March 21, 2008 Husain's
'Mahabharata' Record
Irony for India By Uma Nair
M.F. Husain's epic work "Mahabharata: The Battle of Ganga and Jamuna"
fetching a world record of $1.6 million at the Christie's sale is
the best example of situational irony in a nation that has virtually
exiled its finest living artist. The world record can perhaps
silence hardline Hindu groups.
Particularly in the backdrop of the auction world, an art boom in
which an artist's inspiration has more to do with bankability rather
than art, this work, painted in 1971-72, dealing with the cosmic
civil war between right and wrong, highlights the importance of
morality at its very core.
Using gods and goddesses from Hindu mythology was something Husain,
who now lives in Dubai, began doing decades ago. It had nothing to
do with the prejudice of religion; nothing to do with a Muslim
artist exploiting Hindu symbolism - it had everything to do with the
universality of Hinduism's symbol and structure.
The overall impression that one gets while seeing this work is one
of fluency - of an artist in comfortable command of certain
prevalent ideas of the moment.
Foremost among these ideas is the conviction that artists should
cross-fertilise their work; they should mix and match elements of
high and low culture, juggle historical periods, and combine
different forms, genres and technologies.
Unlike many artists today, Husain's lens is wide-angle and robust;
he has always relished a vintage vitality.
For example, his gods and goddesses (of various ethnicities) live in
poses that evoke many sources, from the Upanishads to the Gita and
the Mahabharata. He also makes symbols that can stretch the
perspective of a familiar story - but transforms it to a daily-lived
reality so that it resembles a work of high-modern abstraction.
Never has he been a derivative landscape artist. Husain's
"landscape" is not mountains, valleys and towns but the connection
between history, civilisation and religion, devoid of decorative
additions.
Those who decry his images are only reflecting a disgusting and
outrageous ignorance. In search of confrontational gender-bending
and disturbing explorations of sexual nuances in the figure of Sita,
the global furious political attacks on his works are a shame to the
ideology of Hinduism, which is more a way of life rather than a
single symbol.
Sadder still is the power structure of India, which presents arcane
meditations on the analysis of right and wrong. Not allowing Husain
to come back to the land of his birth and muse reflects the general
lowering of art's temperature by the vandals of propaganda.
Sometimes art holds up a mirror to the fashionable subjects,
approaches, and crass attitudes of its day. Attaining $.1.6 million
for Husain's "Mahabharata" is an example of the persistence of irony
in the face of political vandalism.
In an age of Internet art, where you can create anything with
mouse-play, Husain's early works like the "Mahabharata" stand alone,
only to reaffirm the brilliance of Husain as India's patriarch of
the palette.
"A work of art must live beyond its age; it must never go out of
fashion," Husain had said two decades ago. "Battle of Ganga and
Jamuna" lives up to that testimony.
It also tells the world about waking up to the phenomenon of Maqbool
Fida Husain. Kudos to Christie's for artistic courage! Time perhaps
for the Indian government to quell the super-villains in command.
(Uma Nair is an art critic and an English teacher at Don Bosco
School, Delhi. She can be contacted at umatnair@gmail.com)
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