Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011)

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From the beginning of Husain’s long career as an artist, his vision remained deeply entrenched in an Indian sensibility. The present work from the collection of the late June and John Lewis, Untitled (Dancers under a Full Moon), is a profound example of the unique amalgam of post-Independence/post-Impressionist painting: powerfully evocative of classical Indian plastic traditions and distinctly modern at the same time.   

In 1948, Husain visited the India Independence Exhibition with Francis Newton Souza, where they saw Gupta sculpture and traditional miniature painting from the Rajput and Pahari courts. This moment served as a catalyst for the evolution of Husain’s unique visual vocabulary—combining the palette of the Indian miniature with the voluptuous curves and fluid postures of early and medieval Indian sculpture.

Husain explains: “[Souza and I] went to Delhi to see that big exhibition of Indian sculptures and miniatures which was shown in 1948 … it was humbling. I came back to Bombay and in ’48 I came out with five paintings, which was the turning point in my life. I deliberately picked up two or three periods of Indian history. One as the classical period of the Guptas, the very sensuous form of the female body. Next was the Basholi period, the strong colors of the Basholi miniatures. the last was the folk element. With these three combined, and using colors very boldly as I did with cinema hoardings, I went to town. That was the breaking point … to come out of the influence of the British academic painting and the Bengal Revivalist School,” (Husain rpt. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, December 4-10, 1983).  

Husain’s modernism then contends even in its earlier period with an understanding of Indian aesthetics at a fundamental level. In the present work, the triple axial posture of the five figures draws upon the tribhanga postures of classical sculpture, and the tight overlapping forms of the central figures are reminiscent of the frieze panels of North Indian temples. Over the years, these tensile figures have provided the essential vocabulary of Husain’s women.

Husain concludes: “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, hips and shoulder ... they move in rhythm,” (ibid.). Husain’s own unique synthesis of these classical forms remains a hallmark of Progressive-Era paintings.