THE WAY IT WAS: Finding a corresponding link with nature —Mian Ijaz Ul Hassan
It is ironic that urbanisation, which had initially created the necessary
material conditions for man to have the leisure to reflect upon nature, later
acquired a momentum of its own, resulting in the present day mega-cities, and
estranged him from nature
A considerable part of English poetry, Navid Shahzad argues, is moved by the
English countryside. This is also true of the best of its painting. She contends
that it is essential for man to find a “corresponding link” with Nature that
can rejuvenate him with its beauty and awesome majesty.
Pakistan has a wide range of natural scenes ranging from the rugged mountain
ranges and thick-forested slopes of the Himalayan hills to the fertile alluvial
plains, the deserts and the sea. We have streams coursing down mountains
eternally covered in snow, placidly meandering rivers flowing into the ocean. We
have green fruity valleys, crops, sights and sounds of almost every description.
In the monsoon season the iridescent green paddy stretches beyond the horizon,
in winter the golden wheat. We have orchards with fruits of almost every
description ranging from dates to grapes. It is a country where the palm and the
pine are often seen to easily grow in companionship.
And yet we are poor. But that is another matter. Let us not ruin the joy of
recounting pleasurable sights and tastes of heavenly bounties with bad taste of
poverty. The two are separate things.
There was an official who flourished a beard. A precocious youth who had come to
have a job done asked him: “You appear to be a pious man, then why are you
asking for money?” The man whose long beard reached his fat belly, instantly
answered: “Look my friend! As you can see, my beard ends where the belly
begins.” Pakistan is poor but surely not because it is fertile and naturally
beautiful. Let’s for the moment, for this reason, celebrate its natural
endowments and the courage of its people.
It is ironic that urbanisation which had initially created the necessary
material conditions for man to have the leisure to reflect upon nature, later,
acquired a momentum of its own resulting in the present day mega-cities and
estranged him from nature. Most of the school children in New York now believe
that like all other consumer goods, milk is made in factories. Most of them have
never seen a live cow. For good reason, too. Unlike our towns, where they roam
the streets at leisure, there is not a single cow in evidence in New York or
Chicago. Are we not fortunate then to be closer to nature, as urban life
encroaches upon the countryside, establishing islands of rural landscape within
towns, providing easy access to ovine and bovine pleasures?
I find it inexplicable that surrounded by natural prospects Pakistan has
produced a very small number of painters who have a natural predilection for
nature. Allah Buksh apparently never observed nature closely. I find his
mountain-scapes engaging but they are entirely the product of his fancy. I
wonder if he ever perceived nature, studied actual flora, rock formations or the
individual demeanour of the hills, mounds and mountains he painted. Even the
hues and tones of his landscapes are foreign to the colour and character of
nature and life around him.
Khalid Iqbal is an astute painter who has spent a lifetime focusing on the
fringe that divides Lahore city from the surrounding rural life. He paints with
an immaculate sense of light and tone and has an unusual ability to portray the
essential individuality of a place. Khalid’s world is a restrained and studied
world where there is no room for scudding clouds, gushing streams or winds
coursing through monumental trees. He has, however, captured an aspect of our
familiar landscape that went unnoticed before. But this is all an artist can be
expected to do — make people look at an aspect of their environment of which
they have been unaware.
There are some other painters who have addressed nature in different ways, but
there is only a few of them. Shahid Jalal, Ghulam Mustafa, Kaleem Khan and
Sardar Aseff have ventured beyond the city fringe. Intellectually and
aesthetically it is imperative for a Pakistani painter in close proximity with
nature to establish a link with it. Art cannot renew itself by incestuous
interaction, as has been the case with much of modern art. Painting and
literature cannot be judged by their form and appearance alone. An artist has to
draw sustenance and rejuvenate his art from what surrounds him.
It cannot be disputed that art is a product of its own time. At the same time
art and literature often aspire beyond the immediate presence, towards an ideal
or at least a more comprehensible future. This aspiration binds art of all times
and ages — not necessarily in form and appearance but in spirit. The art of an
era cannot be better than art of the preceding period. It can only be different.
Art and poetry neither inevitably evolve as argued by Marxist ideologues nor
develop according to he dictates of market economy. In absence of enlightened
patronage, both the State and the Market pervert and corrupt art. Pablo Picasso
believed that the ancient Egyptian painting was modern because it survived to
his day, whereas he saw artists who claimed to be modern, to have died in their
own lifetime.
The mention of man’s urgent need to find links with his environment reminds me
of Gulgee. Professor Arshad of Zoology Department of the Peshawar University
informed me the other morning that one fine day an exhausted man, accompanied by
his wife, introducing himself as Gulgee, stopped at his house, situated high up
the steep Mukhshpuri slope at Donga Gali. They asked if they could have some
water to drink. After the couple had quenched their thirst and recovered their
breath, the husband confided that they were considering buying a house and asked
whether or not he knew of one around for sale. It so happened that there was a
bungalow up for sale and the professor guided Gulgee to the place.
Subsequently Gulgee also bought some property four kilometres away at Nathia
Gali. His son Amin has recently adorned the exterior of their house at Nathia
Gali with rather strange images. Amin Gulgee has an irrepressible talent for
innovative concepts. He has produced a large body of sculptural works in a
matter of a decade. He also has decorative talent and a pleasant aesthetic sense
but I wonder why he has done the exterior with motifs that could easily scare
away visitors at dusk.
In the early sixties Gulgee was a stranger in the Hills. However after
establishing residence there he started visiting the place every summer. Today
every local seems to know of him. If a person were to study Gulgee’s paintings
he would never be able to tell that Gulgee had ever ventured close to the
Himalayan vicinity. It is quite amazing how firmly he shut himself away from
Nature all his life. His association with nature ended, like the aforementioned
beard, where his painting began. It is incredible that in Gulgee’s pictorial
as well as non-pictorial paintings, there is not even a faint reference to
nature. An artist who calligraphed the names of Allah in hundreds of ways, but
was unable to perceive His presence in Nature, would always remain an enigma.
Sahir Ludhianvi has written at the beginning of his famous anthology of poetry,
Talkhian: “I am returning to the world what it has given me in the form of
accidents and experience”. It is clear that nature had nothing to offer to our
Gulgee.
Prof Ijaz-ul-Hassan is a painter, author and a political activist