Alamgir
Alamgir
is indisputably the pioneer of Pakistan's popular
music. He marked his entry on television with
his famous Spanish tune Albela Rahi. Hailing
from Dhaka, he landed in Karachi at a time when
the city's entertainment centres were full of
life and colour. |
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He began by singing at Hill Park for the sake of a
few bucks. The story took a major turn when Sohail
Rana discovered his genius and offered to work with
him. Alamgir's talent significantly helped the composer
creat the all time hit, Jiway Jiway, Pakistan. He
started by singing westren tunes. However, Alamgir
established his genius and versatility by composing
and vocalising diversified folk tunes and semiclassical
styles. He first composed a number for the early 70s
TV programme, Dam Dam Dee Dee. His work such as, Ye
Sham Aur Tera Naam, Badal Bhi Aur Pani Bhi, Koi Bhi
Rang Ho Tera, Iss Ko Naam Junoon Kaa Dedo, Paas Aakar
Koi, Khayal Rakhna, Ja Ja Jani, Tum Meri Ankhain Ho,
Sham Say Pehlay and countless other numbers are still
hummed by the lowers of popular music.
Aslam Azhar
| I
don't Know anything about televisition, Aslam
Azhar told the Japanese who interviwed him. "neither
does any other Pakistani" came the respones.
And so the freelance journalist, theatre and radio
worker in Karachi began his memorable career in
Pakistan Televisition, when it was set up with
Japanese help in 1964. |
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As
Programmes Director in Lahore, and the first Pakistani
in the set up, he is remembered for his encougragement
of new ideas and talent, integrity and idealism. He
was moved to Pindi in early 1967 to state the televisiyion
station there as its General Manager, and set up the
Karachi station within the year, again as JM. Appointed
Manager Director of the Corporation in 1972, he also
started the Quetta and Pesharwar stations. Having
headed and nursed PTV not only through its teething
period but also probably its most creative period,
he had differences with an increasingly dictatorial
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and was neraly sacked for speaking
against ZAB's information policies at a cabinet meeting.
shortly afterwardes, he offered to resign and was
placed as head of a proposed Academy for film, televisition
and theater, being set up under the Ministry of Culture.
The venture was cut short by Gen. Ziaul Haq, who sacked
Azhar and effectively, the academy, at one go, in
1977. Appointed Chairman PTV and PBC by Benazir Bhutto
after she was elected prime minister in 1988, Azhar
resigned a year and a half later, again after differences
with the information policy. But the history of Pakistan
Television will never be recounted without a mention
of the man who was virtually its founding father.
Hamid Nizami
Hamid Nizami and his Nawai Waqt are two outstanding
names from the Pakistan Movement. Nawai waqt was first
taken out on March 29, 1940 as fortnightly, a week
after the passage of Pakistan Resolution in Lahore.
It was edited by Nizami, who was then a student at
Islamia College Lahore and his friend Shabbar hasan,
a medical student. The paper became a weekly after
two years in 1944, it became a daily and was offered
financial help by the Muslim League. Nizami declined,
but assured the League of his full support. He remained
committed to League ideas and was extremly critical
of those who supported the imposition of the first
martial law in country by Ayub Khan. After the creation
of Pakistan, the readership of Nawai Waqtgrew, as
it came to be regarded as a paper which gave voice
to right-wing views. It is one of the three largest
newspaper concerns in Pakistan.
Kamal Ahmad Rizvi
Rizvi, known for his wicked wit and biting humour
that spares none, has penned dozens of translations
and adaptations of stage and television plays as well
as original writing. In the 1950s besides doing translations
and original work for Urdu newspapers like the now
defunct Ehsas and Imroze, he also wrote extensively
for Sibte Hassan's Lail-o-Nehar, the famous socio-political
and literary weekly. In the early days, penniless
and armed with little but his intellect and pen, he
started out doing work for children, editing children's
magazines like the monthly Tehzeeb and Phulwari, as
well as Ferozensons taleem-o-Tarbiat (still published).
One of the theatre pioneers of Pakistan, an exacting
actor-director and writer, Rizvi has also acted in
and directed several of his own productions.
Khawaja Mueenuddin
The little theatre that took place in the areas that
became Pakistan was by touring companies that travelled
all over from their bases in bombay and calcutta.
Khawaja mueenuddin realising that there was a void
started to write plays and also stage them for the
large section of the population in karachi. His plays
were mostly satires revolving round the theme of migration
of population and the wide gap that existed between
reality and the self professed slogans of the leaders
of the community. His Taleeme Balighan, Mirza Ghalib
Bunder Road Per and Lal Qile se Laloo Kheet tak were
staged in public auditorium and were applauded by
the cross section of the population besause the satire
was biting but never black enough to border on the
tragic. He set up the first repertory company and
most of the like Qazi Wajid, Subhani Ba Younis and
Muhammed Yousaf who made a contribution in redio,
stage and television started their career from his
repertory. He showed others that it was possible to
do theatre in an environment that was not congenial
for such activity. It was later that theatre picked
up in Lahore and the inspiration came from none other
than Khawaja Mueenuddin
Khurshid
Anwar
Khurshid
Anwer started his career as a music composer
from the All India Radio but was soon absorbed
by an ever growing film industry of Bombay.
He composed music from the forties onwards in
many films for such popular singres as K.L Sehgal. |
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After
independence he came into his own and composed some
of the most outstanding tunes for a number of filme,
some of which were also produced by him. His compositions
for Nur Jehan in particular, both for Urdu and Punjabi
films, have now become part of the classical repertoire
of film music. His compositions were also based on
the foundations of our classical music and though
deceptively simple were extremely difficult to sing.
He was also influenced by the folk music of Haryana
were the spent the formative tears of his life. He
tried to produce films which were relevant to the
situation here, thus giving the much needed depth
to the films. He devoted a great deal of his creative
energy in getting classical music sung by the most
prominent exponents with the view to classifying them
according to thaats, raags and gharaanas. Its final
shape known as Ahange khusravi is his lasting tribute
to the very great tradition of classical music of
the sub continent
Masood Pervez
Masood Pervez arrived in the subcontinent's cinema
as an actor at a wrong time, when Bombay's film industry
had fallen in the grip of communal frenzy of post-war
tears. Back in Lahore, his first attempt at film-making
ended in disaster. The setback was overwhelming. That
further softended his speech and made him more self-effacing
than before. But he remained a progressive at heart,
committed to the principle of collective group work.
An admirable collection of talent materialised in
the mid-fifties as film director Masood Pervez the
role of a balancing actor between an innocent producer
(Sultan Jilani) and a highly assertive cine-aesthete-composer
(Khurshed Anwar). The result was a production that
became a model of entertainment, one which brought
the discriminating moviegoers and the masses together
in its appreciation. It also presented the least controversial
blending of the demands of art and commerce in the
uncertain environment of Pakistan's cinema. For many
years his name alternative route to entertainment
open. At a time when Pakistan's cinema was under assault
from plagiarists and purveyors of vulgarity he kept
the high on for decency and the values of film technique.
He faced out as quietly as he had borne himself in
the noisy studios and sustained himself by exercises
in poetry -- purely for self-satisfaction -- including
a rhymed traslation of the Quranic verses in Punjabi
Mazar
Ali Khan
Mazar Ali Khan was among the pioneers of Pakistani
journalism. He joined The Pakistan Times as a young
man, when it strated publication in june 1947. In
1951, he became its editor. During his period, Times
described The Pakistan Times as the best edited newspaper
in Asia. Khan resigned when Progrssive Papers Ltd
was seized by the military regime of Ayub Khan in
1959. Some time later, he sreved briefly as the editor
of Down. In 1957 he launched his own weekly Viewpoint
from Lahore, which in his own words owed "allegiance
to no political party or to group, but to the basic
concept of a democratic polity." He kept his
promise and throughout its 17 years, viewpoint remained
a qua;ity opinion journal. Never one to overstate
a point or be a drawn into debate over personalities,
Khan's work set high standareds of journalism in Pakistan.
For those who believe in the value of issue-based
journalism and who want to take pride in their profession,
he continues to serve as a role model. His pen always
spoke powerfully to raise such issues, and to the
end he unheld the ideals he believed in, standing
tall in the histiry of Pakistan's journalism
Mehdi
Hassan
Mehdi
Hassan is undoubtedly one of the most renowned
ghazal singers in the world today. An artiste,
who has set such towering standards in the light
classical music, his career is used as a benchmark
along which many young artistes model their
own. |
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Mehdi Hassan never had a formal education. His education
was solely in the field of classical music that he
had been studying since the age of eight. Born in
a village called ‘Luna’ in Rajasthan (India),
Mehdi Hassan trained under his father Ustad Azeem
Khan and uncle Ustad Ismail Khan. He hails from a
family that produced fifteen generations of musicians
making him the ‘solva pusht’ (sixteenth
generation) of artists, with an ancestry that boasts
of ‘Darbari Ustads’ who were seasoned
performers in the courts of several Maharajahs of
Indore, Patna, Chhatarpur and Mysore.
Mehdi Hassan produced his first public performance
at the age of eight at the behest of the Maharaja
of Baroda. Since then he has had nearly 25,000 records
to his credit and has rendered nearly all forms of
vocalism including classical, thumri, film music and
of course the ghazal that he is most widely reputed
for.
As the classical forms became less popular, ghazal
gaiki gained in prestige in a culture that was more
hung on the importance of words than the abstraction
of the sur. Singers trained in the classical tradition
found it difficult to survive in the new environment.
A few highly trained singers who broke away from this
tradition of high classical, instead, chose ghazal
as their main forte of musical expression and the
most successful among them was Mehdi Hasan. Ghazal
was sought as a substitute for the from like kheyal
and thumri. One of the singers who brought the richness
and virtousity of thumri into the ghazal gaiki, thus
elevating its musical worth and retaining the sweetness
and romance that goes with this kind of singing in
Mehdi Hasan. As he is from Rajisthan he also brought
the colour of that area to enrich his style of singing.
This trend was started by Barkat Ali Khan and has
been strenghtened by Iqbal Bano. Freeda Khanum and
Mehdi Hasan has taken the ghazal to a totally new
level.
Mir
Khaliur Rahman
Mir
Khaliur Rahman took out the Jang Dehli in 1941
during the Second World War. From this humble
beginning was to evolve the largest newspaper
empire in Pakistan. What distinguished Mir Khaliure
Rahman from other newspaper owners was his emphasis
on reporting. |
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Something he had learnt in his early career in Dehli
as a reporter, news editor, editor and distributer
all rolled into one. Migrating to Pakistan at the
time of partition, Mir Khaliur Rahman re-estadlished
Jang in Karachi, started it in a rented building,
with a mearge Rs 5,000. Not only did he make Jang
the largest-selling Urdu paper in the country, he
expanded his enterprise by launching the English weekly
eveninger Daily News, Urdu weekly Akhbare Jehan and
English weekly Mag. The News, the English morning
newspaper launched by the Jang Group, was one year
old at the time of Mir Khaliur Rahman's death in 1992.
He was never shy of experimenting, and the first to
introduce new technology. Qualities which made him
a trendsetter in Pakistan journalism.
Naheed
Siddiqui
She
may be Pakistan's only Pride of Performance
holder (1994) who is banned from showing her
art on Pakistan Television. No wonder Naheed
Siddiqui depicts herself as an isolated figure
in her latest choreographed piece titled 'My
Motherland?', which premiered in England this
summer. |
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The final part of the dance shows her straining to
hear music, opening doors and finding them slammed
shut in her face, becomeing entengled in a voluminous
black shroud that eventully trails like an ominous
shadow behind her as she walks away when the piece
ends. She initially left the country in 1979 after
being unable to practice her art here -- her Kathak
programme on Television, Payal, was banned by the
Zia regime after only five out of thirteen episodes
had been aired. In the UK, she has been able to build
up a formidable reputation for herself as a danser,
and has been showered with awards like the prestigious
Time Out (1990) and the Dance Umbrella (1991). Yet
she has stubbornly persisted in tyring to build up
interest and awareness about dance here, risking private
performances even in the years when dance was strictly
banned. She started her own company in 1990, and frequently
gives performances in other countries. Her real interest,
however, lies in Oakistan, and teaching dance at the
French Cultural Centre in Lahore. Siddiqui wants to
creat an awareness of "our real culture and heritage"
with its harmony and peace, as opposed to the valgarity
and gun violence that have become popular culture.
Unassuming and passionately committed, her increasing
expertise and international fame has only made her
more determined to hold her ground in the motherland
where her own standing as an artist and as a woman
are questionable
Nazia
Hassan & Zoheb Hassan
In
1981, pakistan's clandestine video rental network
was hit by Feroz Khan's Qurbani, made famous
by a modernistis blend of Euro-Westren and South
Asian style Aap Jesaa Koi. While this number
set new records of popularity, just a few here
knew that the voice behind belonged to Nazia
Hasan, a fellow Pakistani. The songs was composed
by Biddu. |
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As
Biddu continued to make music for them, their album
'Disco Dewanay' hit Pakistani music market with a
bang. Their songs were popular not only in Pakistan
but also in other parts of the worlds. Entirely based
on electronic orchestration and effects, the composer
employed Western chord patterns and beat to blend
with local melody. Variation from lowest to highest
vocal tones, interminable moderate beat, synthesized
chords, counters and effects were essential parts
of their numbers. And this was the fasion which the
composer applied in most popular songs such as, Aik
Do, Aay Dil Meray Chalray, Disco Diwanay, Laikin Mera
Dil, Ye Dil Tere Liyay Hai and others. Soon Zohab
began to compose. With Zara Chehra, he proved himself
to be a complete musician, though, the composition
techniques in Khoobsoorat Ho Andaar Say, Pesa Bara
Yaa Piyar and Zara Chahra were not diffrerent from
the style set by Biddu. The brother and sister duo
rarely sang for other composers. In Pakistan, Nazia
sang Khabi Khabi in Javed Allahditta's and Komal komal
in Arshad Mehmud's compositions, with lyrics by Anwer
Maqsood and great Indian musician Laxmikant Piyaraylal
(LP) selected them for a duet.
Sheema
Kermani
For
Sheema Kermani, dance is a passion as well as
a social cause. She teaches dancing and also
acts for the stage and television. She combines
this with activism which includes mobile theatre
in poor localities of the city. Pakistan’s
leading dancer with a social cause, Sheema Kermani
talks to Asif Farrukhi at her home in Karachi
as the cool evening sea-breeze brings relief
after a humid day, and the darkening city prepares
itself for yet another strike the next day.
|
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We were living in small towns, there was nobody who
could teach us and I never saw a dance performance.
When we shifted to Karachi, I was about 13 or 14 and
really plump. My mother took me to Ghanshyam’s.
That’s where I had my first exposure to dance.
I started dancing and I enjoyed it but I never took
it seriously. During my childhood my parents did a
lot to encourage art, music and creativity. We used
to do small plays for birthdays with a present for
the best play." She recalls that the house was
filled with the music of Beethoven and Bach. "From
the age of seven, I learnt the piano and for 10 years
I studied Western classical music, passing the exams
from the Royal Academy of Music and when I became
more conscious, I thought that I should learn Eastern
classical music." She trained with Ghanshyam’s
Dance Troupe in Karachi and later graduated from Croydon
College of Art in London.
Nur
Jehan
| When
the silent films were upgraded into talkies singing
became an essential ingrediet of the emerging
medium in the subcontinental cinema. The voice
that was to give it a definite form was Nur Jehan
in the late thirties. In the next few years leading
up to independence sge had firmly established
singing in the films as a popular and authentic
form. |
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She
also played the leading roles in films as there was
no focility of playback recording but her stature
as a singer always overshadowed her role as an actress
and it was not surprising that she left one for the
other in her later age. She migrated to Pakistan from
Bombay when at the height of her career and helped
in building the film industry from a scratch in her
new country. A great number of her songs have become
classics of film music and she had maintained her
top ranking for more than fifty years -- no mean feat.
the full richness of her voice and her Punjabi ang
has remained as a distinct contribution even after
film music proliferated in the subcontinent. Some
of her non-film geets and nazms too have been very
highly regarded bu music connoisseur.
Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan
Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan came from a family of great qawwals.
His father and uncle were respected for their
knowledge of the raags and a wide range of Kalaam
in Urdu, Punjabi and Persian and Arabic. |
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Nusrat Fateh, in the initial phase, sang the traditional
qawwali with great virtuosity in laikari and sargam
and later switched to experimentation with some of
the leading musicians and composers of the world and
when he sang for Peter Gabriel in The Last Temptation
Of Christ he became an enternational celebrity. He
bacame one of the leading members of the movement
that espoused World music. Mostly basing his melody
on traditional sources he brought in a huge input
of instrumental music which varied from heavy metal
to computer-generated sounds. World Msic became a
craze and has been taken as the begining of globalisation
of music and Nusrat was a very active member of it.
Unfortunately his premature death put an end to the
endeavour of arriving at a definite form. He was perhaps
the best known Pakistani in the world and was rewarded
with praises and awards from all the four corners
of the world.
The
Peerzadas
No
other family has done so much for the promotion
of art and theatre in Pakistan, strating with
Rafi Peer (born March 21, 1898) one of the pioneer
of modren drama in the subcontinent. He abandoned
his law studies in England and went to the Germany
to study law language and philosophy. There
he met theatre director Mex Reinhardt, who encouraged
him to study theatre. Rafi Peer taught acting
and direction at the Indian A cademy of Dramatic
Art in the 1930s and in 1945 made film Neecha
Nagar in which he was the main actor. |
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After partition he settled in Lahore and set up Drama
Markaz theatre group and wrote plays. After his death
in 1974 his five sons and two daughters have continued
their father's mission to promate art and culture.
The Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) was set up to
promote performing arts, puppets and folk theatre
forms. Starting with puppet shoes, children art festivals
and drama programmes RPTW has produced many international
art festivals in Pakistan. RPTW in run by the twins
Faizaan and Sadaan, along with Usman, Imran and Salman
while sister Tasneem looks after public relation.
RPTW has to its credit four international puppet festivals,
a national dance festivals and three international
dance and drama festivals.
Razia
Bhatti
Her untimely and sudden death in 1996 ended an almost
30-years long journalistic career and left bereft
all those whome she had inspired and trained and groomed
on the job and by example. Razia Ronderay, the dimunitive
gold medallist in English literature and language
from Karachi University joined The Illustrated Weekly
of Pakistan in 1967. She was part of the team that
converted it into a monthly in 1970 and re-named Herald.
Razia's stint as editor, which begab in 1975, coincided
with the most repressive period in Pakistan's history.
Her independent stance was predictably unpopular with
the military authorities; Gen. Zia once got so would
not tolerate such journalism. Undeterred by pressure,
from either the authorities or the publishers, Razia
resigned rather than compromising her editorial independence.
Most of the editirial team walked out with her --
and started a bold new venture. Newsline, born in
1989, was the first magazine in Pakistan's history
run by a journalists' cooperative with complete editorial
freedom. The motto: "to seek the truth, to spotlight
injusyice and to fight for redressal." Its very
first year, it won the Asia-Pacific Award for Editorial
Excellence. In 1994, Razia was awarded the Courage
in Jourlalist award by the Washington-based International
Women's Media Foundation. Modest and unassuming, she
considered the media attention as too much fuss. Which
is what she would have said of all the tributes pouring
in after her passing away and of this note.
Pathana Khan
Although
Pathana Khan was born, brought up and lived
in Pakistan, it will not be fair to call him
a Pakistani singer. He belongs to everyone who
loves Sufi poetry.
There are many self-styled darvesh gayaks (saintly
singers) but Pathana Khan was a true exemplar
of the type. All his life he lived in the small
village Kot Addu, near Multan. |
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He was admitted to school in 1932 and passed six classes.
He got married at a time when Hindus still lived in
the region, i.e., before 1947. He fathered eleven
children — seven sons and four daughters.
Pathana Khan’s family had no tradition of singing
as he belonged to potters’ caste. He trained
for five or six years, under Ustad Nazar Hussain,
the famous vocalist of the Patiala gharana. Then he
spent some years in Panjab University to learn the
Punjabi language from Nazaf Shah.
All his life, he sung only the classic poetry of the
sufis like Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Shah Hussain, Bulle
Shah and Sultan Bahu. Once he gave the reason for
this:" This poetry has the secret of love, it
is natural poetry that descended from the unknown;
it has simplicity, reality, and love; it is the very
embodiment of humanity. I am in love with sufi poetry;
it has a soothing effect; it gives peace of mind."
Roshan
Ara Begum (classical singer)
Roshan
Ara Begum was one of the most outstanding disciple
of the legendary Abdul Karim Khan of the Kirana
Gharana. After singing a few ghazals and geets
for the films she devoted her entire life to
classical music even when it was not that popular
in Pakistan. She too shifted to Pakistan at
the height of her career knowing that the conditions
were not that conducive for her. |
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Considered to be one of the most accomplished singer
of the kheyal at that time, impeccable in her control
of the taal and the delineation of the raag. Her taan
too was very fast and unerring and in the old tradition
relished to perform on stage in competition with the
leading singers of her time. Her voice was extremely
crafted and the correct intonation of the sur in relation
to the raag was the result of great perseverance that
she had to endure during her long training. Even when
she lived in the far way Lalamusa with very limited
opportunities to display her immense talent she was
a soure of great inspiration as she refused to compromise
on quality in return for acceptance and popularity.
She was a supreme craftsman and was admired by the
aficionados of classical music who called her (Mulkai
Mauseeqi) the Quin of Music.
Roohi
Bano (TV star)
Television had not found a great actrees till Roohi
Bano appeared on the mini screen. Her performances
in Darwaza, Zard Gulab and certain other long plays
were absolutely outstanding and set her apart from
the other performers. Roohi Bano was able to capture
the average woman of our society -- repressed with
energy that does not find an commensurate outlet,
she has to live the vital part of her life under cover.
The characters that she excrlled in were of women,
very talented and exceptional but inhibited not by
external circumstances but by the internalisation
of values which have been in operation through centuries.
The lost look, the strutting syllables and the unsure
step epitomised the great crises that went on, betraying
the desire to free from these shackles and flower
in a world of her own. This has often been the woman's
world sheltered from outstand either within the four
walls or within oneself. She could never express herself
in films because there the stereotypes cannot capture
the sensitivity and subtlety that she was so capable
of representing.
Sadequain
The
most distinct aspect of Sadequain is that he
brought art close to the people of our society.
There are various reasons for this: one of them
is that Sadequain did not belong to the elite
from the art instotutions. He identified himself
with the public and reached to them through
his work. |
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He
produced innumerable works in his creative life including
poetry, paintings and murals at public spaces. The
imagery in the work of Sadequain is related to the
'work' in two ways. In one kind of work the images
are inspired by the narrative, such as the poetry
of Ghalib and Iqbal or create their own narrative,
similar to fiction. The other aspect of his work is
the use of script, either to formulate the visuals
or as an independent art genre. Long before the trend
of calligraphy, Sadequain recognised the possibilities
of 'Nastaleeq' and 'Naskh' weitings and employed their
linear character to construct the recognisable and
readable images. The fascination with the script led
him to make painting of Quranic verses. It will require
some years to guage the genius of an artist who through
his work represented our verbal side and our culture.
Probably his art can be described as the true voise
of his society and this may be the reason that he
was the most popular, respected and appreciated artist
of his times.
Shakir Ali
Born
in 1922, Pakistan
Shakir Ali has spent 12 years, 7 years in Bombay
and 5 in London to learn classic and modern
art. He came back to Pakistan in 1952.
Art
for Shakir is a meant of expressing his own
lonely personality. It is devoid of sensuousness
and sentimentality, and possesses the distilled
quality of brooding in in solitude on subjects
from life, which only provide point of departure
into the realm of line, tone values and color.
His approach to his craft is essentially of
virtuoso. |
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He
treats line solely as a matter of Measure, short or
long, of angles, obtuse or acute. He uses tone values
or chiaroscuro as Weight and color as Quality. He
uses these three formal elements in the construction
of new order and creates image, which we call the
subject.
In
the work of such artist, the appearance of recognizable
object is cause for confusion among the viewers. Every
object from organic world has whole range of associate
properties, which exist for viewers, but may or may
not be present in the mind of artist, when he is painting
it. His aim appears to be to construct symphony in
line, tone values and color, and open now perspective
in the dimension of meaning.
Shakir,
in 1956, is held in high esteem, as an artist. His
background, together with long time at National College
of Arts, first as Head of Art Department and later
as Principal, deservedly earn him a position of reverence.
He has reached the stage, where he runs the risk of
being praised, without being really understood or
appreciated
Gulgee
Born
in Pakistan
Qualified
engineer in USA and self-taught abstract painter
Before 1959, he has painted the entire Afghan
Royal Family.His
paintings are were bright and full of color,
but the paint is put on with greater sensitivity
and paintings vibrate with intense feeling. |
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Areas
sing with luminous thin color, thick blobs of paint
pulsate with fiber-glass tears, the brush swirls strong
and free. The total effect is very gray, yet considered
and well thought out. They work enormously well, because
it is all orchestrated with great care and concentration.Paintings
are often commissioned, or go abroad and therefore
only reach relatively small audience.He
has had exhibitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Abdul
Rahman Chughtai
Born
in 1899, Pakistan; he comes from a family which
for generations has produced architects, engineers,
painters and decorators.His individual style
was formed in the years before 1947, so the
main body of his work was produced before Pakistan
was born: Persian and Mongol Traditional Style.
|
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Chughtai admitted himself to Lahore's Mayo
School of Art, which then emphasized crafts more than
art. He did not stay there very long and started learning
on his own, concentrating on the traditional methods
and techniques of Mongol artists. Then, he moved on
to Calcutta and worked there foe several years, painting
in Bengal School Style.
By 1923, when he was only 24, he started developing
his style of drawing luscious, languid, narcissus-eyes
and stylized figures with erotic overtones and heavy
with fictional contents.
He also introduced him to some of Western art techniques,
chiefly as practiced by Victorian artists, and to
the cave painting of Ajanta, which were then in process
of being re-discovered by contemporary painters.
It was in formative phase of hi
