Living Goddess 1960

M.F. Husain made this painting, Living Goddess, with an intuitive feel for colour, and an approach to mark making that feels spontaneous. Husain uses a limited palette of earthy yellows, browns, and greens, setting up a pictorial space of shallow depth. The paint application is quite thin, almost translucent in areas, and it’s hard to tell what kind of brushes he used. The figures are loosely defined, with white outlines adding a sense of ethereality. Take a look at the elephant-like figure. It appears like a dream or a vision, composed of broken and fragmented lines. This reminds me a bit of Picasso, who similarly explored the deconstruction of form, though Husain’s work feels more gestural, and less analytical. His work really invites us to embrace ambiguity, to question the very nature of representation and perception.