Indonesian independence, Affandi accept without hestitation an offer by the goverment of India to study painting there. India turned out to be the perfect place for him the discovered-or at least the period accelerated his finding-the language oof his painting, which made the jury of Venice Biennal confer on him a prize.

      This success was not due to the education in Visva Bharati in Shantiniketan or elsewhere, as he had imagined. The thing is,when the instructors in the education institution established by Rabindranath Tagore saw the paintings by this student from Indonesia, they suddenly realized that they had obtained the "wrong" student. Those teachers instantly concluded that affandi was already a painter, having no need for any further study at the schol. The Visva Bharati administration decided that this two-year grant would instead be given to him all at once, o facilitate his trvels around INdia topaint.

      This moment provided the opening of the gate for his personal style in painting to eerge. Soon he began to paint from city to city, starting withwhat he perceived as the technique he needed to fulfill his need to paint, which had been "forgotten", i.e. his technique of directky squeezing paint from tube to canvas. This technique enaled him to complete his painting just as his emotions were drained.

      It was his emotion that gave him the impetus to paint. Emotion and was like motor fuel. With his squeezing technique he could reach his destination by the time the fuel was used up.

      He realized that this "accidental" technique suited him for at least two reasons. First, it allowed him to paint fast, as he did not have to mix the paint or look for the right brush to use. Second, he found that squeezing paint directly onto the canvas was a more accurate way to "print" the quivers of his emotions. However, subsquently he had to "forget" this technique because circumstances did not allow him to embrace it yet. He needed seven more years before he had the opportunity to develop his "discovery", and another five years before he received an award in a grand fine arts event : the Vennice Biennal of 1954.

      The sun that Affandi admired, which became his symbol of life, drawn with hands and feet in a symbolic form which he often sketched near his signature on his paintings, could indeed be cruel. Affandi protested. He paint the sun : not the sun as seen by the eye, but the sun as a symbol. He was aware that, in fact, it is not the sun that guves life to the entire universe, but God. "...but God is invisible, what is visible is the sun," he said.