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THE PAINTER, THE ARTIST AND
THE MUSE
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is
painting that speaks
Simonides
There is no argument
over the historical fact that man expressed himself through images before he
learnt to write. Whether it was the evocative drawings in the Caves of Altamira
in Spain or Lascaux in France or the paintings excavated in the Caves of
Bhimbhetka in India, man expressed his innermost desires, fears and emotions
through images. And when he learnt to write the text became the handmaiden of
writers, thinkers poets and philosophers. And slowly over time there was a
marriage between the two. This holy alliance between the two has survived from
the time of the early Christain Byzantine art in the form of the earliest
illuminate manscripts like the Vatican Vergil and the Vienna Genesis, while
closer home the first illuminated manuscripts were seen on palm leaves. Buddhist
texts especially sacred to the Vajrayana school were some of the finest and
earliest examples of the Indian illustrated manuscripts.
This incestuous relationship
between text and image in its most evocative manifestation is seen in the works
of the English poet William Blake. The two strange bedfellows often walked hand
in hand synergizing each other and enriching each other.
"The painter's vision is not a
lens, it trembles to caress the light," Lowell writes in his poem
Epilogue,
which looks to painting for an insight into the technical challenge of poetic
accuracy. Ever since the Roman poet Horace penned down in his Ars Poetica
(c. 13 BC) the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry"—
painting and poetry have been regarded as two sides of the same coin.. While
literature is associated with the demands or needs of the print medium, the
media for visual art expresses feelings through lines and colours.
And this is exactly what Andaaz-e Bayaan Aur
is. A virtual meeting ground of text and
image infused with a lyricism which only Ghalib can evoke. Ghalib who created a
sensation with his writings both in Urdu and Persian is feted more so after his
death. And in a way Sabia’ s exhibition is not merely a homage to a poet who
like many others before and after his time never got their due in their life
time, it is the re reading of a poet through the eyes, mind and heart of a
contemporary aritst.
Through her assured brushwork, Sabia draws,
paints, translates the emotions of the classical Urdu poet Ghalib. The vibrancy
of colour, the scale of paintings and the classical compositions are reclaiming
the power of the word on the canvas.
Andaaz-e Bayaan Aur is special in a way that in
this exhibition we see the languages of two artists finding a common geography
of a perfect harmony and balance. The refinement of Ghalib’s poetry, the
cerebral metaphysical quality in his writings has been flawlessly captured by
Sabia’s brush.
“I have attempted not only to unite my paintings
to Ghalib’s life and his poetry through different colours but also to explore a
new language so that these paintings don't remain mere translations. These
paintings are not just visual depictions of his verses but also reflections of
both the culture of his times and the spirit of his being. Hence both poetry and
artistry form an integral part of my work.”
Dr.
Alka Pande
January 2007
Curator
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