Page 323 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

320 ART AND CRAFTS

(waterplay) (pencil, 1962), Ekakitva (loneliness) (watercolor, 1962), Bathing (oils,
1966) (fig. 8.15), Peep (gouache, 1967) (pl. 8.14), Three Women (watercolor, 1967)
etc. These images speak of an effort to comprehend the feelings of a woman and it is
a result of close relations with women on the artist’s part. Three images deserve
special mention: After Bath (1958), Jalkeli (waterplay) and Bathing (1966). All the
three images manifest an attempt to express the beauty of the female nude. It is easily
noticeable that the physical beauty of female forms was revealed in a different
dimension in this period. His personal life directly influenced the birth of these
paintings. It is remarkable that although the three images are done in different media,
all of them are related to the theme of bath and the females in all the three works are
depicted in the same postures. The beauty of female forms is always a subject for
study to the artist. The search for beauty does not end in facial studies; rather, it stop
only after exploring the whole body. It can be derived through these images that these
experiences reached fullness in Quamrul Hassan as a result of love and marriage.
Among Quamrul’s paintings of females, the painting Peep is distinctive (pl. 8.14). It
is an image of a lower-class Bengali woman. The image shows a corner of a room and
represents rural life. A single moment is depicted here, when the woman is secretly
observing an outdoor scene with great curiosity. It depicts the typical lifestyle of a
rural housewife. The immense curiosity is a result of the inability to move freely in the
outside world; compelling the woman to inquisitively peep outside. Following the
manners of folk art, the woman is drawn in full figure, in a slightly slanting pose. The
softness depicted in the figure is also a reminder of the Bengal School.
The third phase is marked by the crisis in his marital life and separation. The crisis
began in the post-liberation era and he was completely separated from his wife in
1976. Although this crisis and separation was a source of mental anguish it had no
negative impact in his work. Quite contrarily, he was at his creative best during the
seventies and eighties. A never-ending search for beauty is present in his incessant
creative processes. In this phase he worshipped female beauty in its many forms and
postures. These women are youthful and robust, sometimes they are close to nature,
head bent in shyness and often bare-bosomed. Drawing postures - or in other words,
manifestations of external beauty - took precedence over portraying emotional
relationships in this period. It cannot be said that all female nudes drawn in this period
embody beauty, though critics show a partiality for Quamrul. According to critics
‘Nudity does not evoke lust, rather a simple innocence surrounds it.’ 119 [Trans.] and
‘Even when the artist draws female nudes as mere studies they are free of any
crudity….In our consideration a sense of beauty and universal sense unconsciously
grows in the nudes.’ 120 [Trans.] In an interview the artist himself has explained ‘Don’t
think that I draw female nudes as a result of any suppressed passion.’ [Trans.] He
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identifies three successive women as sources of inspiration; his mother in his
childhood, his loved one and wife, and daughter in the later stage of his life. Despite
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these references we will say that some of the nudes he drew do not quite reflect the