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Lot Essay
[...] I don't paint flowers but I paint cactus because I can say something that's not obvious or mundane.
(Artist Statement, Khalid Mohamed, Where Art Thou, M. F. Husain Foundation & Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2002, p. XXVIII)
The symbolic expression of the rankling pricking cactus creates tension in the otherwise intimate couple. Painted in flat planes, subtle tones and emotive colors, Geeta Kapur while describing this painting writes, "Many of Husain's best works engage figures in dialogue. Sometimes, as in the earlier paintings they are surrounded by a living, pulsating environment; sometimes as here, they are archetypal figures with their own private world.
In this painting, the elements re-enforce this sense of continual dialogue. The forms inclining toward each other are subtly interposed by the diagonal of the hand and that gesture fixes the image in memory. The forms are contained in their own dark spherical space; an enclosure within the pictorial space, which gives them this feeling of concentrated engagement."
(G. Kapur, Husain: Introduction and Analytical Notes, Bombay, 1968, p. 42)
(Artist Statement, Khalid Mohamed, Where Art Thou, M. F. Husain Foundation & Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2002, p. XXVIII)
The symbolic expression of the rankling pricking cactus creates tension in the otherwise intimate couple. Painted in flat planes, subtle tones and emotive colors, Geeta Kapur while describing this painting writes, "Many of Husain's best works engage figures in dialogue. Sometimes, as in the earlier paintings they are surrounded by a living, pulsating environment; sometimes as here, they are archetypal figures with their own private world.
In this painting, the elements re-enforce this sense of continual dialogue. The forms inclining toward each other are subtly interposed by the diagonal of the hand and that gesture fixes the image in memory. The forms are contained in their own dark spherical space; an enclosure within the pictorial space, which gives them this feeling of concentrated engagement."
(G. Kapur, Husain: Introduction and Analytical Notes, Bombay, 1968, p. 42)