Page 330 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

FIRST GENERATION ARTIST 327

against war, famine and imperialist oppression. At that time it was not possible for any
conscientious student and individual to remain neutral and uninvolved. Zainul Abedin
was busy through the language of his brush in an individual movement against famine,
but he was not actively involved in any collective struggle. Though his drawings were
inspired by the famine in Bengal, they have turned into a universal protest against
famine irrespective of time and place. This was something rare and special in the art
of the subcontinent in the twentieth century. The album that was published in
December 1940 with the aim of providing aid to the famine victims of Bengal entitled
Bengal Painters’Testimony by the All India Students’Federation had as its four editors
Arun Dasgupta, Quamrul Hassan, Adinath Mukhopadhaya and Safiuddin Ahmed. Its
introduction was written by Sarojini Naidu and its preface by Bishnu Dy. The cover
illustration was done by Jamini Roy. This album included two brush-and-ink drawings
by Zainul, a lithograph by Quamrul Hassan of a scene of a village destroyed by a
storm and Safiuddin’s wood engraving, Grihabhimukhi which shows the cowherds
returning home with buffaloes over the uneven land of Bengal’s Radha region through
a row of taal (palm) trees. As a result of their education in England, Mukul Chandra
and Ramendranath had learned white line wood engraving in the tradition of Bewick.
It was before their joining the Art School that wood engraving was taught there in this
tradition which depended on fine white lines and light and shade. In the Bengal
Painters’ Testimony album there were also printed wood engravings by Muralidhar
Tali, Adinath Mukhopadhaya, Satyendranath Ghoshal and woodcuts by the teacher
Ramendranath Chakravorty. There was also Sudhir Khastagir’s linocut. Adinath and
Satyendranath’s engaravings in black and white were as photographic as possible with
cast shadows. In comparison the treatment in the print by Safiuddin was completely
different. He looked at the herd of buffaloes, the young cowherd, taal trees, etc. in
silhouette and executed the forms of the beautiful clouds in the sky in a variety of
linear incisions. His treatment of the foreground is extraordinary as he threw points of
light on the ends of the remainder of harvested paddy in the field (fig. 8.17).
Muralidhar, Adinath and Satyendranath’s prints merely described a visual experience.
Whereas Safiuddin produced a romantic atmosphere in his pictures, in which the
buffaloes return home at the end of the day by the motionless row of taal trees, the
tension of the opposition between the still and the dynamic can be felt. Time can be
marked in this print. The still line of the horizon, the still row of trees in opposition to
the moving clouds and buffaloes give a sensation of the flow of movement. Although
he took the theme of this print from visual experience yet instead of imitating as
accurately as possible in the tradition of Bewick, he raised it above the mere narration
of information through his own perceptions and variation in the etching. This is where
we can distinguish his originality.
In this print done in 1944, in his other prints and paintings done until 1946, we notice
two clear exceptions. Firstly, though he had been born and brought up in the city
Safiuddin selected as the setting of his pictures particularly remote areas of Radha