Maqbool Fida Husain (b. 1915)

Impression of stretcher bar visible along lower edge. Good overall condition. Greater color contrast with horses than in catalogue illustration.
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In classical Indian art and myth seven horses draw the chariot of the sun god Surya, they are symbols of the sun itself, of time and of knowledge. In certain Puranic myths horses are said to have emerged from the sea and from the ether and during the pre-Vedic period horse sacrifice was widely prevalent. In the Indian epics and religious treatises there are illuminating references to the horse sacrifice. White and black horses were alternately favored, and it is evident that the practice was not only associated with solar worship, but was also intended to secure fertility. For Husain too they are symbols of life sustaining forces. Riderless, his horses look out across timeless landscapes or back towards an unseen audience. The images are metaphorical, at times powerfully erotic or sublimely tragic.

In the artist's words, '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 has had a fascination with horses from an early age. As a young boy his grandfather used to take him to the local farrier in Indore where he saw horses of all types. In 1952, during his visit to China Husain was captivated by the terracotta horses of the Song dynasty and during his trip to Europe he drew inspiration from the sculptures of Marino Marini. Whatever his inspiration, Husain has returned to the subject of the horse repeatedly in his work, his horses are wild, symbols of immense raw power, the raised hooves and heaving flank all suggestive of their pent up primal energy, the horse becomes a symbol that he makes uniquely his own.

'The horses are rampant or galloping; the manes, the fury, the working buttocks the prancing legs, and the strong neighing heads with dilated nostrils are blocks of colour which are vivid or tactile or are propelled in their significant progression by strokes of the brush or sweeps of the palette knife. The activity depicted is transformed in the activity of paint.' (E Alkazi, M. F. Husain The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi, 1978, p. 3).

'Husain's horses are subterranean creatures. Their nature is not intellectualized: it is rendered as sensation or as abstract movement, with a capacity to stir up vague premonitions and passions, in a mixture of ritualistic fear and exultant anguish. He had first encountered the figure of the horse in the tazias of his youth, in the religiously imbued story of the martyrdom of Imam Husain. The challenging horse of ancient Hindu princes, the Aswamedha, heightened in his imagination the heroic, and therefore to him ultimately tragic, character of the riderless figure.' (Richard Bartholomew and Shiv S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, pp. 43-44).

'Art has to evolve from your very being, like my horses... I see them as ageless and immortal. They draw chariots in the great epics, they stand proudly in the poorest stables, they are embodiments of strength like the dragons of China.' (M.F. Husain with Khalid Mohammed, Where art Thou, Mumbai, 2002, p. xxii).