Important Notice

Lot 27

 

Quick Zoom

M.F. Husain's "...was a painterly language that embraced the formal possibilities of European Modernism and deployed it imaginatively to capture the tenor and texture of an emergent India immediately after Independence. His innate ability to grasp the many syncretic traditions of the country and lend them visual form made his work a symbolic embodiment of the project of nation- building; he was soon to become the most fêted modern artist during... M.F. Husain's "...was a painterly language that embraced the formal possibilities of European Modernism and deployed it imaginatively to capture the tenor and texture of an emergent India immediately after Independence. His innate ability to grasp the many syncretic traditions of the country and lend them visual form made his work a symbolic embodiment of the project of nation- building; he was soon to become the most fêted modern artist during the Nehruvian decades and thereafter. In more ways than one, he was single-handedly responsible for uploading in the public consciousness the figure of the modern artist in post-Independence India" (Jitish Kallat, "Art and Culture", Beyond Borders - The SAARC Journal, 2012, p. 79).

Dance and music are inspirational for Husain, and amongst the most frequent of his subjects. The present lot was painted spontaneously by the artist as a reaction to the choral version of Beethoven's 9th symphony that was being played at a celebration of his 85th birthday in London. The eclectic cast of this canvas, which includes an amphora and figures that recall classical Greco-Roman imagery, as well as a large vulture-like bird, represents Husain's instinctive response to the powerful crescendos and diminuendos of one of the most famous pieces of Western classical music.

According to critic Roshan Shahani, Husain "…has tuned himself into the disciplines of several arts. The vibrations of dance, music and Urdu poetry are caught in a jagged thrust of lines and colours. He can draw and paint with complete surrender to the sound and graphic representations of these modes. Musical rhythm or pure sound finds its way easily into the schemes of the paintings" (Let History Cut Across Me without Me, Vadehra Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1993, p. 1).

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