Page 402 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

SECOND GENERATION ARTISTS 399

important chapter of Murtaja Baseer’s art
where he perhaps wanted simultaneously
to address the concrete and abstract,
reality and the unreal, the objective and
the non-objective. Alternatively, perhaps
he wanted to transform the solid visual
experience into a symbolic expression
that takes us to the sensory perception of
invisible forms. ‘Here he has totally
detracted from the figure and is beholding
reality from a new vision. With this
artistic experimentation, however, was
linked his life and the philosophy of life
of the time which, after an interval was
again influenced by depression and
frustration. There is no existence of the form in the accepted sense of the word, in the fig. 9.32 The Wall-31,
works of this series but only what you may call the foetus of forms to be found in the oil on canvas, 1967
various scratches on the wall. The use of color is also quite regulated, in number and
expression; none of the red, green, yellow, black is agitated, being very unclear they
attain the character of expanding and spreading through which has appeared a kind of
reality which remains latent behind realism. Forms are created based on the idea that
is formed on viewing the walls thus painted, which in the amalgamation of line, plane
and line gives birth to new sensations. Depending on sensations, abstraction
continuously grows from a real scene. The dynamic identity of abstract realism is the
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unique specialty of this series.’ [Trans.]
Two more exhibitions with works of this series were held in Lahore the same year and
in Karachi in January 1970. However, meanwhile in 1968 there was a retrospective
exhibition of the artist organized in Dhaka, where 57 paintings and 32 drawings of the
1954-1967 period were displayed.
During his stay in Paris from November 1971 to mid 1973, besides taking lessons
on etching and aquatint at Ecole National Superior de Beaux Arts and Academie
Goetz, Murtaja Baseer continued to paint. After returning home in 1973, the curtain
on his bohemian life was finally drawn through his joining the Department of Fine
Arts of the Chittagong University as Assistant Professor. Here he found as
colleagues the founder Chairman of the Department, Rashid Choudhury and friend
Debdas Chakraborty.
In 1974, Murtaja Baseer constructed a mural entitled Martyr’s Tree at Rajshahi
University in memory of the martyrs of the Liberation War. Constructed by cutting
over burnt bricks, this 13 x 32 feet mosaic is the most notable mural in Bangladesh
(fig. 9.33). Murtaja Baseer won the Shilpakala Academy Award in the first National
Arts Exhibition in 1975. In 1976 an exhibition of another notable series by him titled