Important Notice

Lot 33

 

Quick Zoom

Husain’s artistic exercises are fuelled by his celebratory outlook towards the culture of India and drawn from its various sources, one being the Indian landscapes. M F Husain was an avid traveller, often taking impulsive decisions on which city to visit and revisited geographies he grew fond of. “In India, Varanasi, Rajasthan, and Kerala are his favourite destinations. He likes Varanasi for its tradition, Rajasthan for its colour and Kerala for... Husain’s artistic exercises are fuelled by his celebratory outlook towards the culture of India and drawn from its various sources, one being the Indian landscapes. M F Husain was an avid traveller, often taking impulsive decisions on which city to visit and revisited geographies he grew fond of. “In India, Varanasi, Rajasthan, and Kerala are his favourite destinations. He likes Varanasi for its tradition, Rajasthan for its colour and Kerala for its starkness. He takes his camera along with him to whichever place he goes.” (Pradeep Chandra, M F Husain: A Pictorial Tribute, New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2011)

Preoccupied with and fascinated to explore landscapes, Husain embarked upon a trip in the 1960s to Allahabad first and then onward to Banaras with artist Ram Kumar. Husain and Kumar would bundle up their materials and travel in opposite directions every morning, each on a quest to discover the city through their art. On returning in the evening, they would share their views and reflect on new ideas and learnings. In an Urdu poem dedicated to Kumar - in the chapter ‘Four Friends’ in his unpublished autobiography - Husain writes: “In the beginning of the 1960’s, Ram Kumar arrived in Benaras. Not alone. Husain was with him. Two painters. Two brushes. One brush played with the waves of restless Ganga. The other was still - like a centuries’ old meditative trance of the Benaras ghats...”

For Ram Kumar Banaras became a regular destination, but Husain chose to seek other terrains. In the same decade, Husain travelled through Rajasthan, painting and drawing his way through the forts and desert towns of Bundi, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, and Chittor, among others. In a style that was partly influenced by cubism synthesised with his own sense of forms, he engaged with the colours and atmosphere of Rajasthani culture and living. As seen in the present lot, the dexterity with which he employed the colours is at once evoking the essence of navigating through the historical architectures of Rajasthan.

The year before the present lot was executed, in 1966, Husain decided to try his hand at filmmaking by taking up the opportunity presented to him by the Films Division. This experimental film titled Through the Eye of a Painter is “the feeling of a painter. There are unrelated moving videos juxtaposed to create a total poetic form, very integrated, no spoken word but the very sound of music makes a dialogue between short sequences in the film.” (Artist’s introduction transcribed from the film) Mrinal Sen, a veteran filmmaker who was then part of the Films Division, said, “After watching this film I liked Rajasthan a lot more than I ever did. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect film but it was certainly a work of art. Every frame of the film was like an artist’s canvas.” (Quoted in Pradeep Chandra, 2011) The film won The Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival in 1967.

On observing the frames in the film, one realises the movement of Husain’s eye over the buildings and its details that often moves from the eye level and upwards, zooming out from close ups of gates, and views the city from afar. The present lot, an alluring landscape, situates the gate on the viewers right at the eye level, followed by the stairs and architectural forms built over one another, receding into the canvas. While the prescribed scientific perspective is not followed, a sense of depth is cleverly created by colours and shadows, lines and superimposed planes from different vantage points. Rajasthan is a testament to Husain’s quest at achieving a connection between “form and feeling.” (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S Kapur, Husain, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1972, p. 46)

“These rare abstract experiments by Husain were in part an answer to his then critics who were prepared to consign him to history for not keeping up with the avant garde movements of the time. In spirit, they are closest to the works of S.H. Raza, who was attempting to capture in abstraction his childhood memories of the central Indian plains. While Raza continued to become [and remain] an abstract painter, Husain soon reverted to his interest in the human figure though he often employed the techniques of drip painting in his subsequent works.” (A Jhaveri and R Dean, M F Husain: Early Masterpieces 1950s - 70s, London, 2006)

The present lot is an impeccable canvas, devised with unique colour schemes to capture the textured walls of the fortified cities of Rajasthan, delineating the sun, hues, and unique climate of the state. In intent, Husain’s landscapes are closest to the abstract landscapes of S H Raza who was attempting to capture his childhood memories of the central Indian plains along with the underpinnings of the Indian aesthetic theories. Further, it highlights the very formative decades of Husain’s oeuvre, the 50s to 70s, as explained by scholar Yashodhara Dalmia, “It was in the early years, that Maqbool Fida Husain created the essential idiom for his art and it provided him with the navigational resources for his later journey. The layered vocabulary of his paintings, as complex as India itself, also set the tone for his preoccupation which was to tap the pulse of a nation in its making, viewing it from the street as it were. In doing so he virtually re-invented India and he continues to do this at each stage of his art.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, M F Husain: Early Masterpieces 1950s - 70s, London, 2006)

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site