Page 333 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

330 ART AND CRAFTS

different scenes of Radha Banga and Jharkhand are completely different from the
prints of this period. The first thing that catches the eye is the use of color in these
intaglio prints. Although his fellow student Harendranarayan did colored woodcut and
engraving (fig. 1.15), Safiuddin had been in favor of wood engraving and metal
engraving in black-and-white. The interplay of light and shade received more
importance than colors in his pictures of that period. In these metal engravings
emerging from the experience of coming face to face with the flood in East Pakistan
we saw variety in method and also a wonderful array of colors. The combinations of
colors like different shades of grey, blue and orange with deep black, etc. have
occurred in these pictures like musical expression. In the previously mentioned
pictures along with Blue Water, The Angry Fish, The Fishing Net (pl. 8.16) the water,
the flow of water, trees, waves, boats, etc. combine to create on the canvas a visual
tension of curved rhythms. In the words of Safiuddin, sitting indoors on the bed he
observed how the water was gradually entering his house. It was not only water that
was coming inside, with the water there had entered a variety of aquatic life, various
kinds of insects, fishes and aquatic plants. The water not only entered his house, the
water had entered his being. It seemed to him that he too was afloat in that spread of
primitive water. This sense of being afloat is symbolized in the form of the curved,
forceful whirling movement of these prints. According to the theory of Mathematics
and Physics even in the apparent inequality of structure of masses there is a kind of
self-repetitive similarity, this is called fractals. These repeated units or fractions
preserve the equality of rhythm in material forms. In Safiuddin’s prints of this period
fractals or rhythm of fractions is curvy-linearity. It is to be noticed that this continuous
rhythmic state has created dynamic movement in these prints. This is because the
curved line forms tangents at every point and causes change in movement. In his
earlier prints of Radha Vanga and Jharkhand we notice his interest in movement in the
tension between the stable and dynamic. That very movement has been transformed
into continuous curvilinearity in these new pictures. In his new pictures the eye does
not rest anywhere. The powerful broad and fine lines do not allow the vision to rest at
any place and the eye is forced to roam throughout the whole picture plane. In
Mathematics and Physics there is also the theory of the basin of attraction. As all rivers
fig. 8.20 Carpenter, oil, and tributaries seek an estuary, so each series of lines themselves tend to move towards
1956 a meeting point or estuary. We notice this phenomenon in Giotto’s paintings as also in
Rubens’ paintings; we can observe this
in any good picture, where the sight
seeks to reach a central point of the
picture. In Safiuddin’s The Bridge
Across the viewer will notice a few
men crossing a bridge and each and
every line arranged on the canvas is
pointing towards that centripetal point