MF Husain interviewed about recent art work by Duke University Professor Bruce Lawrence

Indian Artist Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011)

Maqbool Fida Husain, “Ha-Meem-Ain-Seen-Qaf.”
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar. 2007.

I thank Professor Bruce Lawrence for giving me the permission to reproduce this important interview on “Dwellings of Thought.”

Questions from Bruce B. Lawrence posed to M.F. Husain by Deena Chalabi, Exhibitions Coordinator, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar. 10 March 2009.

Bruce Lawrence: I would welcome any thoughts M.F. Husain can share on this series, e.g., comparing it to the series of 88 he did back in 2003 on the occasion of his 88th birthday.

MF Husain: I came here in May 2007 and met [Her Highness] Sheikha Mozah– such a great opportunity she offered. I just jumped. I’ll devote myself, I thought. My idea of the 99 paintings and the 99 names… I’m not painting based on those names, just taking the figure, the idea of the number, to make a series on Islamic civilization. [Her Highness] Sheikha Mozah’s idea was not just to do something about Islamic culture and civilization, but that it should be Arab and Islamic culture.  I wanted to show the relationship between Christianity and Islam, for example,…and included [Her Highness] Sheikha Mozah herself… The power of the woman again. That was a key painting [i.e. “Cross Culture Dialogue”]. When I get into a theme, I like to work on it for ten years. [The paintings] are not in chronological order. I don’t know myself what it will be. It is a painter’s vision of an era. I am a keen student of Islamic culture. I am interested in the philosophy of Islam. I am planning to go to Yemen, and Egypt, and Syria. I want to see the culture in the present day, and how it is connected to the old stories. I have learned so much, and the door is open. I have spent time at the Heritage Library—such a rich collection. I go to browse there. I meet Arab scholars.

In modern painting, you can disguise anything—visual language is a universal language. What I am trying to do is to show the glory of the past…The last 2-3 centuries have been lost. There are so many reasons why—political, cultural and so on. When I first went to Europe in the 1950s, anything Turkish was considered retrograde. It used to hurt me, as any sensible person. But in the last fifty years there has been a renaissance of Arab culture. If the economy, people will listen to your message.

There is no power like the power of money, but money comes and goes. What remains is culture. This is what I like about [Her Highness] Sheikha Mosa’s vision—she understands that culture has to grow. She wants to bring in elements and cultivate them. This is a very significant role…

As I watched Obama being elected, the drama, the history being created, I listened as everyone talked about how it took 200 years to put a black man in the White House. I thought, but 1500 years ago, Mohammed chose a black man as his first muezzin. The next morning I painted this. [M.F. Husain gestures towards a new, unfinished work depicting Bilal ibn Ribah] [This series] is a reflection of our time—not only what has happened but also how that relates to now.

Bruce Lawrence: Other than calligraphy and Arabic scenes (plus the omnipresent camel), is there anything distinctly Islamic about the series of 99 acrylic paintings he is doing for the Qatar Museum of Modern Arab Art?

MF Husain: All of them are Islamic, but not because of particular elements. You can’t pinpoint in form or in colour an Islamic work, unless you show a minaret or a dome but that is too literal. For the last thirty or forty years, I was working on Indian civilization, and that is full of images, and hundreds of gods and goddesses.

Here, with Islam, the 99 names are the forces, the energies. In the Hindu mythology, fire becomes a god who is then worshipped—the image is important. They wanted ignorant people to follow them, so they created images. Islam came along and it was highly intellectual, very abstract. Here it is [inner] vision that is important. They say that for perfect art, you have to be telling a lie. What you see is an illusion. Reality is beyond that. The first pure Islamic painting to me is the Battle of Badr. I showed through the horses a black road behind, because the prophet always wore black.

Bruce Lawrence: When he is recursive, returning to the same theme of an earlier painting in these later paintings, does he have a new vision that inspires him, or is he recollecting some element that was always there and just now is finding expression in his ever fresh brush?

MF Husain: “The Last Supper”—I did it twenty years back, and wanted again to look at betrayal. I wanted to express that in the context of this project. I said to [Her Highness] Sheikha Mozah that I thought it might create controversy. She said, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. This isn’t India.” I called him Aristotle, kept it ambiguous, to tease their imaginations.

In modern painting, you can disguise anything—visual language is a universal language. What I am trying to do is to show the glory of the past…[in general] You revolve, and evolve. The application of paint is different, technically it’s different. Islam is a highly intellectual religion, much harder to represent visually… here I’m using here a great deal of strength of colour, for example.

Bruce Lawrence: Any reflection or speculation on his current religious disposition?

MF Husain: When I was young (five, six, seven), my family wanted me to become a (Muslim priest or) imam. I learned so much that I could lead prayer. But at one stage it became meaningless to me. I studied the cosmos, spiritual reality, and when I was 23 or 25 I met a very learned man who used to teach me. I was already painting in between, and he told me, you should devote your life to this. The religious life is not your path. So instead of a priest I became a painter. In my own small way, I’m still leading. That fire was there, right from the beginning.

[My disposition now] is not dogmatic at all. I am not a fundamentalist. [Laughter] There are different faiths. The personal faith is within you here [points to his chest], but you have to respect everyone’s faith. You’re not a preacher, or a reformer, or a teacher or a thinker. As a painter you just work with the visual, which becomes universal. Islam is universal.

Bruce Lawrence: How does he feel about this painting—“Last Supper in Red Desert”—being singled out for an opening talk at the Duke conference, probing and praising the vast output of his singular lifetime? Is it a bit of luck or just hidden providence that has made this painting available at Duke for a talk to be given on Thursday 9 April 2009, which also happens to be the occasion for the Jewish Passover/Last Supper in this year’s Gregorian calendar?!

MF Husain: I am very much honoured, and elated that I’ve been chosen for this conference. [Smiles] I think I deserve it. I have worked very hard, and I am still on my toes. I have all this energy. For the first twenty years, after I moved from a small town to Mumbai, when I was sleeping on footpaths, I never regretted what I was doing. My concentration and focus never failed. That is the test.

Source: This interview can be found as the appendix to Professor Bruce B. Lawrence’s concluding chapter in Barefoot Across the Nation: M.F. Husain and the Idea of India, ed. Sumathi Ramaswamy (New Delhi: Routledge, 2010).