Maqbool Fida Husain (b. 1915)

The combination of the horse and the nude have fascinated Husain since his formative years. He studied Song horses during his visit to China in 1952 but during his trip to Europe he found Rennaissance horses unexciting and instead drew inspiration from the sculptures of Marino Marini. The identities of his early nudes, however, tend to be inspired by classical Indian sculpture but have been compared to the figures of Matisse.

In the words of Roshan Shahani, 'The relationship of the body to the stallion is a paradox of frenzy and unhurried movement.  An elegant dissection of space with line and angle. There is a measure of squared off posture and high leaping which hints at the ecstasy that is enclosed by the flashing lines of Bernini sculptural composition...Husain's horses become a vehicle for multiple utterances - aggression, power and protecion...the brute strength of horses born and released from fabulous regions mutate into thunderbolt energies, phallic and omnipotent.' (Shahani, 1993, p. 8.)

'My horses like lightning, cut across many horizons. Seldom their hooves are shown. They hop around the spaces. From the battlefield of "Karbala" to Baukura terracota, from the Chinese Tse pei Hung horse to St. Marco's horse, from ornate armoured "Duldul" to challenging white of "Ashwamedh"...the cavalcade of my horses is multidimensional.'  (Husain, 1988, p. 83)