Woman and Horse

The juxtaposition of man and animal is a theme which Maqbool Fida Husain frequently returns. The artist seems particularly interested in the pairing of a woman and horse, typically in a dynamic and entwined composition. Husain's horses are proud, powerful and valiant often matching or even overpowering the human figures they are opposite. In this work, the woman and the stallion occupy equal portions of the canvas mirroring each other in both their psychological states and their physical positions. Echoes of Oskar Kokoschka and Emile Nolde appear in Woman and Horse which follows in the vein of German Expressionism with its preference for spiritual and emotional subject matter over the more traditional naturalism. Husain's use of vibrant colors, strong emotive lines and gestural brushstrokes in place of a more controlled and realistic canvas also reflects Symbolistic and Expressionistic styles. While the continual pairing of woman and animal suggests much about the inseparable relationship between man and beast, Husain allows a large portion of its meaning to come simply from the proximity of the two forms. He says, "They have no extra-pictorial significance, as images. They may be symbolic if the particular relationship is effective - because two images when placed together act upon each other. The symbol then derives its life from the energy released." However, the vibrant and powerful male presence of the horse, its long white mane and prominence in Husain's artwork, appear to give the horse more significance than simply that of an animal and begs the viewer to ask if the omnipresent figure of the horse in Husain's work serves as a symbol for the artist himself.