Important Notice

Husain found a muse in the horse at a very young age with the horse effigies that featured in the tazias processions during Muharram. It became an integral motif that kept reappearing in his oeuvre.

"The horse as a multidimensional symbolic motif was itself to interest Husain deeply. During his travels in China in 1952 he studied the Sung dynasty renderings of horses. Later, in Europe, where as he found the Renaissance horses... Husain found a muse in the horse at a very young age with the horse effigies that featured in the tazias processions during Muharram. It became an integral motif that kept reappearing in his oeuvre.

"The horse as a multidimensional symbolic motif was itself to interest Husain deeply. During his travels in China in 1952 he studied the Sung dynasty renderings of horses. Later, in Europe, where as he found the Renaissance horses unexciting, he was strongly attracted by Franz Marc's work and Marino Marini's archaic equestrian sculpture, with its balance between horizontal and vertical lines to achieve a feeling of solitary and monumental anguish. Husain's own use of the horse motif has been, however, more intuitive and complex…[Husain's horses] are subterranean creatures. Their nature is not intellectualized; it is rendered as a sensation or as abstract movement, with a capacity to stir up vague premonitions and passions in a mixture of ritualistic fear and exultant anguish" (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv Kapur, Husain, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1972, pgs. 39, 40).

Husain's horses from the 1970s tap into a deep, restless energy that was only hinted at in his works from the 1950s and 1960s. The present lot could be an early work. He treats the horse in a manner similar to a Chinese scroll painting. Here, he astutely uses the vertical picture plane to contort the body of the horse, yet avoids distorting it - the rump, the seat and the head are three different views, synchronising to create a mesmerising picture. The arrow cutting diagonally is of vital importance as it resonates with the principles of Indian sculpture. The vertical median, in sculpting, is used to determine form and contouring. By visualising this median as a diagonal axis, Husain "sculpts" his horse, heightening its raw energy and unifying the painting. The potent brushstrokes are executed in a bold calligraphic manner.

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