Page 407 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

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of observation found expression based mainly on drawing.’ He further said, ‘His
watercolors were very sensitive.’ 64 We observe with amazement that the prime
qualities that Abdur Razzaque identifies in the works of his teacher also became main
characteristics of his own works. For example, he worked in various media and
involved himself with modernity very closely. Nevertheless, the identities of his
exceptionally sensitive mind and a skillful artist have been revealed most successfully
through his drawings. On the other hand, his watercolors give us the testimony of his
close observation of nature and life.
One of the common areas of interest of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin and Abdur
Razzaque was the everyday visual world. However, there are fundamental differences
in their observations. Before going into the details of this issue, let us focus on the
characteristics of presentation of the visible world in the works of Abdur Razzaque.
His interest in visual depiction has been revealed mainly through his drawings and
watercolors. The subjects of his drawings are mostly human figures while in
watercolor it is nature. Observation has been given greatest importance in drawing.
Abdur Razzaque was attracted to the minute change in sensation that is brought about
by the slight change in light or posture of the human figure. The qualities of his
drawings were built on his realistic, detailed observation and the sensitivity of his
lines. These characters are also revealed in his prints which are self-portraits based on
drawings. He used light, shade, and lines in many different ways to express different
dimensions of emotions. His drawings from the fifties bear the testimony of extreme
skill in the academic trend.
In the watercolors of Abdur Razzaque done in the fifties, sixties and seventies, the city
of Dhaka has been revealed in the wealth of its picturesque beauty. These landscapes
document the massive changes that transformed different places when Dhaka went
through the process of becoming a city. These works do not represent the memory of
Abdur Razzaque. He had drawn the landscapes of the fifties in the fifties and those of
the sixties in the sixties. He had documented the pictorial reality – he had tried to grasp
fig. 9.37 Boat the reality with the dimension of his own sensibilities. The ever changing appearance
Buriganga, watercolor, of Dhaka city, its nature, changes in pictorial positions of buildings, lanes and by-lanes
1953 in the process of new urbanization, the river at the edge of the city and the activities
centering around the river – all these
became the subjects of his landscapes
done in watercolor. He had chosen
nature bypassing the reality of conflicts
of city-centric life and the political
reality in those decades of this city. The
activities of life got importance in his
landscapes. Some of his watercolors are
based on the river. These include
Buriganga (1962), Boat Hotel in