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Lot Essay
This masterpiece from 1964 is part of Maqbool Fida Husain’s Rajasthan series and reflects the artist’s astonishing capacity to depict the cultural ethos of a region whether it be of Kerala, Rajasthan, Andhra, Haryana or Benaras. He brings together symbolic descriptions of regional costumes, colours, rhythms and folk expressions to convey singularly powerful Indian narratives.
This painting was originally titled Naika (heroine). Naika or Nayika refers to the many archetypal forms of the heroine found in a number of texts as an ultimate feminine symbol of divine love perhaps most famously associated with Krishna. The painting was later re-titled Nritya (dance) in Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur's seminal monograph on the artist in 1972. Rendered in bright colours and bold lines Naika stands in a graceful posture borrowed from Indian dance. Husain conveys rhythm and movement through the abstract structure of her body and the application.
Many of Husain’s works are inspired by the inter-disciplines of music, dance, sculpture, and film. This iconic work encapsulates the artist's notion of rasa (aesthetic rapture) as a meditative, self-contained expression. Deeply rooted in an Indian ethos and vernacular, Husain understood classical Sanskrit notions on aesthetics, to know how to paint, one must also comprehend form, movement and music. In this figure one can trace the influence of classical Indian sculpture, the aesthetic relationship Husain perceives between dance, sculpture and painting and his interest in converting sculptural and three-dimensional figures into a flat two-dimensional surface.
This canvas demonstrates Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics and aspects of European Modernism, which has been a hallmark of his unique and acclaimed style. A luminous palette, and flattened multi-perspectival forms combined with energetic impasto creates an idyllic yet deceptive gestural simplicity on a grand scale. Husain’s use of bright radiant hues give this powerful figure emotive energy and transformative power. “Husain’s paintings of this period reveal an almost prophetic foreshadowing of his climactic emotional experiences. There is in them a clear mark of his depending spiritual unrest […]. His figures are frequently distorted and metamorphosed” (R. Bartholomew & S. Kapur, Maqbool Fida Husain, New York, 1972, p. 45)
Husain’s Naika (Nritya) is in name and form a metamorphic apparition, a feminine force, of transformation. Husain appropriates the image of the mask which seems to protrude and morph in and out of this twisting form. This iconography appears in his painting, Masks of the same year and come to represent an “instrument of that transformation […] the magical bridge between two planes of reality.” (R. Bartholomew & S. Kapur, 1972, p. 48) This canvas is an exceptional triumph in painterly abstraction. True to its enigmatic titles, this woman appears and disappears on the picture plane as one observes the painting. Husain takes pleasure in creating this beautiful and enigmatic protagonist, part heroine, part dancer, playing hide-and-seek with the viewer.
This painting was originally titled Naika (heroine). Naika or Nayika refers to the many archetypal forms of the heroine found in a number of texts as an ultimate feminine symbol of divine love perhaps most famously associated with Krishna. The painting was later re-titled Nritya (dance) in Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur's seminal monograph on the artist in 1972. Rendered in bright colours and bold lines Naika stands in a graceful posture borrowed from Indian dance. Husain conveys rhythm and movement through the abstract structure of her body and the application.
Many of Husain’s works are inspired by the inter-disciplines of music, dance, sculpture, and film. This iconic work encapsulates the artist's notion of rasa (aesthetic rapture) as a meditative, self-contained expression. Deeply rooted in an Indian ethos and vernacular, Husain understood classical Sanskrit notions on aesthetics, to know how to paint, one must also comprehend form, movement and music. In this figure one can trace the influence of classical Indian sculpture, the aesthetic relationship Husain perceives between dance, sculpture and painting and his interest in converting sculptural and three-dimensional figures into a flat two-dimensional surface.
This canvas demonstrates Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics and aspects of European Modernism, which has been a hallmark of his unique and acclaimed style. A luminous palette, and flattened multi-perspectival forms combined with energetic impasto creates an idyllic yet deceptive gestural simplicity on a grand scale. Husain’s use of bright radiant hues give this powerful figure emotive energy and transformative power. “Husain’s paintings of this period reveal an almost prophetic foreshadowing of his climactic emotional experiences. There is in them a clear mark of his depending spiritual unrest […]. His figures are frequently distorted and metamorphosed” (R. Bartholomew & S. Kapur, Maqbool Fida Husain, New York, 1972, p. 45)
Husain’s Naika (Nritya) is in name and form a metamorphic apparition, a feminine force, of transformation. Husain appropriates the image of the mask which seems to protrude and morph in and out of this twisting form. This iconography appears in his painting, Masks of the same year and come to represent an “instrument of that transformation […] the magical bridge between two planes of reality.” (R. Bartholomew & S. Kapur, 1972, p. 48) This canvas is an exceptional triumph in painterly abstraction. True to its enigmatic titles, this woman appears and disappears on the picture plane as one observes the painting. Husain takes pleasure in creating this beautiful and enigmatic protagonist, part heroine, part dancer, playing hide-and-seek with the viewer.