MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)

"The modernist painter did not suffer from the anxiety of influence [...] He was free to choose his roots from among cultures and traditions that were considered alien. What was borrowed was modified. Without any definite break with tradition, modernism in India produced its own tradition [...] it was made by individuals who had in their work an unmistakable sense of Indian present [...] Husain's is the most authentic Indian variety of modernism." - K.B. Goel

The present work relates to the subject of bathers popular among European Modernists. However, in making this subject his own, Husain's greater emphasis is on classical Indian sculpture. Discussing the classical stance of tribhanga (three bends) in temple sculpture, Husain notes that "in the East the human form is an entirely different structure [...] the way a woman walks in the village there are three breaks [...] from the feet, the hips and the shoulder [...] they move in rhythm, the walk of a European is erect and archaic." (P. Nandy, The Illustrated Weekly of India, December 4 - 10, 1983)