Page 410 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

SECOND GENERATION ARTISTS 407

worked on them for some time and then left off for some time. He repeatedly sat in
front of the work, watched it, and then started to work on it again.
While talking about the abstraction in his works Abdur Razzaque said, when the visual
presentation of a flower is made - its size, color, difference in smoothness are
presented, then the flower is the object and the picture is object-based. However, along
with these there is also the fragrance of the flower, its surroundings, the beauty in the
totality of the flower and the presence of an unknown, great power behind the creation
of this flower. The fragrance, beauty and theory of creation are un-real, beyond the
senses and abstract. The picture that started with presenting the image of a flower
assumes an abstract form by trying to capture its hidden properties. He talked about
creating a total form of an object – the form that evolves through the synthesis of the
visible elements of an object and the invisible feelings about it. Along with this, he
tried to include the development of an object and its surroundings into a totality. 67
According to him, ‘I have tried to learn the laws of nature. I am interested to know life
68
fully and give form to it.’ [Trans.]
Some sort of similarity can be found between the process through which his paintings
were created and Cezanne’s theory of object-realization. Especially, the angular and
diagonal lines that Abdur Razzaque created using his brush to form the pictorial
surface of his oil paintings, which have similarities with the pictorial surface of
Cezanne. He created his picture surface by putting layers of color one on top of the fig. 9.39 Garden-1, oil,
other. There is a mixture of form and color. The layers have created the feelings of 1992
such unknown deep planes, which can be reached by
traveling from near to far away space. Eyes travel
between dark to light colors and vice versa. His use of
colors is based on nature and in many cases, there is
prominence of blue and green. Along with this, there is
a special role of red. These characteristics can be found
in almost all his oil paintings (fig. 9.39).
Abdur Razzaque came back home from America in
1957. He started to teach in the Government Institute of
Arts (name of that time) in 1958. Until 1963, he worked
mainly in oils. During this period, he also did some
prints. In 1963, a major change came in his artistic life.
The Government Institute of Art became East Pakistan
College of Arts and Crafts because of student
movements and the BFA bachelors program started. At
that time, some other departments were introduced to
give the Fine Arts College a complete form. The
Sculpture department was established and Abdur
Razzaque was given the responsibility of building up
this department. The institutional education of sculpture