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拍品專文
“[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 colors. 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 decades, Maqbool Fida Husain championed Indian cultural traditions in his artistic practice in an effort to capture and express his fascination with rasa, the concept of aesthetic rapture. The interdisciplinary connections between music, sculpture, dance, painting and film across cultures provided enormous inspiration to the artist. In the present lot, Husain captures this elusive sensation by depicting street musicians – sitar players, drummers and singers seated in two groups, intermingled with revelers, all set against an emerald green background. A bowl sits in the foreground, possibly to collect offerings from an appreciative audience, but also an allusion to religious rituals on which Husain often focused.
Musicians were a popular theme for Husain in the 1960s, and he often related their figures to particular rites and ceremonies. The artist would frequently refer to the mehendi or henna ceremony, for example, where the bride is wished health and prosperity by the women in her family on the night before her wedding celebration. The brilliant white figure in the background of this painting, like all Husain’s portraits in the composition, appears anonymous and does not have distinctive facial features. Although men and women appear faceless in the present work, the latter was a more recurrent theme. Attributed by Husain to the fact that he was unable to remember the features of his mother, Zainab, who died when he was less than two years old, his “women are always enshrouded in an invisible veil, the simplicity of their form countered by their inaccessibility” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 111).
In Street Musicians, Husain playfully and indirectly alludes to multiple fundamental tropes in his practice. The sitar player, the drummer, the veiled woman, the bare breasted woman and the faceless statuesque male form are all interwoven in this relief-like composition. The viewer is left to construct their own narrative using these iconic protagonists. What makes this composition so unique is its exquisite emerald background, flattened to create an almost screen-like effect, leaving viewers with the impression of a stage despite being a street scene, and bringing the music they cannot hear to life in the form of color, as if they are seeing the painting through a synesthetic lens. An important, largescale painting, Street Musicians is one of the finest examples of Husain’s depiction of music and musicians in his art, which would remain a fascination for him over the course of his career.
“Husain views each painting as a fragment of music whose counterpoint exists elsewhere, and his entire painterly activity as one immense effort at orchestration of all the notes that he hears struck upon his personality. No painting is intended as a complete statement. In a continuing inquiry into the nature of being, every one of his wide array of works, joyous or grave, leaves the viewer with an intimation of other possibilities” (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 60).
Throughout his artistic career, which extended over eight decades, Maqbool Fida Husain championed Indian cultural traditions in his artistic practice in an effort to capture and express his fascination with rasa, the concept of aesthetic rapture. The interdisciplinary connections between music, sculpture, dance, painting and film across cultures provided enormous inspiration to the artist. In the present lot, Husain captures this elusive sensation by depicting street musicians – sitar players, drummers and singers seated in two groups, intermingled with revelers, all set against an emerald green background. A bowl sits in the foreground, possibly to collect offerings from an appreciative audience, but also an allusion to religious rituals on which Husain often focused.
Musicians were a popular theme for Husain in the 1960s, and he often related their figures to particular rites and ceremonies. The artist would frequently refer to the mehendi or henna ceremony, for example, where the bride is wished health and prosperity by the women in her family on the night before her wedding celebration. The brilliant white figure in the background of this painting, like all Husain’s portraits in the composition, appears anonymous and does not have distinctive facial features. Although men and women appear faceless in the present work, the latter was a more recurrent theme. Attributed by Husain to the fact that he was unable to remember the features of his mother, Zainab, who died when he was less than two years old, his “women are always enshrouded in an invisible veil, the simplicity of their form countered by their inaccessibility” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 111).
In Street Musicians, Husain playfully and indirectly alludes to multiple fundamental tropes in his practice. The sitar player, the drummer, the veiled woman, the bare breasted woman and the faceless statuesque male form are all interwoven in this relief-like composition. The viewer is left to construct their own narrative using these iconic protagonists. What makes this composition so unique is its exquisite emerald background, flattened to create an almost screen-like effect, leaving viewers with the impression of a stage despite being a street scene, and bringing the music they cannot hear to life in the form of color, as if they are seeing the painting through a synesthetic lens. An important, largescale painting, Street Musicians is one of the finest examples of Husain’s depiction of music and musicians in his art, which would remain a fascination for him over the course of his career.
“Husain views each painting as a fragment of music whose counterpoint exists elsewhere, and his entire painterly activity as one immense effort at orchestration of all the notes that he hears struck upon his personality. No painting is intended as a complete statement. In a continuing inquiry into the nature of being, every one of his wide array of works, joyous or grave, leaves the viewer with an intimation of other possibilities” (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, p. 60).