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Lot Essay
“[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” (R. Shahani, Let History Cut Across Me Without Me, New Delhi, 1993, p. 1).
Throughout his artistic career, which extended over eight long decades, Maqbool Fida Husain championed Indian cultural traditions in his paintings in an effort to capture and express his fascination with rasa, or the concept of aesthetic rapture. The interdisciplinary nature of music, sculpture, dance, painting and film provided enormous inspiration to the artist, and in the present lot, he captures this elusive sensation by depicting an intimate musical recital.
This painting offers Husain's masterful synthesis of the traditional Indian subject of a classical musician in a modern artistic language. Its skillful economy of line and form and swift brushstrokes evoke the physicality of the sitar player and yet maintain a tranquil, even idyllic, gestural simplicity with the beautifully muted palette of the fabric that Husain drapes around him. The musician shines in an unseen spotlight as Husain places his gaze on his fingers as they dance across the strings of his sitar. The subject’s identity is not explicitly clear, especially with the use of Husain’s signature technique of stylizing facial features; however, it is possible that this is Husain’s rendering of none other than the sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Here, Husain surrounds the musician with both raga and taal, the two vital aspects of Indian classical music. A raga is the melodic framework filled with emotion and feeling, and the taal is the rhythm. Historically, ragas have been depicted in traditional Indian miniature paintings called Ragamala series or 'garland of ragas'. In these paintings, each raga, which is associated with its own mood, color, emotion, time of day and even weather, is depicted individually surrounding heroes and heroines with inherent drama. In this painting, Husain does the same, framing the musician with deep colors increasing the poignance of the scene and the drama of the intimate performance.
A raga without taal is like a body without bones, and in this painting, Husain depicts both in harmony with the raga in the form of the sitar and taal in the form of the tabla which sit poised in front of the musician as if awaiting their own maestro. The resulting sound which can be imagined but not heard, reverberates through Husain’s brushstrokes, with the two vertical red lines on the left most likely indicating the beginning of the performance with the taali or first beat of the taal.
Throughout his artistic career, which extended over eight long decades, Maqbool Fida Husain championed Indian cultural traditions in his paintings in an effort to capture and express his fascination with rasa, or the concept of aesthetic rapture. The interdisciplinary nature of music, sculpture, dance, painting and film provided enormous inspiration to the artist, and in the present lot, he captures this elusive sensation by depicting an intimate musical recital.
This painting offers Husain's masterful synthesis of the traditional Indian subject of a classical musician in a modern artistic language. Its skillful economy of line and form and swift brushstrokes evoke the physicality of the sitar player and yet maintain a tranquil, even idyllic, gestural simplicity with the beautifully muted palette of the fabric that Husain drapes around him. The musician shines in an unseen spotlight as Husain places his gaze on his fingers as they dance across the strings of his sitar. The subject’s identity is not explicitly clear, especially with the use of Husain’s signature technique of stylizing facial features; however, it is possible that this is Husain’s rendering of none other than the sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Here, Husain surrounds the musician with both raga and taal, the two vital aspects of Indian classical music. A raga is the melodic framework filled with emotion and feeling, and the taal is the rhythm. Historically, ragas have been depicted in traditional Indian miniature paintings called Ragamala series or 'garland of ragas'. In these paintings, each raga, which is associated with its own mood, color, emotion, time of day and even weather, is depicted individually surrounding heroes and heroines with inherent drama. In this painting, Husain does the same, framing the musician with deep colors increasing the poignance of the scene and the drama of the intimate performance.
A raga without taal is like a body without bones, and in this painting, Husain depicts both in harmony with the raga in the form of the sitar and taal in the form of the tabla which sit poised in front of the musician as if awaiting their own maestro. The resulting sound which can be imagined but not heard, reverberates through Husain’s brushstrokes, with the two vertical red lines on the left most likely indicating the beginning of the performance with the taali or first beat of the taal.