Cage Six

Cage Six belongs to an important series of paintings done by Husain in the 1970's. They are a commentary on the human condition, focusing on the fate of women in India. He conveys these issues through a unique visual vocabulary and spatial manipulation of the canvas. The figures of the women encroach upon one another, their harshly disjointed bodies juxtaposed on the picture plane. The effect created is of a crowded space, with no room for escape, both literally and metaphorically. As Daniel Herwitz says, "Call this a meditation on the inescapable fate of women in India, and call Husain's eye for it the eye of a man who is moved to the point of muteness by the presence of fate in the world." (Daniel Herwitz, Indian Identity and Contemporary Indian Art, New York, 1985, p. 26.)