Important Notice

“Art has always been a combination of Indian literature, music, dance and architectural traditions.” - M F HUSAIN

M F Husain's artistic practice was significantly influenced by the extensive travels of his formative years. He assimilated the techniques, colours, and styles of Jain and Basohli painting, the sensuous forms of Mathura sculpture, and the energy and fluid lines of Chinese calligraphy. Further, his encounter with the... “Art has always been a combination of Indian literature, music, dance and architectural traditions.” - M F HUSAIN

M F Husain's artistic practice was significantly influenced by the extensive travels of his formative years. He assimilated the techniques, colours, and styles of Jain and Basohli painting, the sensuous forms of Mathura sculpture, and the energy and fluid lines of Chinese calligraphy. Further, his encounter with the works of European modern masters including Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani helped him hone his own intuition and perceptions regarding colour, form, line, and symbolism.

These various stylistic influences, combined with his own rootedness in India, led him to invent a new and unique idiom. "Behind every stroke of the artist's brush is a vast hinterland of traditional concepts, forms and meanings. His vision is never uniquely his own; it is a new perspective given to the collective experience of his race. It is in this fundamental sense that we speak of Husain being in the authentic tradition of Indian art. He has been unique in his ability to forge a pictorial language which is indisputably of the contemporary Indian situation but surcharged with all the energies, the rhythms of his art heritage." (Ebrahim Alkazi, M F Husain: The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1978, p. 3)

Husain's depictions of the human figure in particular are deeply influenced by Indian sculpture and miniature painting, which he encountered during his travels across the country. The present lot comes from Husain's series of paintings drawing from the concept of mithun or mithuna, the Sanskrit word for lovers, often used to refer to the affectionate couples found depicted in classical Indian painting and temple sculpture. It is "a motif that appeared in Indian sculpture for the first time over 2,000 years ago, some of its best and latest examples occurring in the Orissa and Khajuraho temples of the eleventh century A.D. The embrace of the auspicious pair signifies the union of the soul with the divine, the achievement of that primordial unity broken at the time when Purusha divided himself to create the universe. In its more ordinary aspect the concept typifies the Upanishadic belief that "a man embraced by a beloved woman knows nothing more of a within or without."" (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 1972, p. 43)

As can be noticed in the present depiction of a female figure whose stance and hand gestures are reminiscent of classical dancers, the forms in these paintings take their cues from the energy and dynamism of temple sculptures. As noted by Yashodhara Dalmia, postures such as these create a sense of movement within the composition. "The slight bend in the axis of the body, from the Sarnath Buddhas of the Gupta period onwards, breaks the columnar rigidity of the earlier archaic figures of the Buddhas of Amravati and Mathura, and create a litheness and moving quality." Yashodhara Dalmia, "A Metaphor for Modernity," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 110)

The female figure in the present form is placed adjacent to a shadowy outline resembling her form, which in turn blends into further shadowy forms in the composition. Such juxtapositions make frequent appearances in Husain's work. "Woman is seen either as a creation of lyric poetry, a sculpturesque and rhythmic figure of dance, or as an agent of fecundity.... As the other protagonist in this drama of seduction, man often appears as a stealthy shadow or as a monstrous half-beast. Like Picasso, Husain has been deeply isolated in his personal life. It may be said of him, as John Berger says of Picasso, that he finds himself in women - as though he can fully see himself only when he is reflected in a woman - and it is through the shared subjectivity of sex alone that he can allow himself to be known. In response to his inner necessity, his paintings of this time more than ever appear to fracture the metaphor of sex into a tension of opposites, an affair of shadowy guilt and alienation that finds darkness at the heart of genesis." (Bartholomew and Kapur, p. 46)

Dalmia further notes how Husain's female figures "far from arousing passion, are ascetic." As can be noted in the present lot, "it is almost as if he strips the sculptures of all exterior embellishments to arrive at their basic sense of movement. Husain's women are always enshrouded in an invisible veil, the simplicity of their form countered by their inaccessibility." (Dalmia, pp. 110-111)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site