Kerala III Arrival of Monsoon by MF Husain

The sky is filled with elephants. Husain paints the monsoon with pachyderms thundering like storm clouds across. Their trunks rise like arcs of rain, their bodies push forward like rivers in flood. Below, land and water wait to receive them.

Lines roll across the surface, black strokes binding animals and weather into one surge. The palette is alive: deep grey of storm, for land, earthy tones grounding water, all set against the symbolic elephant grey. At the curve of the work, Husain inscribes Malayalam script for “monsoon”, turning the local language into part of the rainfall’s rhythm.

The work shows Indian culture to the West in its most elemental way: nature as myth. For Husain, the monsoon is not only weather but cosmic procession, a cycle of renewal understood by all, whether farmers in Kerala or viewers abroad.

This is rain as poetry, elephants as clouds, and Husain as storyteller of land and sky.