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拍品專文
“In painting after painting his colors shine out with an inner glow [...] His lines are quiet amid colors that have the design and luminosity of stained glass. The richness of this mystic illumination is reflected in his choice of colors: glowing blues, browns, and reds from the diagonal reaches of the spectrum, lit by patches of white [...] The result [...] is a near autonomy of colors, used in full awareness of their symbolic values, to create the very structure of painting in the manner of Cézanne and Matisse” (R. Bartholomew and S.S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 52).
The present lot exemplifies Maqbool Fida Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics with aspects of European Modernism, a hallmark of his inimitable and acclaimed style. His use of luminous colors along with heavy impasto lends a sense of movement and emotive energy to his painting. Husain was strongly influenced by depictions of Indian mythology in classical painting and sculpture as well as the bright color palette of Mughal, Jain and Basholi miniature paintings, that he encountered on his regular visits to museums in India as well those abroad, like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The depiction of female figures is also an integral part of Husain's compositions - their forms are often influenced by classical Indian sculpture, yet characterized by his strong, angular lines. Here, the unclothed woman could be a yakshi or fertility goddess, classically depicted standing with her hands wide open towards a flowering tree and with one raised foot in the air. The painting may also be viewed more simply as a portrayal of a village scene where a woman has drawn water from the village well and is about to return to her home balancing an imagined pot of water on her head. By incorporating commonplace iconography, Husain manages to make his works immediately accessible while retaining a mysterious and layered quality through the sensuality of the female form.
“Conceptually and in their modeling Husain’s figures of this time belong more to his lyric than to his archaic vein. His usual style is to structure his forms, eschewing perspective and chiaroscuro, in flat surfaces of paint, applied with the brush or the knife. The influence of traditional Indian art has been strong in shaping this style, but it is also clearly the product of his own sensibility, permeated by a sense of the archaic and the ritualistic [...] His preference for abstracted and slowly formed emotion in art, as against the immediately perceived sensation, has further strengthened the tendency to archaizing. However, as has to be observed, there is another, divergent pull which draws Husain to the rounded and active figures of dance and sculpture. These are the forms of affirmation and sensuous perception. But many of his forms inevitably come from a territory in which these two stylistic approaches overlap, and some of his compositions, in an intermixture of moods, contain both types of figures” (R. Bartholomew and S.S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 54).
Universally acclaimed as one of India's most important modern masters, Maqbool Fida Husain is unique in the breadth of his artistic vision. From his humble beginnings as a billboard painter, Husain successfully transcended the constraints of regional aesthetics and public opinion. Each work by Husain is a paean to the Modernist idea that an artist is a visionary engaging in an act of metaphysical creation.
The present lot exemplifies Maqbool Fida Husain’s virtuosic ability to synthesize classical Indian aesthetics with aspects of European Modernism, a hallmark of his inimitable and acclaimed style. His use of luminous colors along with heavy impasto lends a sense of movement and emotive energy to his painting. Husain was strongly influenced by depictions of Indian mythology in classical painting and sculpture as well as the bright color palette of Mughal, Jain and Basholi miniature paintings, that he encountered on his regular visits to museums in India as well those abroad, like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The depiction of female figures is also an integral part of Husain's compositions - their forms are often influenced by classical Indian sculpture, yet characterized by his strong, angular lines. Here, the unclothed woman could be a yakshi or fertility goddess, classically depicted standing with her hands wide open towards a flowering tree and with one raised foot in the air. The painting may also be viewed more simply as a portrayal of a village scene where a woman has drawn water from the village well and is about to return to her home balancing an imagined pot of water on her head. By incorporating commonplace iconography, Husain manages to make his works immediately accessible while retaining a mysterious and layered quality through the sensuality of the female form.
“Conceptually and in their modeling Husain’s figures of this time belong more to his lyric than to his archaic vein. His usual style is to structure his forms, eschewing perspective and chiaroscuro, in flat surfaces of paint, applied with the brush or the knife. The influence of traditional Indian art has been strong in shaping this style, but it is also clearly the product of his own sensibility, permeated by a sense of the archaic and the ritualistic [...] His preference for abstracted and slowly formed emotion in art, as against the immediately perceived sensation, has further strengthened the tendency to archaizing. However, as has to be observed, there is another, divergent pull which draws Husain to the rounded and active figures of dance and sculpture. These are the forms of affirmation and sensuous perception. But many of his forms inevitably come from a territory in which these two stylistic approaches overlap, and some of his compositions, in an intermixture of moods, contain both types of figures” (R. Bartholomew and S.S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 54).
Universally acclaimed as one of India's most important modern masters, Maqbool Fida Husain is unique in the breadth of his artistic vision. From his humble beginnings as a billboard painter, Husain successfully transcended the constraints of regional aesthetics and public opinion. Each work by Husain is a paean to the Modernist idea that an artist is a visionary engaging in an act of metaphysical creation.