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Lot Essay
'I have always had a feeling, and now it is confirmed, that Husain draws in paint and thinks entirely in color. This accounts greatly for the texture of his work and for the iridescent quality of the delineation of the form and design.' (S.A. Krishnan, 'Three Retrospective Exhibitions, M.F. Husain', Lalit Kala Contemporary 27, New Delhi, April 1979, p. 21)
From the late 1960s, Maqbool Fida Husain began to use colour in a systematically symbolic way. Critic and Art Historian Shiv Kapur writes in the quintessential monograph on the artist discusses Husain’s use of colour as, ‘shining out with an inner glow [....] His lines are quiet amid colors that have the design and luminosity of stained glass. The richness of this mystic illumination is reflected in his choice of colors: glowing blues, browns, and reds from the diagonal reaches of the spectrum, lit by patches of white.’(R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Maqbool Fida Husain, New York, 1972, p. 52). This is exemplified in Theorem II to the point the work seems as much an exploration into theories of painting as into the exploration of man.
The present canvas appears as if an artist's schematic map of colour, and geometry of form. The central triangular architectonic structure in the background which bisects the proto-female figure structure in the background references the famous mathematical Pythagorean Theorem, which states that square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Husain here places the human form itself on the hypotenuse as if embarking on a new theoretical proof.
Theorem II was painted in 1970, a period when Husain was systematically delving further into the philosophical exploration not only of painting and colour itself but of the existence of man and their function on earth. The title itself suggests that this painting is the manifestation of the modern master’s own philosophical theory.
From the late 1960s, Maqbool Fida Husain began to use colour in a systematically symbolic way. Critic and Art Historian Shiv Kapur writes in the quintessential monograph on the artist discusses Husain’s use of colour as, ‘shining out with an inner glow [....] His lines are quiet amid colors that have the design and luminosity of stained glass. The richness of this mystic illumination is reflected in his choice of colors: glowing blues, browns, and reds from the diagonal reaches of the spectrum, lit by patches of white.’(R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Maqbool Fida Husain, New York, 1972, p. 52). This is exemplified in Theorem II to the point the work seems as much an exploration into theories of painting as into the exploration of man.
The present canvas appears as if an artist's schematic map of colour, and geometry of form. The central triangular architectonic structure in the background which bisects the proto-female figure structure in the background references the famous mathematical Pythagorean Theorem, which states that square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Husain here places the human form itself on the hypotenuse as if embarking on a new theoretical proof.
Theorem II was painted in 1970, a period when Husain was systematically delving further into the philosophical exploration not only of painting and colour itself but of the existence of man and their function on earth. The title itself suggests that this painting is the manifestation of the modern master’s own philosophical theory.