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Lot Essay
My horses like lightning, cut across many horizons. Seldom their hooves are shown. They hop around the spaces. From the battlefield of ‘Karbala’ to Bankura terracotta, from the Chinese Tse pei Hung horse to St. Marco horse, from ornate armoured ‘Duldul’ to challenging white of ‘Ashwamedh’ [...] the cavalcade of my horses is multidimensional.
- M.F. Husain, 1987
The figure of the horse has been a cornerstone of Husain’s oeuvre since the early 1950s when he painted the animal for the first time. Husain encountered the animal throughout his life and travels across different continents and cultures. He acknowledges the influence of Tang pottery horses and the paintings of galloping horses by Xu Beihong, whom he studied on an early trip to China, as well as the equestrian sculptures of the Italian artist Marino Marini, which he discovered during his travels across Europe. The form of the horse also resonated with Husain's admiration for Ancient Greece, a civilization that championed and deified the animal for its strength and speed. The Trojan Horse, Pegasus and Alexander's prized Bucephalus are only a few iconic stallions that permeate the mythological and historical past of hallowed antiquity. As a filmmaker, it is also likely that Husain was inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s iconic short film, The Horse in Motion, the first successful series of stop-motion photographs capturing continuous movement.
Closer to home were Husain’s enduring memories of experiencing Muharram as a young boy. During this festival, men would carry tazias, or replicas of Imam Hussain’s tomb, with figures of his faithful horse Duldul in a procession through the streets. Husain’s “earliest memories of artistic participation were with the making of the tazias in Indore where twenty foot high effigies of horses were carried in procession during the final day of Muharram, as symbols of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain the grandson of the Prophet. These gigantic horses signified all the valour of the warrior for the young boy and they emerged in some of his earliest paintings as animated, powerful animals” (Y. Dalmia, ‘M.F. Husain: Reinventing India’, Early Masterpieces: 1950s-70s, London, 2006, unpaginated).
Husain captures the essence of motion and the sheer intensity, power, elegance and energy of the horse in his paintings like the present lot. Rejecting stillness in his work, Husain saw still life painting as “inert” and noted that “the French call it la vie morte” which translates to “the dead life” (Artist statement, K. Mohamed, M.F. Husain, Where Art Thou, Mumbai, 2002, p. xiv). It is not surprising then that the artist’s horses are always depicted as full of life and action. Here, three horses explode from a verdant green background with their heads reared, nostrils flared and mouths open. A bold red line beneath them only adds to the power of their motion, as if their hooves, invisible mid gallop, are turning the ground into hot embers. The sounds of these hooves beating the ground and their horses’ loud neighing are almost audible to the viewer, just like the cloud of dust raised by their movement can almost be felt. While two of the horses race forwards, the third turns back, perhaps making sure they are leaving nothing behind.
“Husain's painted horses do not just bear majestic stateliness and striking beauty but also come alive in every mood, situation and form. Their forceful movement conveys so much that it carries us away with it” (R. Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi, 2001, p. 112).
- M.F. Husain, 1987
The figure of the horse has been a cornerstone of Husain’s oeuvre since the early 1950s when he painted the animal for the first time. Husain encountered the animal throughout his life and travels across different continents and cultures. He acknowledges the influence of Tang pottery horses and the paintings of galloping horses by Xu Beihong, whom he studied on an early trip to China, as well as the equestrian sculptures of the Italian artist Marino Marini, which he discovered during his travels across Europe. The form of the horse also resonated with Husain's admiration for Ancient Greece, a civilization that championed and deified the animal for its strength and speed. The Trojan Horse, Pegasus and Alexander's prized Bucephalus are only a few iconic stallions that permeate the mythological and historical past of hallowed antiquity. As a filmmaker, it is also likely that Husain was inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s iconic short film, The Horse in Motion, the first successful series of stop-motion photographs capturing continuous movement.
Closer to home were Husain’s enduring memories of experiencing Muharram as a young boy. During this festival, men would carry tazias, or replicas of Imam Hussain’s tomb, with figures of his faithful horse Duldul in a procession through the streets. Husain’s “earliest memories of artistic participation were with the making of the tazias in Indore where twenty foot high effigies of horses were carried in procession during the final day of Muharram, as symbols of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain the grandson of the Prophet. These gigantic horses signified all the valour of the warrior for the young boy and they emerged in some of his earliest paintings as animated, powerful animals” (Y. Dalmia, ‘M.F. Husain: Reinventing India’, Early Masterpieces: 1950s-70s, London, 2006, unpaginated).
Husain captures the essence of motion and the sheer intensity, power, elegance and energy of the horse in his paintings like the present lot. Rejecting stillness in his work, Husain saw still life painting as “inert” and noted that “the French call it la vie morte” which translates to “the dead life” (Artist statement, K. Mohamed, M.F. Husain, Where Art Thou, Mumbai, 2002, p. xiv). It is not surprising then that the artist’s horses are always depicted as full of life and action. Here, three horses explode from a verdant green background with their heads reared, nostrils flared and mouths open. A bold red line beneath them only adds to the power of their motion, as if their hooves, invisible mid gallop, are turning the ground into hot embers. The sounds of these hooves beating the ground and their horses’ loud neighing are almost audible to the viewer, just like the cloud of dust raised by their movement can almost be felt. While two of the horses race forwards, the third turns back, perhaps making sure they are leaving nothing behind.
“Husain's painted horses do not just bear majestic stateliness and striking beauty but also come alive in every mood, situation and form. Their forceful movement conveys so much that it carries us away with it” (R. Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi, 2001, p. 112).