He studied Sanskrit and was impressed by the sensuous Sanskrit classic Gita- Govinda.
Keyt also lived and traveled widely in India, experiencing at first hand the finest examples of Indian painting, sculpture and folk arts.
With his East-West links, he maintained highly individualistic imagery and pictorial vocabulary.
There is a discernible synthesis in his work of the artistic styles of India, Europe, and Sri Lanka. As for the Indian element, one can identify stylistic and technical traits which are peculiar to the classical paintings and folk paintings of Kalighat: the importance of line, the use of pure color, use of modeling and shading, non-naturalistic perspective, decorative backgrounds, etc.
Despite adopting the cubist approach, the distortion and reassembly of natural forms, Keyt did not abandon the world of sensuality.
Read Also: What is Art? Meaning and Definition
He used cubist techniques, such as the multiple perspectives, emphasis on the integral relationship between foreground and background, the interpretation and transparency of planes and so on, but never at the cost of linear rhythm and the robust, brilliantly colorful world of the senses.
His paintings on Sringara, Krishna-Lila, Nayika-Nayak Bheda and those relating to the romance of Na/a-Damayanti are expressions of the joyous themes of love.
Keyt considered the Hindu ideal of love, as embodied in these modes and forms, as the most complete.
In the Nayika Series of the 1940s and in his later series of Jataka Stories, Ragas, A Celebration of the Feminine, etc. Keyt turned his back on the dynamics of large-scale form which he had employed with consummate skill in the rhetorical amplification of the Gotami Murals.
He confined himself to devising relatively small ‘modules’, sequences which could be permutated in a quite abstract way to form complex patterns filling the requisite canvas surfaces.
It was as if George Keyt, fiercely independent in all things, was determined to reinvent artistic procedures from the ground up. And it is this hard-won free and personal vision that will survive in his art.
Keyt said: “True painting is not a description, as there is another language for that. It is not even a definition.
It is an emphasis in its most unequivocal form of a line, color, and shape. But to those not literate in it, painting is as meaningless as any other foreign language, though perhaps more tantalizing.”
Keyt was confident enough to learn the artistic discoveries of modern Europe without subservience. His art brings a depth of vision and an amplitude that has rarely been evident in the art of the Indian subcontinent.
Books:
George Keyt, a centennial anthology
1. Dadaism 2. Fauvism 3. Synthetic Cubism 4. What is Art 5. Minimalism 6. Philosophy of Art 7. Banksy’s painting 8. Graffiti 9. Facts about Paul Gauguin 10. Beginning of civilization 11.Famous Quotes by Pablo Picasso 12. Leonardo da Vinci quotes 13.George Keyt 14. Gulam Mohammad Sheikh 15. female influential Artist 16. Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear 17. The Starry Night 1889 18. most expensive paintings 19. The Stone Breakers 20. Vocabulary of Visual Art 21. Contemporary art 22. What is Digital Art 23. Art of Indus Valley Civilization 24. Essential tools and materials for painting 25. Indus Valley 26. PostImpressionism 27. Mesopotamian civilizations28. Greek architecture 29. Landscape Artists 30. THE LAST SUPPER 31. Impressionism 32. Prehistoric Rock Art of Africa 33. Hand Painted Wine Glasses 34. George Keyt
1.Proto- Renaissance: History and characteristics 2. HighRenaissance 3. KineticArt 4. Purism 5. Orphism 6. Futurism 7. Impressionism: A Revolutionary Art Movement 8. Post Impressionism 9 Fauvism | Influence on Fauvism 10. Cubism | Cezannian Cubism | Analytical Cubism | Synthetic Cubism 11. Romanticism 12. Rococo: Art, Architecture, and Sculpture 13. Baroque art and architecture 14. Mannerism 15. Dadaism: Meaning, Definition, History, and artists 16. Realism: Art and Literature 17. DADAISM OUTSIDE ZURICH 18. BAPTISM OF SURREALISM 19. OPART 20. MINIMALISM
Pablo Picasso 4. Salvador Dali 5. Frida Kahlo
1.G.R. Santosh 2. Jai Zharotia 3. Ramkinkar Vaij 4. Dhan Raj Bhagat 5. Somnath Hore 6. Raja Ravi Varma 7. Ratnabali Kant 8. Satish Gujral 9. Anjolie Ela Menon 10. Jagdish Swaminathan 11. Bishamber Khanna 12. Shanti Dave 13. Om Prakash 14. A Ramachandran 15. Arpita Singh 16. Gulam Mohammad Sheikh 17. Biren De 18. Manjit Bawa 19. Gogi Saroj Pal 20. Arpana Caur 21. Vivan Sundaram 22.Amar Nath Sehgal 23. Jatin Das 24.Meera Mukherjee 25. P. V. Janakiram 26. Ved Nayar 27. Mrinalini Mukherjee 28. Lydia Mehta 29. Krishna Reddy 30. Surindra Chadha 31. Anupam Sud 32. Sankho Chaudhuri 33. Gaganendranath Tagore 34. Rabindranath Tagore 35. Nandalal Bose 36. Abanindranath Tagore 37. Jamini Roy 38. Amrita Sher-Gil 39. A. R. Chughtai 40. Zainul Abedin 41. George Keyt 42. M.F. Husain 43. Binod Bihari Mukharji 44. K. G. Subramanyan 45. Krishen Khanna 46. Tyeb Mehta 47. Ram Kumar 48. Pran Nath Mago 49. F.N. Souza 50. B.C.Sanyal 51. K.S.Kulkarni 52. HarKrishan Lal 53. Jahangir Sabavala 54. Sailoz Mukherjee 55. N. S. Bendre 56. K.K.Hebbar 57. Bimal Das Gupta
1.Amrita Sher-Gil 2. Arpana Caur 3. Anupam Sud 4. Lydia Mehta 5. Mrinalini Mukherjee 6. Meera Mukherjee 7. Ratnabali Kant