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Lot Essay
My horses like lightning, cut across many horizons. Seldom their hooves are shown. They hop around the spaces. From the battlefield of "Karbala" to Bankura terracotta, from the Chinese Tse pei Hung horse to St. Marco horse, from ornate armoured "Duldul" to challenging white of "Ashwamedh" [...] the cavalcade of my horses is multidimensional.
- M.F. Husain, 1987
Maqbool Fida Husain's horses are both personal and universal. They became a central part of his oeuvre since his first representation of the animal in the early 1950s, and are depicted as strong creatures, usually galloping, with reared heads and a tremendous sense of movement. Husain encountered the equine figure throughout his life across continents and cultures. He acknowledges the influence of Tang pottery horses and the monochromatic paintings of galloping horses by Xu Beihong he studied on a trip to China, as well as the equestrian sculptures of the Italian artist Marino Marini (1901-80), which he discovered after a trip to Italy. 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)
According to Ebrahim Alkazi, horses are usually recognized as symbols of the sun and knowledge. They are associated with life giving and sustaining forces. Here again, Husain's horses have become "a vehicle for multiple utterances - aggression, power and protection." (R. Shahani, Let History Cut Across Me: Without Me, New Delhi, 1993, p. 8) The juxtaposition of human and animal figures is a another theme that Husain frequently returned to, in particular the pairing of women and horses. Husain’s women are as important and integral to his body of work as are his horses. Whether he chooses to depict them in a simple rural setting attending to mundane household chores or as female warriors astride charging stallions, as in this painting, his women are symbolic of inner strength. They are sensuous figures depicted in postures reminiscent of classical Indian sculpture, illuminating Husain's interest in conveying sculptural and three-dimensional forms on his flat canvases. Discussing the prevalence of the tribhanga pose, with three bends in the body, in traditional temple sculpture, Husain notes, "One reason why I went back to the Gupta period of sculpture was to study the human form [...] when the British ruled we were taught to draw a figure with the proportions from Greek and Roman sculpture...in the East the human form is an entirely different structure [...] the way a woman walks in the village there are three breaks...from the feet, the hips and the shoulder...they move in rhythm, the walk of a European is erect and archaic." (P. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 4-10 December, 1983, unpaginated)
This painting is economic in its use of color, and simplicity of line, yet appears strong and forceful. The figure of the woman is highlighted against a vertical column of gold and ochre. She is seated partially on a horse and partially on a huge shimmering yellow sun.
- M.F. Husain, 1987
Maqbool Fida Husain's horses are both personal and universal. They became a central part of his oeuvre since his first representation of the animal in the early 1950s, and are depicted as strong creatures, usually galloping, with reared heads and a tremendous sense of movement. Husain encountered the equine figure throughout his life across continents and cultures. He acknowledges the influence of Tang pottery horses and the monochromatic paintings of galloping horses by Xu Beihong he studied on a trip to China, as well as the equestrian sculptures of the Italian artist Marino Marini (1901-80), which he discovered after a trip to Italy. 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)
According to Ebrahim Alkazi, horses are usually recognized as symbols of the sun and knowledge. They are associated with life giving and sustaining forces. Here again, Husain's horses have become "a vehicle for multiple utterances - aggression, power and protection." (R. Shahani, Let History Cut Across Me: Without Me, New Delhi, 1993, p. 8) The juxtaposition of human and animal figures is a another theme that Husain frequently returned to, in particular the pairing of women and horses. Husain’s women are as important and integral to his body of work as are his horses. Whether he chooses to depict them in a simple rural setting attending to mundane household chores or as female warriors astride charging stallions, as in this painting, his women are symbolic of inner strength. They are sensuous figures depicted in postures reminiscent of classical Indian sculpture, illuminating Husain's interest in conveying sculptural and three-dimensional forms on his flat canvases. Discussing the prevalence of the tribhanga pose, with three bends in the body, in traditional temple sculpture, Husain notes, "One reason why I went back to the Gupta period of sculpture was to study the human form [...] when the British ruled we were taught to draw a figure with the proportions from Greek and Roman sculpture...in the East the human form is an entirely different structure [...] the way a woman walks in the village there are three breaks...from the feet, the hips and the shoulder...they move in rhythm, the walk of a European is erect and archaic." (P. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 4-10 December, 1983, unpaginated)
This painting is economic in its use of color, and simplicity of line, yet appears strong and forceful. The figure of the woman is highlighted against a vertical column of gold and ochre. She is seated partially on a horse and partially on a huge shimmering yellow sun.