Gaja Gamini Woman with Horses and Tabla by MF Husain

In this artwork, Husain brings together the symbols closest to his language: the woman, the horse, and the tabla. The female figure, painted in earthy tones and adorned with anklets, stretches across the surface as if she herself is the canvas. Her presence is both intimate and commanding, symbolising the pulse of creation.

Around her, white horses charge through the composition, their forms leaping across the frame. They stand as symbols of energy, freedom, and eternal spirit. The tabla, placed within the unfolding scene, binds rhythm to motion, showing how sound, movement, and body are inseparable.

The composition resists boundaries, letting figures and symbols overlap and collide. This visual language speaks of Husain’s belief that art is not confined to tradition or modernity but flows between them, breaking walls to create new ways of seeing.

The watercolour softness adds depth and value to the subject, turning movement into memory and rhythm into presence.

Husain here paints not only the woman as muse but also as the rhythm, the form, and the continuity of life itself.