Page 50 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

PAINTING 47

reality, they eventually represent an abstract composition derived from
the collection of various shapes, colors and dimensions (fig. 1.27).
Qayyum Chowdhury is prominent among the people whose
consciousness of tradition has revolved around and was shaped by folk
art. However, he has differences with his contemporary Rashid
Choudhury in this context. Rashid Choudhury has searched for
tradition in the objects of rural life, in sculpture, in stories and
memories of childhood; and he portrays it in symbolic representation.
On the other hand, the subject matter of folk art is not important to
Qayyum Chowdhury, he extracts the motifs and designs from the
subject and uses them in his own context. Wherever decoration of folk
art are vividly present– hand fans, nakshi kantha, alpana, dolls made of
clay and wood, handicrafts made from bamboo and cane, the prow of
boats or the moulds for pithas (sweetmeats), the borders of saris–all
these becomes a source of his inspiration. He integrates the geometry of
folk designs on the two-dimensional picture plane and he uses this
traditional form and design in the context of an abstract composition.
The natural world is the fundamental image of his subject matter. He
collects elements from the nature of Bengal as well. He arranges trees, leaves, the sun,
birds, boats, footbridges made of bamboo and other ever lasting elements of the nature
of Bengal in a geometric arrangement of his own and creates his own geometric
patterns weaving together the motifs and designs of folk art. His earlier palette is
subdued and soft which brings visual calmness and lyricism(fig. 1.28). The close
association of the boat and fishnet is his favorite subject and the eye drawn on the prow
of boats is his favorite symbol. The mass movement of sixty-nine and the Liberation
War of seventy-one stirred him deeply and due to this, a significant change took place
in his subject matter. Contemporaneity was added to the unchanging traditionalism of
subject matter; processions, revolution, burning village, death etc. appeared. This stage
shows a new dimension in his application of colors, here colors have been used as
independent elements to a large extent, the designs woven around the pictorial surface
is reduced. The gradual development of this tendency can be observed in the paintings
Shaishab Smriti (Memories of
Childhood), My Village. In
Qayyum Chowdhury’s latest
paintings, the colors have become fig. 1.27 (top) Abdur
extremely bright and vivid, Razzaque, Garden-1,
traditional motifs and designs have oil, 1992
been reduced to mere suggestions;
the composition has become more fig. 1.28 (bottom)
spontaneous and effortless. Qayyum Chowdhury,
Riverscape, oil, 1986