance on colour to carry the emotional content of the work.”