Maqbool Fida Husain

The Burning Desert is executed with Maqbool Fida Husain’s signature expressive and dynamic style but is set apart from other works in his œuvre by its subject and unique colouring.

The present work is testament to the significance of the early 1960s in Husain’s artistic production, when the artist was pushing the boundaries of modernism to new heights. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Husain took several trips to the princely state and the present work is a representation of this environment. In this painting, camels replace Husain’s typical equine depictions. These camels are portrayed in the same visual idiom as Husain’s horses, capturing the humility and unpretentiousness with which the artist approached his subjects.

Here, Husain has enhanced the earthy tones he often uses in his work with bright oranges and yellows, representative of a hot and unforgiving desert landscape. Known to finish a work in one sitting, Husain's lines were drawn directly with a paintbrush making no room for error once applied. This painting serves as an example of his masterful technique and the confidence with which he applied his brushstrokes. Husain's skillful use of impasto, make his subjects appear to have been carved rather than painted.

‘Husain wields a quick nervous line of great sensitiveness and energy. It is a versatile line, capable of both power and poetry. It divides his forms in firm definition, broods amongst his grouped figures… or threads sharply across his compositions like a scalpel, separating one figure, one face from the other in subtly differentiated tones of colour, as though he sculpted his figures from paint.’

(S. Kapur, Husain, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1961, p. iv)

The paint application here is both ferocious yet tender, and it is in striking contrasts like this that the great power of Husain’s work lies. Indeed, the form and execution of the current lot is simultaneously traditional yet modern, angular yet sensuous, expressive yet delicate. Created with a sense of power and movement, this exposition of animalistic beauty and power features six camels, majestic and urgent, running across the desert, their elegant strides depicting movement with expertly applied lines.