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Lot Essay
In 1948, Husain travelled with Francis Newton Souza to Delhi where they attended an exhibition of Indian antiquities and classical art. Husain recalls, "It was humbling. I came back to Bombay in 1948 with five paintings, which was the turning point in my life. I deliberately picked up two or three periods of Indian history. One was the classical period of the Guptas. The very sensuous form of the female body. Next, was the Basholi period. The strong colours of the Basholi miniatures. The last was the folk element. [...] That was the breaking point [...] To come out of the influence of British Academic painting and the Bengal revivalist school" (Artist statement, P. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, December 4-10, 1983).
The present lot underlines Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics and aspects of European Modernism, a hallmark of his inimitable and acclaimed style. In this painting, one can see the influence of classical Indian sculpture, the aesthetic relationship Husain perceives between dance, sculpture and painting, and the artist's interest in communicating this relationship using a flat two-dimensional surface.
Like Picasso and Matisse, Husain was also known for his depictions of 'bathers', scenes of nude women bathing as a leisure activity by the banks of a river. Husain’s bathers were inspired by the rituals he observed on the banks of the holy river Ganga during his trip to Banaras with Ram Kumar in 1960. "On the ghats of Banaras [the] bathers bathe in ancient lava, so thick are the encrustations of his impasto, so acute his sense of the timelessness of the ritual he saw performed on those hoary steps on the river's edge. Banaras Ghat, in its fusion of theme, forms, and composition is an example of the correspondence achieved by the artist between form and feeling" (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, p. 4).
The present lot underlines Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics and aspects of European Modernism, a hallmark of his inimitable and acclaimed style. In this painting, one can see the influence of classical Indian sculpture, the aesthetic relationship Husain perceives between dance, sculpture and painting, and the artist's interest in communicating this relationship using a flat two-dimensional surface.
Like Picasso and Matisse, Husain was also known for his depictions of 'bathers', scenes of nude women bathing as a leisure activity by the banks of a river. Husain’s bathers were inspired by the rituals he observed on the banks of the holy river Ganga during his trip to Banaras with Ram Kumar in 1960. "On the ghats of Banaras [the] bathers bathe in ancient lava, so thick are the encrustations of his impasto, so acute his sense of the timelessness of the ritual he saw performed on those hoary steps on the river's edge. Banaras Ghat, in its fusion of theme, forms, and composition is an example of the correspondence achieved by the artist between form and feeling" (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, p. 4).