Page 334 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

FIRST GENERATION ARTIST 331

(fig. 8.22). In a centripetal rhythm each line is attracting
the sight towards the act of crossing. In the print Fishing
Time too we notice that it is towards the fisherman
pulling at his net that every rhythmical line has its centre
of movement. Thus, in these flood inspired pictures by
Safiuddin we not only see the character of the flood in
the curved rhythm, we also notice that each and every
one of his lines and forms is set with such mathematical
precision that the viewer’s sight cannot escape from the
picture plane. As for instance, when building a house on
a piece of land measuring two Kathas, one has to plan in
perfect proportion, similarly in the plane of a picture one
has to execute the picture by considering the
composition of forms so that the pictorial plane gives the
viewer a sense of perfection. It is needless to say that in
his prints of this period we notice this sense of perfection
of composition. Good pictures are complete and
harmonious like mathematical entities, in which there is
no sense of insufficiency. There is no hard and fast rule relating to this balance or fig. 8.21 Drawing-11,
symmetry. In pictures this symmetry depends on the balanced distribution of form, charcoal and crayon,
line and color. In the past this symmetry was produced in European pictorial art by 1972
following the mirror reflection or the reflection of things seen in the mirror. In the
Florentine Madonna by Raphael the mother sits in the centre like the axis and two
infants and the trees have been symmetrically placed at her two sides in such a way
that it seems that one side is vertically the reflection of the other. Again, in
Michelangelo’s picture The Birth of Adam we notice the tension caused by the
opposition between the unmoving Adam lying on the ground and the dynamism of
God soaring in the air. Adam’s look is directed towards God, God’s towards Adam,
they are face to face; which means that the sight of the viewer follow the look of the
two and reaches the emptiness of the small but eternal distance between the extended
arms of the two figures. It is the empty space between the fingers of the two which is
the basin of attraction of this picture and it is here that this picture is complete in itself
like mathematics. Artists in the modern age do not adopt that simple, easy to execute
plan for achieving mirror-like symmetry by balancing the picture evenly on both sides
as we see in the pictures of mediaeval Europe. It is in asymmetry that they search for
balance and perfect measure. The basin of attraction of their pictures is not located in
the absolute centre of their ground like we see in Raphael’s paintings and can notice
in Van Eyck’s painting of the Arnolfini couple, in Safiuddin’s Fishing Time the basin
of attraction is at one side of the canvas and in The Bridge Across the basin of
attraction is not centrally located. It is at a distance from the centre, in the Fishing
Time it is at one side of the canvas and the central point of The Bridge Across is on the