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Lot Essay
Lost is the passage of sound in my jungle. Today the burnt bamboos have scratched the heart of silent sky, and greens sucked in elephant jugs. White tusks daggered inside the stomach of black mountain. They say: for seven days the passage of sound was lost.
- M.F. Husain
Two large elephants emerging from the bamboo, with their trunks highlighted in shades of blue, take center stage in this composition. Throughout his career Maqbool Fida Husain returned to animals which he felt embodied specific powerful qualities. Here, the elephant is a symbol of free-spirited frivolity, unimpeded and unbridled. Husain imbues the painting with the warmth and energy which he came to associate with his passion for the Keralan landscape following his first visit to the state in the late 1950s.
The painting belongs to a series of works depicting grouped figures in the late 1950s and ’60s that Husain painted under the inspiration of classical music and dance. They are representational of his belief in the interdependence of art forms in India. The frieze of dancers depicted in various classical stances move to the beat of the musician’s drum. There is a harmony and sense of rhythm in the rendering of the musician and the dancers’ movements. Invisible strains of music bind the two together and hold the dancers in suspended motion. The dancing figure is also a ubiquitous motif in ancient Indian sculpture. The influence of classical Indian sculpture, apparent in this frieze-like work, illuminates Husain's interest in conveying the sculptural and three-dimensional on a flat surface. Husain has recurrently paid homage to Indian cultural traditions in their classical forms. The inter-disciplinary nature of music, sculpture, dance, painting and film provided enormous inspiration to Husain at the time, and this painting embodies a masterful usage of his most recognisable pictorial elements.
“Husain views each painting as a fragment of music whose counterpoint exists elsewhere, and his entire painterly activity as one immense effort at orchestration of all the notes that he hears struck upon his personality. No painting is intended as a complete statement. In a continuing inquiry into the nature of being, every one of his wide array of works, joyous or grave, leaves the viewer with an intimation of other possibilities.” (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 60)
- M.F. Husain
Two large elephants emerging from the bamboo, with their trunks highlighted in shades of blue, take center stage in this composition. Throughout his career Maqbool Fida Husain returned to animals which he felt embodied specific powerful qualities. Here, the elephant is a symbol of free-spirited frivolity, unimpeded and unbridled. Husain imbues the painting with the warmth and energy which he came to associate with his passion for the Keralan landscape following his first visit to the state in the late 1950s.
The painting belongs to a series of works depicting grouped figures in the late 1950s and ’60s that Husain painted under the inspiration of classical music and dance. They are representational of his belief in the interdependence of art forms in India. The frieze of dancers depicted in various classical stances move to the beat of the musician’s drum. There is a harmony and sense of rhythm in the rendering of the musician and the dancers’ movements. Invisible strains of music bind the two together and hold the dancers in suspended motion. The dancing figure is also a ubiquitous motif in ancient Indian sculpture. The influence of classical Indian sculpture, apparent in this frieze-like work, illuminates Husain's interest in conveying the sculptural and three-dimensional on a flat surface. Husain has recurrently paid homage to Indian cultural traditions in their classical forms. The inter-disciplinary nature of music, sculpture, dance, painting and film provided enormous inspiration to Husain at the time, and this painting embodies a masterful usage of his most recognisable pictorial elements.
“Husain views each painting as a fragment of music whose counterpoint exists elsewhere, and his entire painterly activity as one immense effort at orchestration of all the notes that he hears struck upon his personality. No painting is intended as a complete statement. In a continuing inquiry into the nature of being, every one of his wide array of works, joyous or grave, leaves the viewer with an intimation of other possibilities.” (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 60)