He needed only a few brushstrokes to show the force of an angry horse turning back to look ferociously at his tormentor who isn’t visible to us. And the work is in monochrome — black on white. On the large canvas, all you can see is the semi-cubist form of the back hump, a portion of the bushy tail and bare teeth: and yet you intensely feel the helpless violent anger of the horse.
No other artist can capture the power of a horse the way Maqbool Fida Hussain did on canvas — his modernist works portray not just the silent power of these gentle animals but also their rage and their grace. The horse has famously been his favourite muse. The ‘horses of Hussain’ are found expressing various emotions — gentle, ferocious, happy, galloping, standing still or just looking at us unblinkingly! And from whichever angle one sees these horses, one can feel their silent but eloquent emotions.
And this present large canvas, 30 ft by 12 ft painted in 2000 on white fabric, formed the majestic background prop at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival (Mumbai) for the performance of another giant of an artist tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain in 2001. It was a first-anniversary tribute concert for his late father the doyen Ustad Allah Rakha. The Kala Ghoda Art Festival, started in 1999, is one of the most iconic art festivals held every February in Mumbai.
Now for the first time, this iconic painting is on public display at the DAG art gallery in Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai. In fact, this is the first solo exhibition of the maverick artist in Mumbai after his demise.
Hussain, who mostly worked in a modified cubist style, is well known all over the world for bold subjects, and the use of bright jewel colours to make strong statements on his canvas.
Born and brought up in the holy city of Pandharpur in Maharashtra, known as the abode of Lord Vitthal, Hussain produced some 40,000 works of art in the eight decades of his life as an artist. The Padma Bhushan awardee is perhaps one of the best-known artists from India, representing modified cubism and modernism.
His subjects varied according to the events unfolding on the socio-political platform of the country. But his one constant subject was the horse. He did paint elephants as well as he always said the most graceful walk was that of an elephant, a walk that fascinated him enough to make a movie titled ‘Gaja Gamini’ (a woman with an elephant gait). The movie, a tribute to womanhood, featured a graceful Madhuri Dixit in the title role.
Another curious painting is an untitled work showing a baby elephant. The artist was influenced by the story of a dream of Buddha’s mother Queen Maya.
It is believed she dreamt of an elephant entering her womb from her right side which the royal court astrologers predicted was a good sign and declared that the yet-to-be-born child would become either a king of the world or an enlightened being.
The oil painting on canvas (dated 1964) in the hues of yellow and brown shows a woman sitting with a small baby elephant, both encircled in a bubble on her right side near her torso.
Another animal that fascinated the artist was the tiger. He always compared the strength of a tiger to the power of a woman. Many of his works had the tiger as his muse and each of them had a woman either tackling it, riding it or taming it.
The one in this exhibition shows two faces of a single tiger to demonstrate its rapid movements. A powerful woman holding a weapon is astride the tiger, and is seen crushing another animal and its rider.
Apart from animals, famous personalities (Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi and others) and deities of gods and goddesses, he also loved to paint musicians playing different instruments.
His subjects might have been varied but he always ensured they were portrayed in his distinctive signature style.
Also on display is a stunning untitled work of a Vaishnav playing the sarod. The large U-shaped tilak on his forehead shows that he is a Vaishnav and he is completely immersed in playing the sarod with his head tilted to one side. The musician appears not to care about the world, and is as lost as Hussain perhaps was, when immersed in his art.
The show is on till February 20, 2023, at the DAG gallery, Mumbai.