Lady with a Sitar

From the end of the 1950's to the late 1960's, Husain painted a series of works related to classical Indian music and dance. These were not representational paintings of dancers and musicians. They explore the artist's interest in rendering sculptural figures into flat paint. Husain models the human form in distinctly Indian postures borrowed from Indian classical sculpture. Certain gestures of the hand and arm convey definite meanings in traditional Indian art and Husain often alludes to these mudras in his paintings.