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M.F.
HUSAIN ON SADEQUAIN’S ART
M. F. Husain
Very seldom I use words. That too for a painter of my time.
With great reluctance my felt-pen begins to roll on a virgin
white paper. An absolute trespass. Wish the instrument had been
a Chinese brush, not pen. Sadequain has drawn inspiration from
medieval Arabic Calligraphy. His present phase is heavily etched
with Quranic scriptures. Part of it was well displayed at Pakistan
pavilion at Pragat. Maiden New Delhi. The first major exposure
in India of Pakistan's major painter.
I was familiar with Sadequain's work for the last two decades.
Occasional peep through Pakistan Air Lines office in Paris or
International Biennials. Met him in person on 20th November
1981 in his Delhi hotel room. Black sherwani (Amroha cut) tucked
on the wall peg. Half open suitcases. Ruffled newspapers spread
on the floor. Suddenly Sadequain bent over the newspapers reshuffling.
Thought he is about to read out a shocking news item. Instead
he took out a broad point pen. Scribbled on newsprint the Arabic
alphabet "noon" twice, two semi circles side by side
with dot in each. Sadequain stopped there and chuckled. Said,
"when ever so called Mullahs see this in my country, they
proclaimed the nudity of feminine breasts immoral." Later
the two alphabets joined together to become the word AINUL YAQEEN
and there “Mullahs” are terribly disappointed (The
original is my personal collection). Let me go back to Sadequain’s
hotel room where couple of thirsty glasses in search of “saqi”
almost crinkling half a couplet "PILA DE OAK MEN SAQI AGAR
PAIMANA NAHIN DETA – NADE." Sadequain with his quivering
fingers dug out from his memory trunk a treasure of drawing
on Sufi saint SARMAD. A series of drawing on SAR-BA-CUF, holding
ones own head in palm confronting the faces of existence. Sadequain
on his arrival in India went straight to the tombs of Sarmad
and Ghalib. His JAM in his hands to touch the tombstones of
two of his GURUS. To listen to such serene silence at Sarmad
and Ghalib.
Sadequain says." Lahore to Amritsar, the distance is 45
minutes. It took me 33 years to cross that painful distance."
Now here he is surrounded by a thousand SANAMS for whom IQBAL
said "TERA DIL TO HAI SANAM ASHNA TUJHE' KYA MILEGA NAMAZ
MEN." That’s what Sadequain intends to do. After
couple of month's INDIAN LIVING he plans to paint "JAMALE
AJANTA and JALALE HIMALIA" (The beauty of human form and
grandeur). We Indian painters would welcome the Pakistani painter's
Indian experience in his works done during his stay here.
To the end I would like to quote the great living Urdu poet
Faiz Ahmed Faiz from his introductory note on Sadequain’s
paintings. "To depict a loveless and macabre world - a
world of the scarecrow acting as the lord of blood - thirst
rows, of the harridan decked out as a beauty queen, a world
of trapped tongues and cobwebbed hearts, of debased flesh and
servile manner - this bitter vision of reality may not be the
whole truth.” Sadequain is not unaware of the hope borne
by his huge canvases depicting the conflict of peaceful forces
and their antagonists.
______________________________________________________________________
THE WORLD OF SADEQUAIN
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
In spite of his considerable preoccupation with the solution
of technical formal problems, Sadequain has never been a purely
formal painter. Records, abstractionist, social critic, emotional
visionary, within a few short years, Sadequain has sped from
one role or compulsion to another with equal impetuosity. Although,
still the center around which his creative vocabulary will eventually
stabilize is, perhaps, as yet difficult to foresee, some aspects
of his work both formal and thematic, appear long past the interim
phase. The articulate line, calligraphic, woven, chase or tapestries,
the muted color stemming from darkness rather than light, the
thirst to drain cup of every new-found image to the last, the
suffering without the pity and the agony without the ecstasy
appear too enduring to depart.
Retrospectively, he began quietly enough painting living things
as appearances, but even then, in selection and treatment, he
was more of a commentator than a mere naturalist? From things
phenomena, he chose only those, which were alive and trying
to ‘kick’ however, ineffectually. And in his social
community the only living ones are those who toil like, the
camel, the ox who is the hewer of wood and the drawer of water,
the famished cactus, or the root under the stone. And to paint
the figure together with its suffering obviously dictated a
distortion of visual appearance, a juxtaposition of the conceptual
and the material. Naturally enough in Sadequain's work of this
period, the composition is not entirely unself-conscious and
the color treatment is at times somewhat conventional but evidence
of formal control and in electoral commitment is already unmistakable.
Then with the commencement of his phantasmagoric exploration
of form and substance, there emerges a series of abstract visual
statements, strong and subtle, stripping, anatomizing and recreating
the skeletal forms beneath the visual flesh - Skeletons of streets
and cities, weeds and plants, men and women. In the process,
he also evolved a new social and emotional credo of the essential
unity of material things, all caught in the agonizing toils
of an evolutionary process of struggle goading them upwards.
And now, since his return from Paris, Sadequain has once more
reverted to direct social comment to depict a loveless and macabre
world a world of the scare-crow acting as the Lord of blood-thirsty
crows, of the harridan decked out as a beauty queen, a world
of trapped tongues and cob-webbed hearts, of debased flesh and
servile manners. Filtering across this world we see a Christ-like
Figure perhaps meant to be autobiographical, his body covered
with thorns, his head encircled by the crown of atrophied oblivion.
This bitter vision of reality may not be the whole truth but
it is certainly a part of it and if some of those immediately
confronted with the hypocrisy and the heartlessness of a particular
environment fail to own the hope beyond the despair, the failure
is not entirely theirs.
______________________________________________________________________
AN ARTIST`S SAGA
S. Amjad Ali
Sadequain was the most prolific artist of Pakistan. He was
wholly self-taught and had attended no art school. By the force
of sheer native talent, he forged his way forward and created
his own style.
His own way of self-expression, which after some tentative
efforts, soon crystallized into a very distinctive and personal
idiom. He was quite capable of painting realistic faces and
figures, if he wanted. There are a few good examples of such.
Early work, such as "Hard Earned Rest," in which the
driver is shown lying asleep in his rickshaw; or "The Worker,"
(1953) showing a hefty laborer digging with a spade or "Quenching
his Thirst," (1953) showing a sturdy kneeling man drinking
from a raised jug. But he was not satisfied with such straightforward
realistic pictures. So he created puzzle pictures in which ambiguous
images were presented of humans. For example, a rebel (book-rest
with two interlocking panels) in which the two out-stretched
boards looked like the out- stretched palms of a human hand
or a sitar, which looked like a human figure. Many of these
paintings were designed by him for the title pages of Urdu books
and magazines. Obviously this visual pun could not be extended
over a large number of images in a large scene or composition.
For normal expression, the model in his mind was conventional
Ajanta type drawings and paintings. Sadequain therefore painted
women and even men in dance poses. The figure outlines were
always flowing and rhythmic while the figures were full and
fleshy. The faces were made into elongated ovals with the eyes
lilted up and outward.
LINE WORK
The large murals he painted for Karachi Airport in 1957 are
an example of the style. From the beginning his work was dominated
by line work and the painting was largely flat and restricted
in range. Another stereotype that developed was slightly nearer
to life. In 1957 he lived for some time in Quetta and was fascinated
by the Baluchi women with their long embroidered dresses, gathering
at the public tap to fetch water. He painted many pictures showing
these colorful figures, with poetical poses and stylized faces.
That lasted for some years. The murals painted in Central Excise
Land Customs Club in 1959. And at the Services Club in 1959
are examples of this work. He had to break away from these clichés
in 1961 to paint the huge mural (12' x 62') in the Head Office
of the State Bank of Pakistan at Karachi, called "Treasures
of Time,” in which he showed the intellectual advance
of man from the times of Socrates to that of lqbal and Einstein.
Here he is coming near to the style that he was to adopt finally.
It is all basically a linear creation, with the enclosed spaces
colored in flat colors. Since all the figures are heavily robed,
the body’s arc invisible and only the folds of the dresses
have to be painted, plus the faces and the hands. In front of
the figures arc their books or scientific instruments or other
identifying objects while at the back are some buildings related
to the personalities depicted in the mural, like the Tower of
Pisa with Galileo. Later in the same year, 1961, he participated
in the Biennale of Paris and was awarded and made a Laureate
Biennale de Paris. The work which he exhibited there was "The
Last Supper" ("84 x 36"). For this he developed
a new style, which he was to repeat for years, with variations.
Sitting human figures were suggested by using curved pointed
blades for limbs, long pointed triangles for feet and diamond
shapes or triangle shapes for heads. Similar shapes of elongated
crescents were used to indicate the lap by connecting the two
knees. Many smaller strokes were made across the breast, as
if they were ribs. Not all the blades and spikes were identifiable
as parts of a figure. Innumerable were added just to make a
crowded composition, some in gray to suggest a back row in the
distance. The cacti that he saw all round him during his stay
at Gadani Beach near Karachi in 1954 suggested the idea of these
spikes and blades to him. His "Blue Cactus" (1957)
shows thick-stemmed sharp pointed spikes sticking out of the
cactus plant outward and upward. In his "Sprouting Hands"
(1958) he is already imagining these upturned sharp blades to
be human hands. By linking two such blades, he was suggesting
human arms. The rest of the figure was left to the imagination
but at places two legs were suggested by two long triangles
pointing down. In his "Industry and Agriculture,"
the composition was more sparse and lucid and the figures clearly
indicated, completed with a head of sorts and two-part arms,
again using the upturned spike or sharp blade as the forearm.
While human figures were suggested by these blade forms in the
centre of the picture, on either side were suggested images
of plants and factories. All through the 60s, he continued to
make profuse use of this motif. Sometimes the spikes were made
thin like needles and thorns (as in "Three Existences,"
in which three columns are built up with crisscross lines, bristling
with points on either side and above and below) while sometimes
these pointed blades and shafts were made very thick and joined
to make a zigzag composition as in "Two Sitting Figure"(1962).
Sometimes these shafts and curves were shown having a raised
curved surface, as if solid. The Vertical shafts were pointed
and then given some sort of a head while the sideways stretching
pointed spikes were made to look like hands. Many such phantasmagoric
suggested human figures were made with the same basic cactus
form that he discovered in Gadani. In 1967 he painted in three
months the huge mural in the powerhouse of the Mangla Dam. Covering
an area of 200 feet x 26 feet, it is by far the largest mural
painted in Pakistan. The theme is again the progress of man,
as in the State Bank mural but here it is not advance in thought
only but in conquest of nature, "Saga of Labor". The
artist begins by showing man using his muscle power to break
stones and ends by conquering space. After the Mangla Mural
the same year (1967) Sadequain painted four murals at Lahore:
two for the Punjab University Auditorium, one for the University
Library and one for the Punjab Public Library - all gifts to
the people. The years 1968-69 were even more productive than
1967 because he held five monthly exhibitions at Karachi in
the unfinished auditorium of the Pakistan Institute of International
Affairs, from August to December. First of all he made a "miniature"
of the Mangla Dam mural in one-thirty-sixth of the original
size, which came to 28 feet by 4 feet in 14 panels. It was not
an exact replica and therefore was entitled "Variation
on Mangla,"
CHARACTER FACES
Then he started painting a new series ‘The house of Cards",
in which playing cards were painted with expressive character
faces, making the king a tragic figure with a crown of thorns,
the Queen, a wicked tigress and the Knave a cunning tycoon who
comes between the King and the Queen. He then painted the 'Hope
Series,' a number of macabre paintings in one of which a headless
man is lying on the ground, with one hand upraised holding the
head on which a raven has made his nest and is sitting. Behind
this head is painted a large sun, which is supposed to be the
son of hope. This was "Hope I", Hope II shows a man
sitting with upraised a knee holding in his palms his head,
which is a skeleton and infested with a snake, which is sticking
out through one of the eye sockets. Hope II is even wilder in
conception and execution than Hope I for it shows another figure
lying on the ground with severed head and again both upraised
hands holding the head, which is a skeleton, from whose eye
socket a snake is issuing. More normal in configuration are
faces painted in the 'Obsessed Series'. Here faces are painted
with wild looks and gaping eyes as if possessed. Only a few
line strokes with a thick brush are used to make the caricatured
face. Other pictures in the series also show wild haunted looks
by making the eyes round with heavy shadows under them and glaring
so that the white of the eyes shines hatefully. Strong contrasts
of white and black are used in the picture and the drawing is
in a few simple strokes, mostly straight lines. More characteristic
of Sadequain was the series 'Hybrid' in which half-beast, half
human creatures were vaguely suggested by dense black vertical
strokes of the same spikes and blades variety mentioned earlier.
In "Hybrid II," a row of six chairs was made to look
like human beings in a fanciful way. The rendering was through
the same thick black strokes, mostly straight and partly angled
and often triangular with sharp long points towards the base.
In his monthly exhibition of September 1968, he commemorated
the war of September, 1965 and paid tribute to the martyrs in
a mural entitled "Shaheed,” (18 x 61/2 ft). Apart
from this there were a number of paintings on the theme of war,
such as 'Confrontation' And Triumph' which were patterns made
up mostly of vertical lines in black, appropriately crossed
with horizontal elements to make a design. In his October exhibition,
Sadequain displayed about 30 canvases, most of which were based
on the design of a playing card. Each painting had a different
liner pattern based on the card design. A face above repeated
below and a heart or other symbol at top left and bottom right
corner and other such features of the card were used in all
while for the rest each "painting" had a different
pattern of thick black lines, mostly straight but often crisscrossed
and sometimes whorled and in one case circular with radiating
lines within each circle. It was all rather lighthearted and
fanciful work with no special idea or experience to communicate.
The November 1968 exhibition however, was very important for
it included 25 illustrations of the verses of Ghalib done in
large oil paintings for the first time ever. Coming forty years
after the publication of Chughtai's illustrated edition of Ghalib's
verses in 1929, this was a vastly different interpretation of
the verses. In place of the soft, delicate and poetical watercolor
paintings of Chughtai, Sadequain's oil Paintings were dark and
somber, harsh and crude. There was vigor in the thick black
lines and drama in the strong contrasts of light and dark. The
sparing use of color, mostly red, heightened the effect. Most
of the themes were tragic and therefore the paintings were aptly
dark and dramatic, colorless and somber.
ILLUSTRATION
With each illustration of Galib's verses, Sadequain had appended
a small panel on which the relevant verse was calligraphed in
Urdu. That gave him the idea to use his hereditary talent in
calligraphy to write and paint the verses of the Quran. This
is the innovation that he attempted and displayed in the December
1968, exhibition. This exhibition heralded the upsurge of painterly
calligraphy in Pakistan and for a decade it was the rage, with
many young and old practitioners creating a variety of work.
After this the monthly exhibitions came to an end but in May,
1969, when the centenary of Ghalib was being celebrated, Sadequain
put up 50 canvases illustrating the verses of Ghalib, including
the 25 already displayed. Thereafter till early 1970, he gave
himself the diversion of composing 1500 Rubaiyat or quatrains
in Urdu verse and in March- April 1970, painted some hundred
of these. In May, these were published in a Book form. He spent
the next fifteen years largely in practicing calligraphy. First
he made paintings of separate verses of the mellifluous and
picturesque verse of the Quran called "Sura-e- Rahman."
The words were written in ingenious designs and set in appropriate
scenes and settings, of course with no figures, human or animal.
These were displayed in the month of Ramazan in November, 1970.
Towards the end of the year he also painted a large mural on
the theme of man's struggle against the hostile forces of Nature.
The mural was donated to the Naval Headquarters, Karachi, and
was later shifted to Istanbul. In February, 1971, he made some
large drawings, paintings and calligraphies based on the verses
of Faiz Ahmed Faiz to mark his sixtieth anniversary. In July-August
he made some 200 pen and ink drawings for the illustrated edition
of his rubaiyat which was published in September, 1971. In April,
1972, he wrote the magnificent "Sura Yaseen” of the
Holy Quran on 260 feet long wooden panels and donated it to
the Central Museum, Lahore, where it is still displayed. In
the first half of 1973, he completed the splendid ceiling of
the central gallery of the Lahore Museum, depicting the creation
of the universe. It is a non-objective rendering of the subject,
which has been given supreme expression by Michael Angelo. In
early 1974, he painted Sura Yaseen on a long panel of translucent
plastic sheets, and also made separate such panels of Sura Rahman,
which could be easily carried in travel and therefore he called
them airmail editions of his work. From October to December,
1974, he traveled to eight countries of the Middle East and
held solo exhibitions there. In October, November, and December,
he traveled widely in Romania, the USSR and Turkey and held
many exhibitions there, while in January he was in Iran. In
February, 1976, he was back in Lahore again and started living
in Bagh-e- Jinnah. An exhibition of paintings was held at Lahore
in May, 1976 which aroused violent reaction against nude figures.
In August, 1976, he painted two large murals for the Sports
Complex in Islamabad. The theme was the struggle for emancipation,
the freedom fight of the nations of Asia and Africa. In October,
1976, he was hospitalized in Lahore but in bed he calligrapher
the 99 names of Allah on squares pieces of chipboard, now displayed
in the Lahore Museum. In August, 1977, he started making paintings
of the verses of lqbal. These were exhibited at the Lahore Museum
in November, 1977. The whole of 1979 was devoted to calligraphy.
Noteworthy was the exhibition of hardboard arches decorated
with calligraphy for the National Bank of Pakistan made one
large and many small calligraphic murals. He also added nine
calligraphic murals to the Islamic Gallery of the Lahore Museum.
Towards the end of the year, he went lo Abu Dhabi and painted
a large calligraphic mural in the powerhouse at Umm-an-Naar.
From November, 1981 to December 1982, he was in India and during
this time made huge murals first at the Aligarh Muslim University
(in copper cutout figures and forms) and then calligraphic and
figurative murals at the National Geophysical Research Institute,
Hyderabad, Deccan and later at the Banaras Hindu University,
and finally, executed the Asma- i-Husna (Beautiful Names of
God) in the Indian Institute of Islamic Research, New Delhi,
which was his largest calligraphic work by far. In 1985 he reverted
from calligraphy to painting by making a dozen illustrations
of verses of Faiz, which were exhibited on the second anniversary
of the poet's death? Sadequain was more than halfway through
the most stupendous painting project of his life when the icy
hands of death snatched him from us. "This was to be a
great mural on the theme of man and this universe and was to
decorate the big hall in Jinnah Hall (Old Frere Hall).
______________________________________________________________________
SADEQUAIN: A RETROSPECT
Excerpts from a book to be published by Salman Ahmad
At the time he passed away, Sadequain was painting the panels
of the mural for the ceiling of historic Frare Hall in Karachi.
To the credit of the authorities, they decided to mount the
unfinished panels on the ceiling of Frare Hall and amazingly
enough the huge ceiling mural does not look incomplete after
all. To compliment the lofty ceiling of the Hall the mural’s
theme is “Creation of Universe” and the artist in
his characteristic style has depicted stars and planets spinning
and orbiting in space in a galaxy of colors.
Sadequain was the most prolific painter of the post partition
Pakistan and perhaps of our times. He was constantly at work
and he worked on large scale. He repeatedly stated that he was
not interested in decorating drawing rooms of rich and powerful.
He worked tirelessly on large murals for public buildings symbolic
of the collective labor of humanity and his work was mostly
donated to the public.
His murals adorn the halls at State Bank of Pakistan (100 x
15 ft), Power House at the Mangla Dam (200 x 30 ft), Lahore
Museum, Punjab Public Library and Staff College Lahore, Aligarh
Muslim University (70 x 12 ft), Banaras Hindu University (70
x 12 ft), Geological Institute of India (40 x 12 ft), Frare
Hall Karachi and Abu Dhabi Power House are just to name a few.
Best known for his calligraphies, Sadequain painted abstracts,
drawings, and sketches on thousands of canvases, volumes of
paper, and multitudes of other conventional and unconventional
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