Natural
Pigment on Paper, Maharaja Head, 7 X 7cm
Mahaveer Swami revived the best aspects of the sophisticated and refined Bikaner School of painting with an originality and brilliance unique among contemporary miniaturists. Mahaveer Swami stands out of thousands of traditional painters not only because of his great skills in drawing and painting. But also because he has the ability to recognize the difference between the truly fine and mundane although he possesses the skill to copy any other painting perfectly he prefers to explore new subjects, new contexts and new forms of expressions. For instance, he has created a series of paintings based on the daily life of Indian women, a theme rarely explored by earlier miniature painters.
Mahaveer working style is strongly influenced by his studies of Mughal and Rajasthani Miniatures. His subject matter is often drawn from the life style of holy men and women, daily life of Indian women and sometimes from Hindu mythological terms.
Mahaveer Swami Paintings of ascetics and mystics are particularly striking because of his deep feelings for the spiritual and the emotional. As a child, the various holy men who visited his grandfather fascinated him. Unaware that there were any differences between Sufis and Pundits he met at home, the young Mahaveer was drawn to all of them, enchanted by that he describes as the glow on their faces. As a mature artist he still travels to annual festival at Ajmer, to study the faces of participants.
Mahaveer Swami is one of the finest traditional artists working in India today. His ethereal colours and exquisite brushwork are combined with unique inner vision and great sensitivity of the world around him by tempering his personal vision with the finely toned technique and rigorous discipline of his tradition. Mahaveer Swami proves that there is no real gap between contemporary and traditional, there is only art. His work demonstrates beyond a doubt that a rich and beautiful tradition is still very much alive.