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Lot Essay
“Mr Husain has perfected the delineation of the female torso in all its sensuousness and ascetic withdrawal. These qualities are typically Indian. There is desire as well as the discipline of orthodoxy – much ardour and provocation and at the same time something of the chastity which is ideal of the Orient. The drawing is certain and daringly economical. The thick, muscular, exploratory line is broken or interrupted by blocks of bold colour [...] Poise and resplendent colour, emotively used, provide the spectator the key to the prevailing mood.” (R. Bartholomew, ‘Ten Paintings by M.F. Husain’, Thought, 12 April, 1958)
This portrait of a seated lady holding a flower painted in 1963 is one of the finest illustrations of Husain’s lifelong engagement with the female figure, both as an integral part of India’s socioeconomic fabric and as an important art historical trope. Brilliant tones of orange, red and yellow are boldly dispatched by the artist, reminiscent of Byzantine religious icons, and confident brushstrokes give the figure a sense of sculptural gravity. Painted at a time when Husain had established his place at the forefront of modern Indian art, this tender portrait is testament to the artist’s capacity to synthesize several different aesthetic traditions in the creation of his unique modernist vocabulary.
Geeta Kapur describes Husain’s work from this period as expressionistic, but qualifies this statement, observing that “It is a muted expressionism, for except some early paintings that were like emotional outbursts, his attitude is very different from the European Expressionists, with whom the term is associated. His figures are always touched by a prideful aloofness, a sense of irony, even detachment. Moreover they possess a dialectical life. As characters they establish a relationship with the outside world from which they are drawn and upon which they comment, deriving their humanness, from this interpenetration with the living environment. On the other hand they attain an autonomy on the picture plane and generate the painting’s internal dialogue, reflecting directly, the artist’s dialogue with his own self. Altogether it becomes imperative to look at his paintings in the context of these layered relationships.” (G. Kapur, Husain, Mumbai, 1967, p. 3)
This portrait of a seated lady holding a flower painted in 1963 is one of the finest illustrations of Husain’s lifelong engagement with the female figure, both as an integral part of India’s socioeconomic fabric and as an important art historical trope. Brilliant tones of orange, red and yellow are boldly dispatched by the artist, reminiscent of Byzantine religious icons, and confident brushstrokes give the figure a sense of sculptural gravity. Painted at a time when Husain had established his place at the forefront of modern Indian art, this tender portrait is testament to the artist’s capacity to synthesize several different aesthetic traditions in the creation of his unique modernist vocabulary.
Geeta Kapur describes Husain’s work from this period as expressionistic, but qualifies this statement, observing that “It is a muted expressionism, for except some early paintings that were like emotional outbursts, his attitude is very different from the European Expressionists, with whom the term is associated. His figures are always touched by a prideful aloofness, a sense of irony, even detachment. Moreover they possess a dialectical life. As characters they establish a relationship with the outside world from which they are drawn and upon which they comment, deriving their humanness, from this interpenetration with the living environment. On the other hand they attain an autonomy on the picture plane and generate the painting’s internal dialogue, reflecting directly, the artist’s dialogue with his own self. Altogether it becomes imperative to look at his paintings in the context of these layered relationships.” (G. Kapur, Husain, Mumbai, 1967, p. 3)