Footnotes

Provenance:
Private Collection, Dubai;
Saffron Art, Summer Auction 2008, 18-19 June 2008, Lot 118.

Beginning around 1948 the female subject matter began to dominate Husain's painting. However, the artist's chosen manner of representation contrasts with traditional depictions of the female in both the east and the west. The featured work is neither realistic nor idealistic. Husain had travelled to Europe in 1952, several years prior to the execution of this painting, and was inspired by the works of Emile Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. The spiritual intensity and vitality of these artists' use of colour and the sculptural power of the line, seen particularly in Nolde's work, had a clear impact on Husain's aesthetic. Upon his return the artist stated: "Line is virile form with keen latent mobility, which in spite of being imperceptible in nature, is constantly striving to assert itself." (To Badrivishal Pittie, The First Indian Collector of Husain Paintings (1952-68) Replica of the First Husain Book Published, Hyderabad, 1955)

In the present lot, Husain reminisces his visits to Kerala and the local dance traditions of Kathakali (story-play). The masked figure and nude female bask in the shade of a banana tree. Husain focusses again on Kerala with a devoted series of paintings in the 1990s. Husain uses the female form to denote movement and poise characteristic of traditional dance.

Husain once said 'When I make nude paintings of women you will find that there is no nakedness in this nudity.' This present lot, although bare breasted, is distinctly devoid of eroticism. It is a pureness of being that Husain has captured, the nudity a way to strip the figure down to her most vulnerable.
'Strong angular lines and flatly applied patches of colour are the instrument of the female form. Woman is seen either as a creation of lyric poetry, a sculpturesque and rhythmic figure of dance, or as an agent of fecundity.' (D. Herwitz, Husain, Delhi, 1988, p.46)

"The central concern of Husain's art, and its dominant motif, is woman [...]. Man, in Husain's view, is dynamic only in heroism.... Spiritually, woman is more enduring. Pain comes naturally to her, as do compassion and a sense of birth and death of things. In Husain's work, woman has the gift of eagerness [...] and an inward attentiveness, as if she were listening to the life coursing within her." (R. Bartholomew and S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1971, p. 46)