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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.
- Maqbool Fida Husain, 1971
Largely self-taught, Maqbool Fida Husain began his artistic career as a painter of billboards advertising Bollywood films. This deeply influenced his now instantly recognizable visual vocabulary that combines bold lines, riotous colors and plays on scale. Over the course of his extensive career, Husain developed and explored iconic tropes; powerful images he would return to time and again. Aptly bestowed with the title Bestiary, after medieval compendiums of animals in illuminated manuscripts, this joyful composition combines several of these tropes, portraying an elephant, tiger, monkey and the figure of Ganesha, dancing against a backdrop of colored foliage.
In Husain’s work, different animals came to embody specific attributes and qualities. Following his first visit to Kerala in the late 1960s, elephants would become a frequent subject in his paintings representing grace, free spirited frivolity and unimpeded and unbridled power. The playful monkey, a symbol of joy and childish mischief, was also commonly represented in Husain’s work from the 1960s onwards. Similarly, the majestic Bengal tiger would become a powerful motif in his work, particularly later in his career when he used its strength, power and ferocity to symbolize India under the British Raj.
Husain introduces the divine into this bestiary through the inclusion of a dancing Ganesha. The elephant headed god, symbolic of wisdom and intellect, is depicted playfully sliding down the trunk of the large elephant. The warmth and energy that the artist captures in this painting owe as much to his unique compositional assemblage as they do to the swift and fluid strokes of color in the animals and the dense green jungle that surround them. Untitled (Bestiary) manifests Husain’s ability to transfer the concerns of centuries past into a present-day context, representing classical mythology through emblematic animals of India to create a joyful work that transcends space and time.
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.
- Maqbool Fida Husain, 1971
Largely self-taught, Maqbool Fida Husain began his artistic career as a painter of billboards advertising Bollywood films. This deeply influenced his now instantly recognizable visual vocabulary that combines bold lines, riotous colors and plays on scale. Over the course of his extensive career, Husain developed and explored iconic tropes; powerful images he would return to time and again. Aptly bestowed with the title Bestiary, after medieval compendiums of animals in illuminated manuscripts, this joyful composition combines several of these tropes, portraying an elephant, tiger, monkey and the figure of Ganesha, dancing against a backdrop of colored foliage.
In Husain’s work, different animals came to embody specific attributes and qualities. Following his first visit to Kerala in the late 1960s, elephants would become a frequent subject in his paintings representing grace, free spirited frivolity and unimpeded and unbridled power. The playful monkey, a symbol of joy and childish mischief, was also commonly represented in Husain’s work from the 1960s onwards. Similarly, the majestic Bengal tiger would become a powerful motif in his work, particularly later in his career when he used its strength, power and ferocity to symbolize India under the British Raj.
Husain introduces the divine into this bestiary through the inclusion of a dancing Ganesha. The elephant headed god, symbolic of wisdom and intellect, is depicted playfully sliding down the trunk of the large elephant. The warmth and energy that the artist captures in this painting owe as much to his unique compositional assemblage as they do to the swift and fluid strokes of color in the animals and the dense green jungle that surround them. Untitled (Bestiary) manifests Husain’s ability to transfer the concerns of centuries past into a present-day context, representing classical mythology through emblematic animals of India to create a joyful work that transcends space and time.