Untitled 1998

M.F. Husain created this watercolor on paper, and it feels like an echo of something seen, felt, or dreamed. Look how the brush lays down these broad washes of color – dusky blues, yellows, and browns – they bleed into each other, creating soft, hazy boundaries. I imagine Husain in the act of painting, almost as if he were meditating. The colors seem to emerge from a place deep within him. He might have been thinking about the landscape, or maybe something more abstract, like a memory or emotion. There is a looseness in his application, a fluidity that makes the image feel alive. This reminds me of the work of other painters, too, those who let the paint guide them, allowing the unexpected to occur, like Helen Frankenthaler or Pat Steir. It’s like they are all in conversation with each other, across time and space. What do we see? Sky? Earth? Water? Like Husain, we can embrace this ambiguity. Painting is about possibility, a way to explore the world without having all the answers.