Untitled (Horse)

Maqbool Fida Husain encountered and portrayed the equine figure throughout his artistic career, as it took him across various continents and cultures. He acknowledges the influence of Tang pottery horses and the monochromatic paintings of galloping horses by Xu Beihong he studied on an early trip to China, as well as the equestrian sculptures of the Italian artist Marino Marini (1901-80), which he discovered after travelling to Italy shortly after. Horses also resonate with Husain's admiration for ancient Greece, a civilization which championed and deified the equestrian form. The Trojan Horse, Pegasus and Alexander's prized Bucephalus are only a few iconic stallions which permeate the mythological and historical past of hallowed antiquity. However, what is liable to have been more influential still on the artist's work is an event he witnessed for the first time when he was fifteen. Once a year during Muharram when the religious mourned the death of Imam Husain, the Prophet’s son, they would carry tazias or effigies of Imam Husain’s faithful horse in a procession through the streets. “[…] the earliest icon that he had a part in creating was the apocalyptic horse of the tazias. He was to remain loyal to that icon; it never strayed far from his imagination in his subsequent paintings.” (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, p. 32)