Page 340 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

FIRST GENERATION ARTIST 337

Safiuddin was able to free himself of it. The ideals of the young Turks of the ‘Calcutta
Group’ were a few branded, outdated European movements from Impressionism to
Expressionism. Though the artists of this group were very verbal on the theme of
idealism and progressiveness, in their quest for modernism they thought of London
and Paris as the final word in modernism. No one of that group was aware of the fact
that by then postmodernism had already started in Europe and America. The irony of
fate was that, at the time when the member artists of the Calcutta Group were
pronouncing the oft-repeated catchwords of modernism of the Paris-London brand, by
then that form of modernism had been superceded by the theory of postmodernism
which had already been formulated. Zainul and Safiuddin had never directly tried to
harmonize with any European system of arguments or theory in composing their
artworks. Though Safiuddin believed in progressive political movements he never
accepted Paris or London to stand for progress. This is where his personality is
individual and strong. Although later in his life he saw European art directly, yet no
European art movement overwhelmed him. He took lessons for his pictures directly
from nature. Although the Bengal School and the Victorian ‘Academic Art’ of the Art
School of Kolkata was very influential in his time, it could not influence him. Even
though Safiuddin had practiced the displines of pictorial art in the conservative
manner of the Government Art School, his creative life did not become enclosed in
any outer bondage. Those who went from Kolkata to the former East Pakistan or
present-day Bangladesh not only founded a new art educational institute in Dhaka,
they also gave an identity to the art of Bangladesh. Bangladesh would not have found
the place it presently occupies in the map of world art without their energetic efforts.
On top of all that, as teachers they have trained generation after generation of students
which has established the continuation of art practice in the country. It is to
Safiuddin’s credit that, he assisted his students to advance as he himself advanced
along the path of artistic activity. Furthermore, he must of course be remembered in
history as an initiating force who gave the art of Bangladesh its national identity.
All the artists, who came to the former East Pakistan or present day Bangladesh from
India, practiced figurative art. At a later period a few artists of Bangladesh of a
particular generation quite consciously inclined towards complete abstraction in
artistic forms. They returned again to figurative art. The pictures of Safiuddin’s latest
stage – from the nineties to the period after the year 2000 make it clear to us that in
the natural process of abstraction, art on its own volition moves towards the essence
or the inner substance. Arriving at this substance or the world of perceptions from the
material world is the objective of artistic quest.

Translated by Kamaluddin Md. Kaiser, writer, Dhaka