Kerala IV Thekkady by MF Husain

In this work, Husain captures the lush landscape of Thekkady, Kerala’s famed forest and elephant reserve. Elephants march across the work while a lone boatman rows gently below, human and animals sharing one landscape.

The scene is built with blocks of primary colour: reds blaze, yellows glow, blues expand like river and sky, while greens root the composition in forest depth. Lines stay bold, binding each form into clarity. Husain writes “Thekkady” in Malayalam, rooting the painting in place, so that language itself becomes part of the land.

Thekkady is shown not as a documentary but as a modernist landscape of colour. To a Western eye, the flat planes recall Matisse or Léger, yet the subject remains purely Indian, elephants, river, forest, life together. Husain bridges worlds: modern art language, Indian content.

The work becomes both map and myth, a salute to Kerala’s ecology and its place in India’s imagination.