Important Notice

It is not unusual to hear Husain being called a living legend. He has done much for the world of modern Indian art, most importantly, as Yashodhara Dalmia explains, “deliver[ing] the common man from the ordinariness of his existence to the international arena” and the formulation of a modernity that had its roots fixed firmly in Indian soil (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 101).

In... It is not unusual to hear Husain being called a living legend. He has done much for the world of modern Indian art, most importantly, as Yashodhara Dalmia explains, “deliver[ing] the common man from the ordinariness of his existence to the international arena” and the formulation of a modernity that had its roots fixed firmly in Indian soil (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 101).

In this seminal painting from 1952, a period when the artist was still discovering his language and style, is composed with the rhythmic, confident line that has become Husain’s trademark, and directly inspired by the folk art and tribal forms which laid the foundation on which his oeuvre grew. Bartholomew and Kapur call this period, lasting till 1955, the “formative” stage of Husain’s career, in which “his approach to line, form, and colour and his use of symbols and abstract signs to render the deeper, inchoate reaches of emotion” evolved. (Maqbool Fida Husain texts by Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1971, New York)

Titled The Pull, the figures on this canvas “are shorn of all mystique” and yet “imbued with an aura that they bring from their rootedness to the earth. The strong bright colours, applied with jagged strokes on the canvas and placed according to the mood invoked, bring in all the sights and sounds of the street and with it all the multiplicity of life in India.” (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 101). Using an earthy palette of blue, grey and brown oil paints, and expressionistic brushstrokes, the artist gives life to his dream of expressing the multiple realities of India on canvas, especially the rural ones of his own childhood in a small village in Maharashtra.

Here, a monumental village puppeteer pulls on levers fashioned out of sticks to control his marionette couple and entertain passers by on the street. The puppets, rendered in blue, are most likely telling the story of Krishna and his consort Radha, influenced by the artist’s exposure to Jain and Basholi miniature paintings during his travels around the country. Another figure, perhaps a third puppet or an interested spectator, with its back to the viewer leans silently to the side. The strong hands and face of the puppet master reveal his power, and it seems only natural that he should take up almost the entire canvas.

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