Maqbool Fida Husain
Cow + Lantern - Shoe =, circa 1967
Oil on canvas, in 6 parts
76.2 x 40.8 cm
30 x 16 in
30 x 16 in
Signed 'Husain' in two places
Elements of Husain’s iconic imagery date back to the late 1940s but would become key narrative devices in his 1967 black and white film Through the Eyes of a Painter,...
Elements of Husain’s iconic imagery date back to the late 1940s but would become key narrative devices in his 1967 black and white film Through the Eyes of a Painter, which sees the viewer taken on a journey through Rajasthan, with a soundtrack by Vijay Raghav Rao.
In an interview with Richard Bartholomew, Husain was asked whether these images and symbols had any special significance, to which he replied; “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.”
The equation; ‘Cow Umbrella + Lantern - Shoe = Man, Woman’, means the life of a man and a woman is formed by birth, shelter, search and travel.
In an interview with Richard Bartholomew, Husain was asked whether these images and symbols had any special significance, to which he replied; “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.”
The equation; ‘Cow Umbrella + Lantern - Shoe = Man, Woman’, means the life of a man and a woman is formed by birth, shelter, search and travel.
